When a video ad underperforms, most business owners look at the creative first. Was the hook strong enough? Was the edit too slow? Did the music work? These are fair questions, but they are often not where the real problem is.

The more common issue is that the ad was written for the wrong person. Not because the business does not know its customers, but because the definition of the audience is too broad, too assumed, or shaped by who the business wants rather than who actually buys.

The difference between a demographic and an audience

A demographic is a category. Women aged 35 to 55 in Auckland is a demographic. Your actual audience is the specific people within that category who have a problem your product solves and are at a stage where they are open to solving it.

A video ad written for a demographic will feel generic to most of the people who see it. A video ad written for a specific person in a specific situation will feel relevant and personal, even to a large number of people, because many of them are in that same situation.

The targeting trap

Most advertising platforms make it easy to set broad demographic parameters and call it targeting. Age range, gender, location, a few interest categories. But this is not really targeting. This is filtering. Real targeting begins when you ask what this person is thinking, feeling, and looking for right now.

A 45-year-old tradesperson in Christchurch who is busy and not getting enough consistent leads is a very different person from a 45-year-old tradesperson who is fully booked and looking to raise prices. The same demographic, completely different situation, completely different message required.

How to sharpen your audience definition

Start with your best existing customers. Not all of your customers, but the ones who got the most out of what you offer, came back, referred others, or were easiest to work with. What do they have in common? Not just demographic similarities, but situational ones.

What problem were they trying to solve when they found you? What had they already tried before coming to you? What was the thing that made them decide to act when they did? The answers to those questions tell you more about your real audience than any platform targeting tool.

Writing the ad for the right person

Once you have a clear picture of the specific person you are talking to, write the script as if it is addressed directly to them. Use the language they use, name the situation they are in, acknowledge the thing that has stopped them from solving this problem before. The more specifically the ad speaks to that one person, the more it will resonate with the many people who share that situation.

A useful test: after writing your script, ask whether someone who is not your target customer would still find the ad relevant. If the answer is yes, it is probably too generic. A well-targeted ad will feel slightly irrelevant to people it is not for, and highly relevant to the people it is.

Testing to find out who actually responds

The best way to refine your audience understanding is to run ads and pay close attention to who responds. Look beyond clicks and check which types of people are actually converting. Sometimes the customer who turns out to be the best fit is not the one the business imagined when it started advertising.

Treat the first few campaigns as research. The data you collect about who responds to your ads is often more valuable than the leads themselves, because it tells you how to make every future campaign more effective.

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At Studio30 we ask about your target customer as part of every brief, because writing the right script for the right person is what makes a video ad actually work. Get in touch or order your video ad here.