Engage Target Audience, Essay Example

In order to market certain products and services or to implement certain programs, a target audience must be identified. It is important that the right information gets to the right people, when a business or other entity aims at persuading a certain group of people toward a specific outcome. BusinessDictionary.com defines a target audience as a “particular group of people, identified as the intended recipient of an advertisement or message. Also called target population” (Business Dictionary, n.d.). This paper aims at understanding how to get a message to a target audience for the purpose of helping people within that audience overcome a difficulty in the public health domain. The specific target is described below.

Target Audience Description

The target audience is African American women between the ages of 40 and 60 years old with type 2 diabetes. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how public health campaigns can get people involved with interventions toward the prevention of type 2 diabetes in this demographic. Specifically, interventions can include focusing on ways to minimize type 2 diabetes complications such as kidney failure, blindness, amputation, cardiovascular disease, etc.

Involving Target Audience in Public Health Campaign

One way to fight the type 2 diabetes problem in middle-aged African American women is to involve them in a focused public health campaign. This is a way to educate them about their disease and teach them ways to manage it, if they already have it and how to prevent it, if they do not already have it. The National Diabetes Education Program states “type 2 diabetes can be prevented or delayed” (NIH, n.d.), and spreading this news is one way to persuade those at risk for the disease to participate in public health campaigns.

One way of promoting public relations with this target audience or community is to disseminate public health strategies within the community to eliminate possible disparities in access to effective health care services and preventive education for type 2 diabetes. This can be done by improving access and delivery mechanisms in at-risk communities. Another way to promote public relations with this target audience or community is to hold neighborhood drives and health fairs to expose women between the ages of 40 and 60 who are at risk for type 2 diabetes to information, where they can learn about preventive behaviors and effective lifestyle interventions to help increase awareness and health care seeking. This effort could include coordinating media strategies to distribute public information (CDC, 2012).

Expected Behavior Changes in Target Audience

There are key benefits associated with behavior changes among this target audience as it pertains to preventing, managing and even eliminating type 2 diabetes. It is expected that those who are willing to follow specific dietary, medicinal and lifestyle change protocols should see improvements in their overall conditions. Key benefits of this include preventing the following (Fowler, 2008):

• Heart and blood vessel problems
• Vision problems
• Kidney disease
• Nerve disease
• Gum and teeth problems
• Circulation problems

Unfortunately, there are often times when people in the target population do not take the necessary steps to manage their type 2 diabetes or to prevent it from happening, which is a behavioral flaw that is often passed through generations in families. Fowler (2008) stresses the importance of protecting the body from the effects of uncontrolled diabetes, as these effects can prove deadly in the long term for people who suffer from this disease, and this is especially true for African American women between the ages of 40 and 60. This may be due, in part, to the fact that many of these women come from communities that are under-informed and that have a culture of bad habits when it comes to health care. In addition, this demographic in the population may be victims of disparities in health care access and health care education access so that they can be more proactive in protecting themselves against this disease (Jacobs, Rolle, Ferrans, Whitaker, & Warnecke, 2006).

Disseminating the Message about Type 2 Diabetes Prevention

There are certain individuals, groups and organizations that can help get the word out to the target market regarding being educated about this disease. This includes community leaders, advocates, volunteers, and community health professionals. These entities can work together to encourage behavior changes in the communities affected the most with the target audience. Programs can be implemented to walk the people in the target population through lifestyle maintenance such as workshops and community health care memberships into type 2 diabetes wellness programs.

One way that stakeholders can impact the planning of such programs is to organize community fairs to sign people up for the programs. Another way is to implement some type of incentive or award program to persuade people to sign up for the programs, such as getting local businesses to sponsor the programs and give out discounts and freebies to those who participate.

Potential Barriers to Accessing the Target Audience

A potential barrier to getting through to the target audience is regard to trust. Many people in the African American community do not trust health care professionals. Another barrier would be denial. Many people who do not “feel” sick think they are not sick, when in actuality they are sick (Jacobs, Rolle, Ferrans, Whitaker, & Warnecke, 2006).

References

Business Dictionary. (n.d.). Target Audience. Retrieved from BusinessDictionary.com: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/target-audience.html

CDC. (2012, December 18). About CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation. Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/Diabetes/about/index.htm

Fowler, M. J. (2008, April). Microvascular and Macrovascular Complications of Diabetes. Clinical Diabetes(26), 77-82.

Jacobs, E. A., Rolle, I., Ferrans, C. E., Whitaker, E. E., & Warnecke, R. B. (2006, June). Understanding African Americans’ Views of the Trustworthiness of Physicians. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21(6), 642-647.

NIH. (n.d.). Small Steps. Big Rewards. Prevent type 2 Diabetes. Campaign. Retrieved from National Diabetes Education Program: http://ndep.nih.gov/partners-community-organization/campaigns/SmallStepsBigRewards.aspx