About

Why Audience Audit exists

To help expert-led businesses see what they’re missing — and earn trust on purpose.

Expert-led businesses rarely struggle because they lack expertise. They struggle because assumptions about audiences go unexamined — and trust is harder to earn than it used to be.

Audience Audit exists to close that gap through research that reveals how people actually think, decide, and evaluate credibility.

Expertise doesn’t speak for itself

In businesses powered by expertise, success depends on being understood, believed, and trusted. Yet many organizations rely on intuition, industry language, or inherited positioning to explain their value.

When assumptions replace evidence, differentiation blurs. Messaging weakens. And pipelines become less predictable.

We believe better understanding — not louder marketing — is the solution.

Research as perspective

We don’t use research to defend decisions after they’re made. We use it to inform better decisions before they’re locked in.

Our work focuses on how audiences evaluate expertise, form trust, and decide who feels credible enough to engage. That perspective helps leaders challenge assumptions, sharpen positioning, and communicate with greater confidence.

Research isn’t the answer.

It’s the lens that makes answers clearer.

Relentlessly Helpful®

Relentless Helpfulness® is our guiding philosophy.

It means prioritizing usefulness over attention, clarity over cleverness, and long-term credibility over short-term tactics. Our role isn’t to impress your audience or tell you what to think — it’s to help you understand your audience more clearly, and help your insight keep working even when we’re not in the room.

Who this work is for

We work with expert-led businesses where credibility matters — agencies, consultancies, professional services firms, speakers, authors, and founders whose insight drives their business.

If your success depends on being understood, believed, and trusted, this work is designed for you.

A note from Susan

I’ve spent most of my career helping organizations understand the people they’re trying to reach — not just what those people do, but how they think.

Over time, I’ve seen how often trust breaks down not because of poor execution, but because leaders are working from incomplete or incorrect assumptions. Research, when done well, slows things down just enough to surface what really matters.

Audience Audit exists to make that kind of understanding practical, accessible, and genuinely useful — not to create certainty, but to create clarity.

Small disclosure: I’ve loved em dashes since the late ’70s — long before AI hijacked them. Any you see here are intentional, and entirely mine.

If this resonates

If our point of view aligns with how you think — and you’re navigating questions of trust, differentiation, or growth — we’d be happy to explore whether research could help bring clarity.

DELETE EVERYTHING BELOW????

Our Team

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Susan Baier

Founder and CEO

Susan Baier – Founder and CEO

Nobody you know gets passionate about audience research like Susan does. It’s a little weird.

Susan developed her expertise in audience-based marketing strategy over more than 30 years in marketing strategy, product and brand management, market research, and strategic planning, both agency-side and client-side. She has an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Marketing and has held senior positions at Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 firms as well as marketing agencies.

In 2009, after many years working for other people, she went rogue and started Audience Audit — a little research company with big ideas. Her superpower is her combination of strategic marketing and research expertise, allowing each to inform the other on behalf of our clients.

Susan’s based in Chandler, Arizona. In her spare time (ha ha) she enjoys knitting, camping, and a good bourbon (not necessarily in that order).

Ron Baier

COO

Ron Baier – COO

Our resident Jarhead, Ron uses his experience as a Marine, Program Manager, Helicopter Pilot and Flight Instructor to keep our little agency working like a well-oiled machine.

His superpower is seeing the big picture and keeping us all in line while also being a big softy. He’s also managed the care and feeding of Susan during more than 30 years of marriage, making sure she remembers to eat and get some sunshine every day.

You’ll often see him with Susan at our workshops, meetings, and conferences. He’ll usually be at the bar with an open tab and loves talking shop, the outdoors, fishing, camping, hunting, helicopters, sports, or whatever else anyone wants to go on and on about.

Ron’s a scotch guy (blech) and also digs martinis.

Sarah McKenzie

Senior Statician

Sarah McKenzie – Senior Statistician

Our favorite doctor, Sarah’s got a Ph.D. in Statistics and uses her powers for good by discovering mind-blowing insights and making it look easy. Her superpower is helping regular folks see the truth inside their data. Also, she’s the queen of helpful metaphors when it comes to research.

Susan refers to her as “Sarah the Great and Statistical.” She developed our segmentation approach and is the person behind the curtain giving our research its unique revelations and reliable quality.

Her side hustle is serving as Executive Director of the Office of Education Policy for the state of Arkansas.

Sarah can beat anyone you know in Cribbage, all while drinking wine and cracking jokes. Also, she’s Susan’s little sister. So there’s that.

Josh Wilson

Data Visualization Lead

Josh Wilson – Data Visualization Lead

Josh is the big brain behind our interactive data visualizations that help you see and understand your research results. He comes to us from Deloitte, where he advised projects on leading practices for data visualization and used Tableau to enable insights across projects.

Josh’s superpower is telling stories with data in ways that anyone can understand and enjoy, and using Agile and design thinking to ensure that our clients not only get beautiful visualizations but get them sooner than they would have before he came along.

Josh lives in Chicago, is a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Certified Facilitator, and has completed an improv class at Second City. So high on the fun scale for sure — especially for a data nerd.

Caitlin Knudsen

Senior Writer

Caitlin Knudsen – Senior Writer

Caitlin is the wordsmith behind the survey questions, executive summaries, and blogs we craft to understand audiences and develop our clients’ thought leadership. After spending years working as a registered nurse, she thought she’d do a complete 180 and enter the marketing world. From social ads to case studies to brand voice and tone development, she’s done it all (and usually with time to spare).  

Her superpower is her one-two punch of attention to detail and innate curiosity. It’s how she can conceptualize an audience in one kickoff meeting and ask the right questions to yield the insights clients need.

Caitlin hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she spends her time landscaping the heck out of her small yard, usually with native plants to attract the local bees. She’s a witch in the kitchen, where you can find her developing her own recipes and honing her food photography skills. And in case anyone’s wondering, yes, she loves cheese.

Jack Patick

Creative Director

Isa Bekli

Creative Director

Serge Horovits

General Manager | Head of Accounts

Nickol Moma

Vice President of New Business​

Jesica Babik

Vice President of Strategy

Bob Slimm

Creative Director

Testimonials


One of the Most Effective Marketing Minds I've Encountered

Susan is one of the most effective marketing minds I’ve encountered. Her approach is one that focuses very clearly on what motivates consumers to act -- and it's not your tagline. She can take theory and apply it for companies in a way that actually generates transformational business results. Extremely easy to work with, and a delight to be around, you'll wish you'd met her long ago.


Jay Baer NYT Bestselling Author, Founder of Convince & Convert

"I Thought I Knew Marketing"

I thought I knew about marketing until I met Susan. She totally transformed the way I think about ideal customers, and her work flows through everything I do now -- strategy, content development, new concept ideation, sales and customer interactions. I can't imagine creating marketing with any other framework.


Pamela Slim Award-winning author, speaker and business consultant

"Incredibly Insightful"

The results of our studies were incredibly insightful and we've leveraged them across the organization to improve our marketing strategy, service offerings and more. Susan is delightful to work with.


Rebecca Spryczynatyk Senior Director of Communications, Infusionsoft

"Changed the Entire Way We Think"

Susan changed not only the way we do business but the entire way we think. Our methodology is absolutely rooted in her approach. As a digital marketer, our lens of viewing everything from the customer's problems has become a competitive advantage. We often win deals against bigger competitors, and Susan's approach is a big reason why.


Chris Lee Owner, PurpleCRM

"Brings Research to Life"

Susan knows how to bring research to life and, most importantly, provides insights that are actionable. She involves the agency in every step of the process, ensuring that we and our clients feel comfortable with the process and that we understand the results. Beyond demographics, Audience Audit reveals the motivation behind each consumer and the segmentation process allows us, as marketers, to better target our messaging.


Christine Tieri Owner, IDEA Agency

"Invaluable Partner"

Susan’s expertise in constructing quantitative studies that effectively measure attitudes and behaviors contributed greatly to the overall success of our project. Also, her ability to present statistical analysis of results in a way that is thorough yet easily comprehensible has made Susan a truly invaluable partner of our company.


Jami Crabtree Account Supervisor, BrandKarma

"Master of Audience Segmentation"

Easily one of the smartest people I've ever met, Susan is a master in the field of audience segmentation. Too many companies, large and small, build and develop marketing campaigns without ever really knowing their customers. Learn more about your various audience segments, what motivates them and what offers and messages will resonate with them. Audience segmentation is a marketing necessity. Susan's smarts, professionalism, and laugh are just icing on the cake.


Chris Sietsema Owner, Teach to Fish Digital

"A-Ha Findings"

We worked with Susan by subcontracting her to conduct a large, soup-to-nuts segmentation project for a for-profit university. The project went great, with the kind of "a-ha!" findings that she always manages to find and blow away the clients. We can't wait to work with her again! We recommend Susan to all of our clients that need segmentation work, which is most of them.


Greg Helmstetter Partner, Monsoon Strategy

"A Blast to Work With"

I've had the pleasure of working with Susan on a few different projects for mutual clients. She's our "go to" person when we have a client who needs help identifying target segments and capturing actionable information about their customers' needs and expectations. She *always* finds something fascinating in the data. For this reason and others, she's a blast to work with.


Pamela Metivier Partner, Monsoon Strategy

"Secret Weapon"

Susan's methodology for delivering exceptional audience insight is the secret weapon everyone should know and be using. I've had the pleasure of working with Susan over the course of several years, and not only does she help you unleash your own inner data geek, but her depth of marketing/agency background helps each of her clients - and her clients' clients - become smarter for working with her.


Paul Peterson Co-Founder, Casual Astronaut

"Perfect Marketing Partner"

Susan is a pleasure to work with. Her ability to grasp differing categories is amazing. This along with her natural understanding of human behavior, makes her a perfect researcher and marketing partner.


Ken Ribotsky CEO/Owner, Brandkarma

"Extremely Happy"

I worked with Susan on a customer segmentation for one of our Gap Inc. brands and highly recommend her. She is professional, knowledgeable, creative, and a pleasure to work with. She brought her many years of experience to our project and we were extremely happy with the results.


Julianna Iosilevsky Director of Consumer Insights, Gap Inc.

"Our Go-To Partner"

Susan is one of my favorite partners to work with. Her energy, positive attitude and outstanding work product make working with her a delight. She is our go-to partner when we need detailed, quantified and in-depth insight into our clients' digital audiences.


Jason McDonald Director, StringCan Europe

"Indispensable"

Susan is a subject matter expert and a consummate professional of the highest order and delivered a segmentation study that far exceeded our expectations. Her knowledge, skills, and abilities are indispensable in the fast paced, dynamic marketing of today.


David Allen Manager of Development & Services, Ignite International Corporation

Working With Us

We have a very specific approach to building you something unique and transformative.

Appearances

Speaking

Book Mentions


Podcasts

Our Clients

How We Can Help You

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We won the Best Agency Award for our Strategy.

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We Create Products​

  • Naming
  • Brand Strategy
  • Positioning
  • Visual Identity
  • Brand Refresh
  • Mobile Apps
  • Websites
  • Platforms
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • User Research
  • UI Animations

Marketing

  • Digital Marketing
  • Print Advertising
  • Copywriting
  • Campaign Concepts
  • Campaign Visuals
  • Social & PR
  • Media
  • CRM
  • Rollout

Ready to Grow Your Business?

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