Unpacking the Difference Between Target Population, Target Audience, and Stakeholders.

When I’m talking to people, and when I’m teaching, I have found that, fairly consistently, these terms are a little hard to untangle and get used interchangeably or worse yet, ignored completely. Even google searches can leave us in the dark when searches are done and people are working to figure out the different players who will engage (read, write, listen, act) upon an idea (whether they read, see, or hear information).

 As soon as you see the term 'target', you know that we are not using a sifting method, meaning everything goes into a pot and we use a sifter and see what falls out and what’s left (think about panning for gold- you may not end up with gold after you’ve sifted). You need to have an audience in mind when you are creating a product, and this includes papers, presentations, proposals, policies, and other ways we communicate information to people.

What we need to do is to be selective and make decisions at the outset before we start to draft or outline our product.

The target audience if it is a written piece, will be those people who you hope will read what you wrote. And with this in mind, you need to consider what their role will be. They likely will fall under some stakeholder group, but they also may not. For example, I have been asked to read written pieces as a scientific expert and give feedback and then that feedback gets distilled to the people who are deciding if they should or should not go through with a project. I have also been asked to read works as a patient to see if it resonates and I’ve been asked to read works as someone involved in non-profit advocacy. Your target might be  someone who will have a direct role in actualizing the project or advice you are giving.

So when you are writing about your target audience, make sure to be clear about who you expect to be reading (and possibly acting) upon any recommendations you propose. Remember, a recommendation can be anything from go to sleep at a consistent time to fund this multi-million dollar project. The scope of what constitutes an action again often relates to the goals of the piece you are writing or presenting.

Your target population is likely not your target audience. While they might come across what you wrote, the target population are those who are the people who will be participating in, or benefitting directly from the intervention (program, policy, or other).

The stakeholders of course also may or may not include your target population and may or may not be included in your target audience.

You also may have a target population for seeing the positive impacts of your intervention (children at risk of type 2 diabetes) and your target population and stakeholders for the intervention may be different (i.e. schools that are providing 2 meals a day for kids in high-risk geographies).

Remember your stakeholders are those who have a stake in the intervention: the funders, the managers, the directors, the government, the teachers, the parents, the social workers, the nurses etc.

I realize that the topic is probably still clear as mud, but hopefully this can give you a starting spot to visualize who you are creating information for. And when in doubt—sometimes a quick AI “what’s the target audience for this piece” can let you know if you’re truly on track.

Chat GPT tells me that the: “The target audience for this blog appears to be students, educators, and professionals—particularly those involved in research, public health, social services, nonprofit work, or policy development—who are learning to clearly define and differentiate between key terms like "target audience," "target population," and "stakeholders" in the context of writing, presenting, or planning interventions.”

And this seems about right to me.

Happy planning everyone! May all of your recommendations become practice.

*picture from www.freepix.com.