Audience Development Plan Template

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The purpose of an audience development plan is to increase the discoverability of your project.

The plan tells what the project aims to achieve in terms of audience reach and engagement, and

the process for realizing those objectives.

Bell Fund, Shaw Rocket Fund and TELUS Fund

have standardized their requirements for audience

development documentation.

This document outlines their requirements for a comprehensive Audience Development Plan. If

you are just starting out, you may want to begin with the earlier stage Audience Development

Preliminary Plan which is sometimes sufficient to apply for funding. Consult the program

guidelines at each Fund to determine whether a preliminary or comprehensive audience

development plan is required.

Your comprehensive audience development plan should include four essential elements:

objectives, target audience(s), research, strategy. A detailed schedule and budget will also be

required prior to funding.

1. Overarching Objectives

When it comes to designing an audience development plan, it often works best to start at the

end. What do you want to achieve? Try to be specific with your objectives, for example:

● Drive viewership for a broadcast premiere or online/digital launch

● Gain recognition, e.g., win awards, secure festival entries.

● Monetize content, e.g., sell digital downloads.

● Drive traffic to a YouTube channel.

2. Target audience(s)

Identify the audience segment or segments the project is targeting. Demographic data (age,

gender, geolocation) is essential. Try to add insights about their interests, lifestyle, values,

media consumption habits, activities, etc.

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3. Research

Market research examines opportunities and barriers for building audiences. It should

include:

● Target audience research, e.g., analysis of comparable content to inform the

segments to be targeted, the online destinations your target audiences frequent,

potential influencers.

● Partner review, e.g., the online reach and influence of partners with whom you

will be collaborating to build audiences for your project, including their reach on

social media, email/mailing lists, and website. As appropriate, include relevant

information about their real-world footprint, e.g., live events or traditional

marketing/advertising opportunities that may be leveraged to promote your

project. Partners may include, for example, broadcasters, digital streaming

channels, distributors, sales agents, sponsors, venues, expert individuals and

organizations, celebrity influencers and marquee talent.

● An assessment of potential press outlets, offline activations, and other real-world

opportunities for connecting with target audience segments.

Your research may also include findings, e.g., content that may compete for viewer attention

or provide useful insights about audience building.

4. Strategy

The strategy is based on the research findings and should include the following components:

• Audience touch points – Which channels, platforms and tactics will you use to reach

audiences? Channels and platforms are the places audiences will visit to interact with

your content, for example, social media platforms, websites, email marketing,

games/apps, live events. Tactics include other means by which you will connect with

audiences, for example, public relations, advertising in traditional media, newsletters.

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For each audience touch point that will be managed by the Applicant outline the

following:

o Rationale - This is a simple sentence or two describing why you have chosen the

touch point to play a role in the strategy. For example, you may pull a key finding

from the research such as

the target audience is large and actively engaged around

similar content on Facebook

, or

the project involves marquee talent so public

relations will play a key role in securing earned media.

o Goals - These are the specific goals for the audience touch point. They relate to the

overarching objective but are unique and appropriate for the touch point. For

example, your overarching objective may be to

drive views for your series on

YouTube.

The goal for your project's Twitter account might be to

facilitate two-way

conversation with viewers between episodes.

o Approach to content – Outline the content plan and assets that will be created for

each audience touch point. Include detail about the creative approach, the format

(e.g., scripted video vignettes, behind-the-scenes images, toys, or other

merchandise) and an estimate of the number of assets. you expect to create. For

example,

a DIY Watch Party kit (French and English) containing a video greeting

from the cast, exclusive images, and menu ideas will be created and posted to the

website,

or

Each day for two weeks leading up to the premiere, an image and text

post will be published to Facebook, introducing audiences to the story world. A

community manager will monitor and respond to comments daily.

o Success metrics – Share the data points you intend to track to measure success. The

data you measure should relate directly to your objectives.

• Partner Plans – Which partners will help build audiences for the project? Partners may

include for example broadcasters, digital streaming channels, distributors, sales agents,

sponsors, venues, expert individuals and organizations, celebrity influencers, and

marquee talent. Attach links to partner platforms along with a description of their plan.

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• Alignment – Describe how your audience development strategy integrates with the plans

of any partners, e.g., broadcaster, partner organizations.

• Paid Media - If paid media is part of the audience development strategy, detail the

proposed budget and platforms as well as the metrics which will be used to measure

success. It is also important to explain how the paid media efforts will work alongside any

partner plans and organic social media efforts to amplify audience reach.

• Schedule - Build a high-level calendar that identifies the dates when:

• The audience development activities will begin in market (the Pre-Launch date),

typically 4-8 weeks prior to the first broadcast, premiere or online release of the

primary content.

• The primary content will be released (the Launch date)

• Audience development activities will wind down.

• Budget, Expertise, and Resources

The project’s audience development strategy and schedule must match the available

budget, expertise, and resources.

Identify the total funding available to execute the audience development strategy.

Identify who on your team will be accountable for implementing or overseeing the

audience development strategy activation. Are you working with, or do you intend to

engage an external audience development agency or marketing expert? Be sure to

include links to brief bios of proposed experts and agencies.

If Partners have committed finances, expertise, or resources to deliver audience

development strategies for the project, include letters of support that outline the nature

of their commitment.

A detailed audience development budget may be required at the time of applying for

funding. The

standard line items in an audience development budget are listed in this

Bell Fund template. These line items may appear within or separate from the production

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budget of the project. Consult the program guidelines at each Fund to obtain detailed

information on standard budget requirements and when to submit this document.

The latest version of the Audience Development Preliminary Plan is available here

.

If you have any questions or feedback on these new audience development tools, please send an

email to info@bellfund.ca.

Bell Fund, Shaw Rocket Fund and TELUS Fund are collaborating to drive the

discoverability of Canadian content and equip content producers with new tools,

insights, and knowledge to help build audiences for their projects. This Audience

Development Plan standardizes requirements across the three funders. These

guidelines were developed with the expertise of Magnify Digital.