COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

Effectively Communicating to The Right Audience

With Different Conventions For Each Genre in Writing
Robert Ununger
Antioch University of Santa Barbara

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

Two summers ago I was working as a salesperson for a telebroadcast company in

Sweden, having my older brother as team leader. I had never worked in sales before, while my
brother was an expert. Since I am good in talking and have a very creative mind, I often had
good pitches to get people hooked and interested in what we had to offer, so they often joined me
in our event tent, however, when I got them in, I had no idea of how I would continue the sale. I
had the hook, but that was it. My older brother was, in the beginning, giving me a hand, helping
me to persuade the potential customer, and make a closure - successful sale. He thought me how
to see traits and recognize what each customer wanted, and which buttons to push. I had to find
out each person's need, to be able to persuade them and make them interested in what I had to
offer. In other words, I had to know my audience.
In the same way as a salesperson needs to adapt their approach depending on the
customer approached, we as writers have to adapt our writing depending on which audience we
are trying to reach out to, what feelings we are trying to evoke, and what message that we want
to send them. Effective writing involves much more than just putting good sentences together
and publishing it to anyone. No matter what field we work in, it is essential to adapt our writing
to specific situations, by using different rhetorical approaches for different audiences. For this
essay, I interviewed the Director of Community Impact for Foodbank of Santa Barbara County Bonnie Campbell - to see how she is using her writing in different situations, what she was doing
well, and what she could improve. By using simple and clear language with informal writing in
flyers, using storytelling language in her interaction with others, and using a formal writing style
with clear structure in her board reports, Bonnie Campbell is communicating through her writing
in a successful way and using different strategies and rhetorical tactics to appeal to different
audiences.

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

Foodbank of Santa Barbara is a non-profit organization, with their mission not only to
feed people within the county, but more importantly, to teach them how to feed themselves how to fish. They are constantly working together with many partners and supporters county
wide to reach out to every single family and individual in need, and both provide them with food,
but even more importantly, to educate them to take care of their own health. In her role at the
Foodbank, Campbell meet sponsors and supporters, as well as donors to inform and persuade
them, but also to work on reaching out to people through Foodbanks different programs, like her
latest one - The Diabetes Impact Group - which focuses on helping people with health problems
involving diabetes. In her work, Campbell uses different types writing which is a necessity to
make each of her writing persuasive and appealing for each target audience. In the book,
Understanding Rhetoric, Losh and Alexander explains why different rhetorical approaches are
useful in different situations to create an effective argument. By analyze whom the target
audience is, what the message is,which reactions to evoke, and adapt their writing based on these
conventions - the writer can use an rhetorical approach to persuade the reader (Losh &
Alexander, 2013). This is exactly what Campbell are trying to do in her different writings.
In the flyer, Campbell uses informal and simple language, colorful visuals, and appealing
pictures to persuade the flyers targeted audience. The flyer is meant to reach out to the people in
need of their Diabetes Health Program. The purpose is not only to inform people, but also induce
them into joining the program - which is completely free - and learn about how they can take
charge of their own health. Their target group consists of hispanic, and bilingual, poor families
living in Santa Barbara County, and therefore the flyer is both written in English as well as
Spanish. In the interview, Campbell states that about 48% to up to 98% of the people in that
specific region could be hispanic, and refers to the regions where they reach their clients.

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

Campbell continues with explaining the reasons for using basic, simple english and the necessity
of it. [...] anyone with English understanding like a 5th grade or below, will understand the
content (Personal Communication, Feb 10, 2015).
Besides simple and basic english, Campbell has used a lot of pathos - emotional appeal to create feelings and attention when noticing the flyer. Colorful and enlightening color
combinations are creating a positive sentiment of the flyer. It feels like the colors used creates
attention to it, drawing interest. By using yellow in combination with green, it creates a feeling
of happiness, or sunshine, as well as harmony, freshness and safety. This is an great example of
emotional appeal that can create a bond between writers and readers (Lunsford et al., 2012, p.
26). The flyer also got a very clear font, and capitalized letters, combined with both bold and
italic parts in the text - which is highlighting specific words or phrases that needs attention. For
example, the word FREE is both bolded and capitalized, to create awareness of that it will not
cost anything to participate in the program. This is very effective since the target group consists
of poor families, that are not afford to pay anything, and therefore not interested in offers that
involves an expense. By bring attention to the word free, they will more likely be willing to
explore the flyer further.
In the flyer, there is also picture of an hispanic family. This may be an effective way to
actually show that their audience actually are hispanic and poor families. If the picture instead
had shown a wealthy, white family, it would probably not have been as appealing for their target
audience, since the audience would not be able to relate to the picture in the same way. The
picture also creates ethos - credibility. As Lunsford et al. (2012) argued, ethos creates
trustworthiness by showing that you know what you are talking about exerts and ethical appeal,
as does emphasizing that you share values with and respect your audience (p. 26-27). In this

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

case, it shows that the author are respecting the hispanic family, by showing a very happy and
positive picture of them, and furthermore, it creates a hope that the reader could get a happy
family as well, by joining to the program. In other words, the pictures urges action (Lunsford
et al., 2012, p. 10). The flyer are also have a picture of a box full of food, which shows that
monthly Food Boxes with diabetes friendly food actually are provided for free. The picture could
give an understanding of what could actually are given, but also, more importantly, it show
credibility of that the food boxes actually exists, by attaching a picture of them. A picture says
more than a thousand words, and therefore it is extremely effective to use visuals in this type of
writing.
Another thing that Campbell brought up in the interview was about the placement of the
flyer. It is placed in a community clinic setting[...] people go there for their primary health
care. This is a perfect example of kairos - using the right place and right time - which
Lunsford et al. (2012) argued to be extremely important, and Foodbank of Santa Barbara have
clearly thought of it (p. 27). By placing their flyer in a community clinic setting, it reaches out to
right audience, which is persons that care about their primary health care. The flyer is placed at
the front desk, which makes it available for all people checking in. The effectiveness of many
arguments depends on whether or not they are timely (p. 27). As the environment is creating a
safe atmosphere - with knowledgeable staff - the clients hopefully feel safe to ask questions
regarding the program. Imagine if the flyer instead was placed in a public pharmacy. The lack of
feeling safe, as well as the lack of feeling free to ask an employee about the flyer would probably
increase significantly and therefore the flyer seems to be placed in a good location, at the right
moment.

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

In her latest board report - The Impact Department Board Report - Campbell includes
more formal language with a clear structure, to effectively bring up essential information about
updates to please that target audience. Although Campbell does not prefer this rhetorical
approach, she highlighted the importance of being able to manage it, in her role as Director of
Community Impact. The board expects to get updates on how things are going in different
impact groups, and it is Campbells job to provide them with that information. That is exactly
what it is, information. The report consists of almost only information, about how the processes
are going for the different impact groups out in the field, and their current status. The document
is very clean, with a professional font, that creates a formal impression. The formatting is very
basic, and except the bolding of two different topics, the only thing that divides the sentences is a
double space between each paragraph. The focus on a logical appeal - logos - seems obvious
(Lunsford et al., p. 27). The point with the report is to inform The Board, with clarity, about the
latest updates within the Impact Groups. It is not meant to entertain, or create any feelings, which
explains the lack of pathos in it. Although Campbell may not be most comfortable with this type
of writing, she still shows that she can follow the conventions of this genre.
Campbell also communicates with existing, but also new partners and supporters, by
face-to-face interactions in her job, and her passion for using storytelling, and anecdotes in her
communication was mentioned several times during the interview. Campbell uses her storytelling
approach, and tell anecdotes, to create awareness of the social justice issue that exists within the
community, and tries to use her passion to persuade people into getting involved within the
organization - contributing for the society. The storytelling makes her an extremely effective
rhetorician, with her way of persuading others with her real life examples of different situations.
By providing examples that she has been experience herself, Campbell creates a credibility and

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

trust, as well as an emotional bond. A good story is always interesting, and will probably catch a
lot of attention, and perhaps make people call to action. For example, by telling about a real
time experience from her life - when Campbell has faced a situation where someone have
suffered from extreme hunger, or maybe died from hunger - she could create strong feelings of
empathy - pathos - that could make people more willing to be a part of their organization,
contributing to their community. According to Lunsford et al. (2012), Campbell uses her
rhetorical moves by pushes the arguments in her stories into action (p. 27). Campbell claimed
that Although Santa Barbara often are associated with tourism, celebrities and hollywood - all
the good things - It is actually a enormous agriculture community county wide, where poverty is
a serious problem. By telling stories about different situations, like Campbell does, her target
audience will, most likely, get a deeper understanding of the importance of their contribution,
which could increase the chance of them becoming a partner or supporter of the organization.
For each of her ways of communicating, no matter if it is in the flyer, the board report, or
storytelling, Campbell is adapting to the right conventions for each genre. Kerry Dirk explains
about how each genre has a different purpose, Because you know how these genres function as
social actions, you can quite accurately predict how they function rhetorically; your joke should
generate a laugh, your email should elicit a response, and your updated Facebook status should
generate comments from your online friends (Dirk, 2010). In the same way, each of Campbells
writings or way of communicating are supposed to foster different reactions. For example, her
flyer is supposed to call to action - get people joining the program - while the board report is
meant to inform, rather than persuade. In the same way her storytelling is used to persuade,
exactly like the flyer, but for different reasons. Therefore, it is crucial to use the right conventions

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

for the right genre to cause the wanted effect. This is why it seems like Campbell has effectively
succeeded in all of her writing artifacts.
There is no doubt that Campbell are using her different writing skills effectively to reach
out to each target audience, and make appealing writing artifacts. She manage to use pathos,
ethos, logos, and kairos, as well as the right style and tone in her writing to provide an effective
rhetorical argument, with empirical evidence. Her communications skills are necessary for the
audience to understand, believe, and agree with what the intended message. It is crucial to adapt
the writing to the target audience, using different strategies and rhetorical tactics. An effective
communicator will adapt after each situation, no matter if it is a Director of Community Impact,
or a seller for a telebroadcast company. Knowing your audience is vital. Bonnie Campbell sure
know her audiences, and that makes her an effective communicator and writer.

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

References
Dirk, K. (2010). Navigating Genres. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Parlor Press.
Losh, E. & Alexander, A. (2013). Understanding Rhetoric. Boston, MA: Bedford/St.
Martin's.
Lunsford, A., Ruszkiewicz, J., & Walters, K. (2012). Everythings an Argument. Boston, MA:
Bedford/St. Martin.

Artifacts
Campbell, Bonnie. (2015). Diabetes Impact Group Flyer. Foodbank of Santa Barbara County
Campbell, Bonnie. (Jan 28, 2015). Impact Department Board Report. Foodbank of Santa Barbara
County