How to Speak to Your Target Audience Clearly — Even on Broad Topics

It Ends With Us Poster

You have to be stranded on a desert island, with no phone signal and just a rom-com book, to miss out on the drama surrounding the release of the movie It Ends With Us.

Whether you're Team Justin or Team Blake, one thing you can't escape is the discussion around the two types of marketing for this movie.

While the goal is to get bums on seats and make money, critics have expressed their fear that the film's early promotional interviews are too light-hearted, fun, and floral - overlooking the serious message of domestic violence and toxic relationship behaviour.

On one side, you have Blake telling us to "Grab our florals," and on the other, you have Justin saying Why he wanted to make the movie to highlight Domestic violence.

And this he-said, she-said marketing is where the confusion happens - and the key message gets lost.

A common problem facing us as B2B writers is when our content has Too Broad of a Point. especially when we're tasked to write about complex, socially charged messages.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when companies try to pack everything and the kitchen sink into their communication because they think communication is about saying more. 

But doing so confuses our message and target audience.

Here's what happens when your broad topic content tries to do too much at once:

Take Aktion Baum’s ad, for example. Its core message gets lost in a mix of elements: movie-poster-style copy, toy-like animal illustrations, and inconsistent font choices.

1. Your Message Gets Diluted

   When you cram multiple ideas into one piece, the impact of your main message weakens. Your audience walks away unclear on what you actually want them to remember.

   
   

   A clearer line — like "The forest is their home. We’re just guests." — would have delivered the core message more powerfully.

Focusing on one strong idea lets you go deeper, offer more insight, and leave a lasting impression.

2. You Lose Clarity

Too much content = a cluttered message. When readers can’t easily tell what matters, they disengage — or forget everything.

Keep your focus tight, and you’ll deliver a message that’s easy to follow, understand, and remember.

3. You Overwhelm Your Audience

Bombarding readers with too many competing messages causes cognitive overload. They won’t just tune out — they’ll leave.

But when your central theme is clear from the start, your audience is far more likely to engage and retain what you’re saying.

I can't count how many times I've had to say it:

"Corporate Communication is about making sure something sticks."

Now that you know why, here's what you can do to avoid the trap of overloading your content and ensure your key message is remembered:

1.  Define your Purpose:

   
   

   Before creating your content, identify the primary goal of your piece and the specific idea you want to communicate. Get your team to ask this simple question: "What’s the one thing I want my reader to remember?"

   
   

   Not 7 things. 

   
   

   Not 3.

   
   

   Just 1.

   
   

   Now make that one idea your communication's anchor.

   
   

   Where everything else supports it, or gets cut.

Stabilo’s “Highlight the Remarkable” campaign could’ve easily branched into broader themes like inequality, pay gaps, or discrimination — all important issues. But instead, they chose a single, powerful focus: how women in history have been overshadowed by men, with their achievements overlooked.

Everything in the campaign — the imagery, the copy, and the concept — keeps that central idea crystal clear. The product doesn’t distract from the message. It reinforces it.

Stabilo Highlights the Remarkable

• Prioritize ideas: If you have multiple ideas, rank them in order of importance and relevance to your main goal. You can always save any lower-ranking ideas for future content pieces.

• Write down the points that you want to highlight.

• Identify one of them as the key issue for your piece

2. Be Consistent: Structure Around One Clear Message

When you’re covering a broad topic, consistency is what keeps your message focused and memorable.

Start by creating a structured outline that clearly supports your central idea. Use well-placed subheadings and tightly connected subtopics to guide the reader — like signposts pointing back to your main point.

General Electric

Take General Electric’s blog as an example. Sustainability is a massive topic that could spin off in countless directions. But instead of trying to cover everything, GE narrows in on a specific angle: “Renewables and the Orchestration Mindset.”

Every section of the article — from innovation examples to energy grid insights — ties back to this theme and reinforces the message.

3. Edit with the purpose in mind:

If you're like me, your first draft is a messy brain dump of ideas. Knowing what to leave out can be hard. A good way is instead of asking "Would I read this?" - ask "Why should my audience read this?"

Then, refine your content and eliminate any tangents or extraneous information that doesn't directly support your main idea.

• Niche your focus - Understand where your audience stands on this topic. What will pique their curiosity? What confirms their knowledge? What gaps are in their knowledge?

Dove's company blog covers different aspects of Real Beauty but ensures each page is dedicated solely to one talking point.

Dove

Dove

Dove

Overloading your content with too many ideas will lead to confusion, overwhelm your audience, and diminish the impact of your message. While you may have a broad topic focusing on the 1 thing you want your audience to remember, makes it easier to recall and remember.

If your messaging is getting stuck, I can help you build one that creates movement.

🎯 Hi, I'm Vivien,

I work with Heads of Communications, CMOs, and B2B internal and external comms teams who desperately need messaging that:

• Sticks

• Travels accurately

• Gets repeated and remembered

• Ticks internal alignment

• Creates momentum in buying committees

• And moves decisions forward

  
  

See how I can help you