research-an-audience

name	research-an-audience
description	Research a marketing audience from approved qualitative and quantitative sources, then produce source-linked segments, needs, language, behaviors, channels, tensions, evidence gaps, and confidence. Use before positioning, campaign, content, SEO, or channel decisions; not for building contact, prospect, or creator lists.

Research an Audience

Build an evidence-backed view of an audience that can improve a real marketing decision. Do the research and synthesis; do not stop at a research plan.

1. Define the decision and audience boundary

Understand what the team needs to decide, the product or offer, the market and geography, the time horizon, and which audience is in scope. Use an existing audience definition when one exists, but do not treat it as proven merely because it is familiar.

Agree on the useful output and evidence bar. If the request is broad, start with the audience or decision most likely to change near-term work.

This skill studies audiences. It does not build lists of named prospects, contacts, creators, or partners. Route those jobs to the appropriate Sales, Research, or partnership workflow.

2. Gather evidence that can answer the question

Use the approved sources most likely to reveal needs, language, behavior, and channel context. These may include interviews, surveys, customer feedback, support conversations, reviews, communities, search behavior, website and product analytics, campaign results, sales conversations, research, and relevant public material.

Use Strawberry's visible browser workspace when the evidence lives across real sites or logged-in tools. Preserve source links, dates, source type, and enough context to inspect each important finding. Aggregate or redact personal data when individual identity is not needed.

Keep source populations distinct. A vocal community, a customer interview set, product telemetry, and platform-reported audience data do not represent the same population. Do not turn a count into prevalence without a meaningful denominator.

3. Build and calibrate the first evidence set

When collection could become broad, first assemble a small, varied set across relevant source types, segments, and viewpoints. Show what is included, what is missing, and the proposed synthesis frame so the user can correct the boundary before the research expands.

Continue once the direction is useful. Capture counterexamples and tensions rather than selecting only evidence that supports the existing brief.

4. Synthesize the audience

Group evidence around differences that could change marketing work, such as:

• needs, jobs, desired outcomes, and triggering moments;
• barriers, anxieties, objections, and alternatives;
• language, concepts, proof, and examples people use;
• discovery, evaluation, decision, and usage behavior;
• channels, communities, formats, and information sources; and
• meaningful differences between segments or situations.

Create segments only when the evidence shows a useful difference in needs, behavior, message, or route to market. Do not infer sensitive traits or invent demographic precision.

For each important theme, include representative evidence, the sources behind it, tensions or exceptions, and a confidence judgment. Keep observation separate from interpretation and from the marketing implication.

5. Validate and deliver

Check coverage across the agreed audience and source types. Look for stale evidence, missing segments, over-represented channels, contradictory signals, weak identity matching, and claims that depend on one anecdote.

Deliver a concise audience evidence brief with:

• scope, sources, dates, and material limitations;
• evidence-backed segments or situations;
• needs, language, behavior, channels, barriers, and tensions;
• representative source-linked examples;
• implications for the decision in scope; and
• open questions and the next evidence worth collecting.

Stop before roadmap prioritization, campaign planning, contact-list building, or outreach. When the audience view is accepted, use strawberry/marketing/plan-a-marketing-campaign for a campaign decision or strawberry/marketing/build-a-content-plan for an editorial program.

6. Work within scope and make the method reusable

Follow Strawberry's active scoped permission for every source, account, and action. Draft or ask when permission is insufficient; stop when identity, scope, impact, or sensitive-data handling changes. Verify any completed external action.

After the team accepts the audience boundaries, source mix, evidence bar, and output, offer to save the method for reuse. A recurring monitor is appropriate only when the sources, meaningful-change rule, cadence, destination, and review behavior are clear.