When I first started my business my tagline was "Writing with the reader in mind." My brother said "everyone does that." No. Dan. They don't. They think they do, but they don't.

But I changed my tagline to Words People Read and that gets to the same point, however, I am a firm believer that unless you truly understand your reader/customer/target audience, you'll never make a magical connection.

Tip of the hat to Chris Brown at Branding and Marketing for turning me on to Logic + Emotion and the genius that is David Armando.

In his August 10th post about preparing his mind for vacation he shared a stream of visuals that offer tons of opportunity for great thought.

This one was really my favorite: 4 Simple Steps to Becoming a Compassionate Designer.

1. Get out of the office
2. Talk to someone
3. Sleep, dream curiosity
4. Do what they do.

In step 4 he offers that you do the things your target customer does, go to the places they go and in the final comment he says "better yet just walk WITH them."

I like that. If you are marketing/designing/writing for a store - shop in it, for a manufacturer - visit it and talk to the workers, for a service industry - sit by their side and listen to them.

Become engaged with your customer so that you might write/work/design with them in mind.

Deborah Chaddock Brown
Writer