Understanding Audiences

Just who are you talking to?

Defining audiences is simply classifying people into groups depending on their communication needs.

At UBC there are an infinite number of audiences and defining them can depend on a number of static factors like:

• Relationship with the university (students, faculty, staff)
• Job role
• Department
• Reporting relationships
• And more…

Outlining the audience can also depend on fluid factors — like how someone might be impacted by what you’re trying to tell them — which can be more difficult to determine.

Three groups, many audiences

For simplicity, we categorize UBC’s audiences into three groups that can be stratified by business roles, departments, faculties, employee type, and more:

• Internal audiences: VPFO. These are within our portfolio, like our departments, units, teams, etc.
• Internal audiences: UBC. These are part of  the larger UBC community, like Faculties, executive, administrators, etc.
• External Audiences. These are external to the university, like the general public, trade groups, prospective students, etc.

Use the resources below to help understand and determine the audiences for your communications.