Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook (2012)

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Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 19 3. Audience Identification Identifying and segmenting your audience is the first building block for creating and delivering successful preservation messages. Audience identification and segmentation is shorthand for pinpointing distinct audience groupings that are important to the success of your message and that have distinct differences in the factors that motivate them to action, the words that resonate with them, their trusted sources of information, and the methods of communication that are most effective for reaching them. Audience identification and segmentation not only helps you design and send tailored messages that will resonate with the interests, values, and emotions of your stakeholders, but also ensures your agency spends its time and dollars efficiently. In the Phoenix campaign described in Chapter 1, the audience identification process helps the DOT put together its Phoenix task force, around which the DOT’s subsequent communications efforts are focused. Audience identification matters because success for public agencies means satisfying key stakeholders according to their definition of what is valuable. If those stakeholders are not satisfied, something will change, whether budgets, priorities, or staffing. This chapter of the Playbook gives step-by-step guidance for identifying and segmenting audiences. Watch for tie-ins to other building blocks that are noted by the blue icons. Opportunities for customization of your own audience identification process are highlighted throughout the section with a blue A or B choice icon.

20 Chapter 3. Audience Identification Checklist of Critical Activities  Set up audiences brainstorming session  List potential audience elements  Divide audiences into segments  Assess audience segments  Use stakeholder interview-based market research  Prepare refined final list of audience segments  Prepare interest/influencer matrix (optional) Step 1: Set the Stage for an Audiences Brainstorming Session The purpose of an audiences brainstorming session is to develop an initial list of potential audience categories and segment the audience according to characteristics that might have an impact on communication about preservation and maintenance issues. Brainstorming will help you systematically consider the range of motivations, messages, and trusted sources of information for different parts of your audience. The time you invest in this brainstorming session will give you a richer, more nuanced understanding of your audiences that will pay dividends in the long run. As audience identification champion, you should recruit representatives from across your agency to participate as a team in the brainstorming session. Be sure to invite experts from policy and planning, maintenance and preservation, communications, and government relations at your DOT. Bring in experts from districts and headquarters, as appropriate. When you invite staff to the brainstorming session, ask them to bring whatever lists of stakeholders they may have. Preservation and maintenance staff, for example, will likely have connections within the material supplier and construction contractor industry, while public affairs professionals will likely have relationships with legislators, community leaders, and the media. If possible, ask an experienced facilitator to lead the session because managing and participating in the discussion at the same time is hard. Meet with the facilitator first to review the goals of the brainstorming session and to develop an agenda that can be shared in advance.

Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 21 Step 2: List Potential Audience Elements Start your brainstorming by listing all the audiences your team can think of. There’s no need to evaluate suggested audiences — that will come later. Be broad in your thinking because a DOT’s potential audience for its messages about the value of maintenance and preservation has many members and constituencies. A wide swath of the audience is formed by millions of direct customers who use a DOT’s highways daily: these customers might be local residents making short recreational trips, commuters, or travelers crossing a region or state, but they also include businesses whose truck drivers complete local deliveries, provide services, or make long-haul freight trips. The DOT’s audience, however, also includes an array of governmental, political, business, and community leaders who speak for many different constituencies that rely on a good transportation network. Figure 1 shows the potential breadth of a typical DOT’s audience list for its maintenance and preservation messages. While your DOT may have more or fewer audiences, this list provides a good starting point. Elected Officials • Statewide elected officials • Federal legislators • State legislators • City officials • County officials Local Officials (Non-elected) • Public works directors • County engineers • Economic development authorities • Metropolitan planning organizations • Law enforcement/emergency services Freight-Dependent Industries • Agriculture/food processing • Logistics • Mining • Forestry • Manufacturing Business Groups • Local chambers of commerce • Regional business associations • State chamber of commerce Industry Partners • Contractors • Engineering consultants • Material suppliers Transportation Advocacy Coalitions • Corridor coalitions • Transportation coalitions • Road user groups (e.g., AAA) General Public • Residents • Commuters Figure 1. Potential Audiences for Preservation Communication Building Block Tie-In: Market Research Gather Any Past Market Research on Audience Segments — Be sure to ask your invitees to bring any market research to the brainstorming meeting, e.g., customer satisfaction surveys or focus groups information. Even if it isn’t directly related to maintenance and preservation, it might provide insights into other issues that could affect stakeholders’ perspectives about preservation issues. For example, stakeholders in one region of the state might have had negative experiences with snow and ice removal that could negatively affect the credibility of the DOT on a host of other issues and services.

22 Chapter 3. Audience Identification Step 3: Divide Audiences into Segments Once you have brainstormed a basic list of audiences, it’s time to discuss how the audience groups on your list can be either (1) segmented in terms of the interests, values, and emotions that drive their support of maintenance and preservation or (2) grouped together in terms of common interests, values, and emotions. Segmenting audiences is like dividing fruit into apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes. Some groups you initially thought of as a single block may actually have separate interests. For example, a block like state residents may include residents in a region with higher truck traffic and lower pavement performance who think differently from residents in other parts of the state. Some audience blocks, however, may have a common thread; for example, rural constituencies — whether elected officials or agricultural producers — may all want bridges to be maintained at a level to carry heavy loads of crops at harvest time. Potential audience segmentation methods for the group to consider include the following: • Geographic Segmentation — Segment audiences based on geographic interests and locations, such as urban, suburban, ex- urban, and rural regions. • Elected Official Segmentation — No group has more influence than elected officials, but they often have differing perspectives. This group might be segmented by party affiliation, political views, or office, such as local, state, or federal office. • Industry Sector Segmentation — Business interests are often underrepresented in DOT outreach efforts. These groups can be segmented by their industrial sector, such as construction, manufacturing, logistics, services, agriculture, or other transportation-dependent sectors. • Advocacy Group Segmentation — Many advocacy groups have an interest in transportation issues, but those interests are often diverse and conflicting. These groups can be segmented by their advocacy focus, such as environmental, labor, economic development, freight, or modal issues. • Demographic Segmentation — Some demographic groups are more inclined to show interest in transportation issues. They might be segmented by income, age, sex, education level, employment, or other criteria.

Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 23 • General Public Segmentation — DOTs have a tendency to view this segment as a catchall category, which may not be appropriate. Options for segmenting the general public include geographic and demographic criteria or primary use of the highway system, such as commuters, recreational travelers, or through travelers. • Local Leader Segmentation — Local leaders can be a powerful influence when communicating an initiative. This group might be segmented by (1) local elected officials, executives, staff, business, and thought leaders and (2) the extent to which the local transportation system is owned and operated at the local level or at the state level. • Internal DOT Segmentation — This is an incredibly important stakeholder group that is often overlooked. If preservation doesn’t rank as important among the myriad issues that DOTs communicate about — such as safety, congestion, or accountability — then getting the resources you need to communicate effectively about the need for preservation will be difficult. Stakeholders in this group may include the DOT’s chief executive officer, executive staff, public affairs group, and technical professionals. Step 4: Assess Audience Segments For each audience segment your team identifies, continue the brainstorming effort by characterizing the segment in terms of its unique attributes. Use the following questions to guide your team’s discussion: • What might be a segment’s motivation for action — and is anything unique about that motivation? • What words resonate with a segment — and is anything unique about those words? • Who or what might be a segment’s trusted sources of information — and is anything unique about those sources? • What might be the most effective methods of communication for reaching a segment — and is anything unique about those methods? • How might that segment perceive the preservation and maintenance issue — and is anything unique about that perception? To help you understand how audience assessment works, review the example audience segmentation results in Appendix C, which show how these questions might be answered for hypothetical segments of

24 Chapter 3. Audience Identification the elected officials audience group. Use this stage of the brainstorming session as a chance to consolidate your list. Make sure audience subsets are really different enough to warrant segmentation. If there aren’t characteristics unique to that segment, then consolidate segments within the audience. For example, the interests and motivations of state senators and state representatives might not really be different enough to create separate communication strategies; however, the differences in investment philosophies may differ dramatically within each of those groups. Step 5: Use Market Research to Validate Your Audience Segment List On its own, DOT staff knowledge about audiences is not complete enough to reliably segment and assess audiences. Audience segment interviews and other market research will reveal issues, concerns, and suggestions that are not known or understood by DOT staff and clarify assumptions made about audience characteristics. This step of the audience identification process is covered in detail within the market research building block, which provides options for market research you can use to validate your brainstorming. Remember, your market research effort should be scaled to the objective of your communication effort. If your goal is primarily to educate stakeholders, then conducting stakeholder interviews is sufficient. If your goal, however, is to create a compelling call to action then you will likely need to add a more extensive research effort, which could include conducting statistically valid surveys and focus groups whose design is informed by initial interviews. Step 6: Refine Segmentation Assessment After you’ve validated your audience segment list with market research and summarized the results, team members who developed the initial brainstorm list in Step 2 should gather to refine their initial assessment and to identify overlapping issues and themes. If possible, provide results of the interviews to team members in advance for review along with the original results of the initial audience identification and segmentation work. You’ll likely want to have a facilitator lead this session. It’s appropriate at this time to discuss whether additional market research is necessary or would be helpful. Building Block Tie-In: Market Research

Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 25 Step 7: Build Interest/Influence Matrix (Optional) Set the Stage for an Interest/Influence Matrix — When you create an interest/influence matrix, audience segments identified via the basic brainstorming/market research process (Steps 1 through 6) are “mapped” in a matrix that compares stakeholders’ interest levels relative to their influence. The concept of an interest/influence matrix is shown in Figure 2. This matrix can be an invaluable tool for helping prioritize communication efforts. You may want to consider expanding the team for this exercise. At least a few of your participants should have a broad understanding of the relationships between audience segments; this perspective may not have been present in earlier working sessions. Build Interest/Influence Matrix — Using the audience segments you’ve already identified, assessed, and based on stakeholder interview results if available, map stakeholder segments according to their interest level in preservation along the horizontal axis. Do this by assigning stakeholder groups a score according to the strength of their support for, or interest in, preservation. Scores can range from one to ten: for example, assign a score of one for a group that is opposed to preservation (or perhaps, more generally doesn’t support transportation funding or might want to decrease transportation funding to help address the state budget deficit); assign a score of five for an audience that is not interested in the topic of highway preservation; and assign a score of ten for a segment that is highly supportive. This process provides a visual impression of the “lay of the land,” illuminating clusters of groups that support, oppose, or are indifferent to preservation issues. This exercise demonstrates why it is important to conduct more than one stakeholder interview for every audience segment. Next, map stakeholder groups along the vertical axis according to the strength of their power and influence on issues that are important to preservation. A one to ten scale should be used here as well. Using the interest and influence scores described above, you can create a matrix that maps the two together. The audience interest/influence matrix helps you swiftly identify audience segments that are likely to support the need for highway preservation and can significantly affect the process. To guide strategic communication and support building efforts, audience segments are categorized by their interest and power in Customization Opportunity Interest/Influence Matrix — Development of an interest/influence matrix is optional. It provides a more comprehensive audience analysis than a list of audience segments and will help your DOT move toward stakeholder support and coalition building efforts.

26 Chapter 3. Audience Identification a grid according to four distinct groups: promoters, defenders, latents, and apathetics: • Promoters — Audience segments that attach a high priority to preservation and whose actions can have an impact on the implementation. • In terms of preservation , promoters external to the agency are most likely to be construction contractors and industry material suppliers. Clearly, they attach a high priority to preservation due to business interests and these groups regularly exert influence in the political arena. They can be very helpful partners in delivering messages to elected officials but, because of their business interests, may not be credible spokespeople to the general public. Because these groups are most effective in their conversations with elected officials, it’s most helpful to provide them with very clear and short messages about the need for preservation and its impact on the state’s economy. Assume that whatever you share with them will be shared with legislators and prepare that information accordingly. Another external group that is likely to be interested in preservation and able to exert influence is legislators who are often particularly concerned about transportation issues. Legislators typically respond best to short, concise messages — tailored specifically to provide information relevant to their constituents — best delivered face to face so you can answer questions or provide more context if the legislator has time available to meet with you. For audiences internal to the DOT, the leadership team is expected to fall in the promoter category for preservation. However, if their Figure 2. Hypothetical Audience Interest/Influence Matrix

Communicating the Value of Preservation: A Playbook 27 interests don’t match up with their influence, it will be important to try to convince them of the value of preservation and perhaps move them into the promoter category. Some example presentations geared toward an internal executive audience can be found in Appendix A. • Defenders — Audience segments that attach a high priority to preservation, but whose actions do not significantly affect implementation. • This group might be made up of local government staff. The trick here is to help this group see beyond “preaching to the choir” and try to leverage relationships they have with state legislators. Arm them with specific information for their community or region so that they then have information that they can share with legislators effectively. DOTs typically have the opportunity to meet with local government staff through association meetings like those sponsored by the American Public Works Association; providing coaching at that time can be very helpful although it’s important to follow up with area-specific information. • Latents — Audience segments whose actions can affect the implementation of preservation, but who attach a low priority to the issue. • Commuters are a great example of an audience that you might be able to shift from latent to promoter if you can educate them about the consequences of not adequately maintaining the highway system and then motivate them to contact their legislators. The trick here is to make messages super easy to understand and deliver those messages in a surround-sound sort of way. You could also include some legislators here — and along a continuum ; for example, those who have taken “no taxes” pledges or are trying to reduce state government expenditures could attach high priority to the issue and seek to minimize investment in preservation thereby negatively affecting implementation. If that’s the case, it’s important to mobilize your promoters to counteract their actions behind the scenes and become much more vocal in your efforts to publicize the need for preservation. • Apathetics — Stakeholders whose actions do not affect the implementation of preservation and who attach a low priority to the issue. Uneducated and unmotivated commuters are a great example of apathetics when it comes to preservation. Your challenge, as outlined in the above bullet, is to educate and motivate them to action. The audience/influence matrix can be a powerful tool to identify and focus on the key audiences that both care about preservation and have the ability to influence the opinion of others. However, you shouldn’t

28 Chapter 3. Audience Identification focus on just the promoters; you should also try to find ways to engage high-influence, but moderate- or low-interest audience segments who may be on the fence about highway preservation. Audience Identification Conclusions Audience identification is an underutilized component of most DOTs’ communication practices. You should start early to identify and segment audiences so you can find out more about what motivates them to action, what words resonate with them, who their trusted sources of information are, and which methods of communication are most effective for reaching them. Audience identification is the foundation for message development and delivery. The interest/influence matrix technique for mapping audience segments according to their level of interest in preservation and their ability to influence outcomes helps you focus on moving audience segments into the top right corner of the matrix and keeping them there — these are the medium- or high-interest/high-influence audience elements and they include: • Stakeholders who are already supportive but need buttressing with resources and information and • Stakeholders with enough common interests to become part of a support coalition. Think of this group as the basis from which to develop an ongoing coalition of support for maintenance and preservation. Identifying and segmenting audiences is a relatively straightforward process that enables a DOT to hone its messages and message delivery mechanisms. Some of the most common mistakes to avoid include the following: • Oversegmenting — Make sure audiences are really different enough to warrant segmentation. For example, are the interests and motivations of state senators and state representatives really different enough to require separate communication strategies? • Underestimating the Value of Audience Identification — DOT staff may not know how, or when, to conduct a stakeholder analysis, or they may think they already know all they need to know about stakeholders and therefore can see no benefit from doing stakeholder analyses. • Penny-pinching on Resources for Audience Identification — The truth is that audience identification and segmentation is actually relatively inexpensive in terms of time and resources when compared to the cost of potential failure, so don’t skip it!