Who Do You Think You’re Talking To?

🧭 Who Wants to Know

Every piece of communication begins with a simple question: Who’s this for?

Whether you’re drafting a newsletter, designing a flyer, or planning a social campaign, the answer to that question shapes everything from the words you choose to the tone you strike.

It’s tempting to imagine the widest possible audience. We all want to be inclusive! But “the public” is far too big and blurry a target. When content tries to speak to everyone, it usually connects with no one: too broad, too bland, too generic to feel relevant.

For any story to feel authentic and relatable, it has to speak clearly and directly to the people who can use the information most. That’s where audience avatars (also known as ideal readers) come in.

An avatar is a composite profile of your typical reader, client, or supporter. It’s not a real person, but it’s built from real patterns: demographics, goals, habits, frustrations, motivations. Think of it as a quick mental snapshot — a friendly reminder of who’s on the other side of your message.

🎯 Why Avatars?

Picturing a specific person on the receiving end of your message changes everything: your tone, your pacing, even the headline.

For community-centered content, an avatar helps you step into the role of a neighbor who just learned something worth sharing. You start writing less like an organization and more like someone who cares about the same issues as your readers.

Consider how differently you’d describe a zoning meeting depending on who you’re talking to: a longtime resident from the historical society, a young family down the block, or a developer planning a new project. Each group has its own priorities, language, and sensitivities.

Avatars help you navigate that landscape with real-time perspective from each side. They make it easier to connect across differences and avoid the misunderstandings that can derail a message.

With a clear avatar, you can anticipate reactions, focus on what matters most, and keep your content authentic and relatable. Once you’ve identified who you’re talking to, the next step is defining who that person really is — and that’s where AI can help.

🧩 From Focus Groups to Prompts

Not long ago, creating an audience avatar was a long process involving surveys, spreadsheets, and focus groups. Agencies would spend weeks distilling data into a portrait of an “ideal customer.” The results were valuable, but not exactly accessible to small teams with tight budgets.

Today, that process is faster, easier, and more approachable than ever. AI tools like ChatGPT are expert role-players with access to a global library of demographic and behavioral data. With a few thoughtful prompts, you can generate a detailed snapshot of your likely audience in minutes.

It’s kind of amazing how vivid and, frankly, exhaustive these profiles can be. The problem is, they’re only as good as the prompts you use to create them.  The more context you share, the more accurate and useful your avatar becomes. Think of it as collaboration: AI supplies pattern recognition and structure, while you bring the local insight that makes it real.

🔨 Let’s Build an Avatar ⚙️

For this demonstration, we’ll start with a simple prompt and then work the results towards addressing a specific challenge.

1. Start with context.
   Describe your organization, who you serve, and what kind of content you’re creating, eg: “I’m writing a community newsletter for a small borough in the Delaware Valley.”

1. Add specifics.
   Include location, goals, or challenges: “Our biggest challenge is that people don’t read official notices or attend meetings.”

1. Ask for insight.
   Request motivations, frustrations, and communication preferences: “Create a reader profile that describes what this person values, what frustrates them about local communication, and how they prefer to receive information.”

Meet Patrice — The Practical Neighbor

Age: 42
Occupation: Elementary school teacher
Family: Married with two kids in middle school
Location: Lives in a small borough just outside Philadelphia; owns her home
Digital habits: Checks Facebook daily; follows local groups and regional pages like 6ABC, KYW, or WHYY

Values
Patrice cares deeply about her family, her students, and her community. She believes in civic responsibility — recycling, voting, supporting local businesses — but her time and bandwidth are limited. She values information that’s practical, brief, and trustworthy, especially when it connects local decisions to everyday life.

Frustrations
She often hears about borough updates too late, or not at all. Patrice wants to stay involved, but she doesn’t have the time or patience to decode government jargon or hunt for details.

Preferred communication
Quick, visual updates with plain-language headlines that explain why it matters. She trusts familiar sources — neighborhood Facebook pages, email newsletters, and school updates — and is most likely to take action when given a direct link or QR code. A conversational, down-to-earth tone earns her trust.

Takeaway
Patrice represents the heart of many Delaware Valley communities: smart, caring residents who want to stay engaged but need local information to meet them where they are — between work, family, and daily logistics.

🙌 Refining the Results

Good start, but there’s a lot we still don’t know about Patrice. Her likely political leanings, for instance. Her religious affiliation, her family history, her educational experience, her cultural views. Not all of this matters, but ChatGPT will lead you down countless rabbit holes, if you let it.

Stay focused on details that make the avatar useful in practice, and use follow-up prompts to help direct your efforts. Take Patrice – if we had her here, what would we ask her? What can she tell us that might help us build a relationship with her?

So a follow-up prompt might go: “How well does Patrice typically keep up on news, events, and information in the borough, and through which channels? What about her life experience can help address potential blind spots in our outreach?”

ChatGPT response (excerpt):

Information habits: Patrice keeps up with community news when it’s convenient — not as a hobby, but as part of her daily scroll. She checks Facebook during short breaks or while waiting in the car, skimming posts from local groups, school pages, and neighborhood associations. Big stories reach her through regional feeds like WHYY, 6ABC, or Patch, but she rarely visits official borough sites unless something directly affects her family.

She’s moderately informed but easily turned off by clutter: long agendas, unformatted web pages, or notices that sound like legal code. She’s happy to share information with others — parents, coworkers, or neighbors — if she feels it’s worthwhile and will be well-received. Gentle humor goes a long way; conflict does not.

Life experience & blind-spot insight: Patrice’s background gives her a bridge perspective between traditional and digital communication. She grew up with print newspapers and bulletin boards but adapted easily to smartphones and social media — making her a translator of sorts for both worlds. She understands the patience it takes to read a notice in print but also expects online updates to be instant and intuitive.

Her experience reveals two common blind spots in local outreach:

1. Relevance before reach. Timing and format only matter if residents understand why something affects them.
2. Trust before technology. New apps or portals mean little without a personal connection. Seeing a familiar voice, name, or photo builds confidence that the message comes from real people, not bureaucracy.

Communication opportunity: For communicators, Patrice is a reminder that engagement starts with empathy. If you can show her how a borough decision connects to her daily life — ideally in 30 seconds or less — she’ll not only read it, she’ll share it.

🧠 What We Learn

This extra layer gives ChatGPT more to work with — turning “Patrice” from a static character into a dynamic communication guide.

You can share demographics, links, or short excerpts from your own materials — anything that reflects your actual audience. Examples include:

• Mailing lists or email subscriber data (age range, ZIP codes, open rates)
• Website or social analytics (most-viewed pages, referral sources, time-on-site)
• Survey results or event sign-ins
• Past campaign examples or audience feedback

💡TIP: Not sure what would help? Ask ChatGPT what context it needs to refine your avatar.

The beauty of this process is its flexibility. You can repeat it for different audiences — residents, local businesses, or community partners. You can create avatars to represent different demographics and life experiences. Each iteration sharpens your understanding of how real people interact with your messages.

You don’t need to guess anymore. Now you can create with intention, curiosity, and a clearer picture of who’s listening.

🚀 Worth Remembering

AI-generated avatars are a powerful way to understand and reach your audience — but they still need human awareness to guide the process and bring them to life in messaging that feels personal in voice, tone, and visuals.

It’s easier to explain programs, promote events, or share updates when you can picture the person you’re talking to. And when readers feel seen, they engage more — and trust grows naturally.

Audiences aren’t made of data points, after all. They’re real people with layered lives and motivations. Speak to that, and you build participation and a sense of belonging that benefits everyone.

🪶 Try It Yourself

Curious who’s actually reading your posts or opening your emails? Let’s find out together.

Book a 15-minute Avatar Coaching session, and we’ll walk you through creating an ideal reader profile using our Pro ChatGPT workflow plus 10+ years of editorial experience. You’ll leave with a quick snapshot of who you’re talking to — and what they need to hear next — plus a simple way to repeat the process on your own. Pay what works (suggested rate $15).

✨ Keep Exploring: If this kind of AI-assisted workflow intrigues you, we’ve got more where that came from — our series kicks off with Boost Your Workflow with ChatGPT Memory, where we show how to save time, stay organized, and keep your ideas at your fingertips.