Knowing your audience is the #1 rule in writing. How can someone convey what they are trying to say without knowing who they want to say it to?

Your audience determines your word choice, grammar, even general language; its a vital part of communication, and as I have already talked about in my post Clarity, communication is a key component to being human.

Not only is knowing your audience important to ensure understanding, but your audience keeps you in business. As a professional and technical, being able to adapt to varying audiences is an important skill to obtain work, whereas an author markets to the audience of a genre, young adults or housewives. In either, the audience sustains each person’s career.

Knowing your audience is a necessity in order to be a successful writer.