If you’re reading this, I know you’re not new to listening to or even giving presentations, but sometimes when you delve deeply into something, you lose track of the finer details of the ultimate goal and how to get there.  The trees in the forest, so to say. 

Next thing you know, you’re too far down the path to ask for guidance.

Don’t worry.  That’s what I’m here for.

Today, I’ll discuss the role that audience analysis should play in your public speaking prep work, and how you can learn about your audience’s needs, even if you’ve never met them.

What is Audience Analysis?

Audience analysis is the process of understanding who you are giving a presentation to, who it is for, and what unique characteristics of your audience make it easier or harder for them to agree with or act on your message.

At its most basic, audience analysis is being able to describe features of your audience that influence how they will interpret and respond to your presentation. 

What do you need to provide in your presentation to take them from their current state to the ideal state you imagine after giving your presentation?

Audience characteristics can include any relevant psychological, demographic, cultural, religious, racial/ethnic, or behavioral feature of your audience that influences how they perceive, intepret, and respond to a message.

Understanding these linkages is the key to public speaking success, no matter what context, topic, situation, or specific persuasive goal.

Do you want to learn more from me? Reach out and start a conversation about how you can use your audience’s unique features to achieve public speaking success.

Why Should You Care About Audience Analysis?

I’m all about the open exchange of ideas and public speaking is a critical way we discuss problems, issues, opportunities and more in our world.

But, public speaking is more than just conversation or debate on a topic.  It is the deliberate sharing of information to achieve a specific goal, i.e. to encourage the audience to change as a result of your presentation.

In order to be successful in this goal, your message must connect in a meaningful way to your audience as complex, dynamic, busy, and distracted people who see the world in unique ways.

Successful speakers are such because they are able to make these linkages in highly powerful and meaningful ways.

The Formula for Audience Analysis Success

So, what’s the formula for creating powerful connections between the message you want to convey in your presentation and your audience?

(Listener relevance + Existing knowledge + Environmental factors) x (Persuasive appeal x Message clarity) = Presentation outcome

Don’t be overwhelmed by this public speaking audience analysis algorithm!  In this article, we will only cover the first-term factors that relate to the audience.  We’ll break down your message in another post.  What is key is recognizing that higher synergy between your audience and your message is what leads you to positive public speaking outcomes.

Listener Relevance

At the core, listener relevance is the answer to the question – Why should the audience care about this topic/message/speech/presentation?

We are busy people and somewhat selfish with our time.

To truly convince the audience to not only listen to your presentation actively and deeply, but to respond to your call-to-action, you must directly connect your persuasive appeal to the audience themselves.

Regardless of your overall presentation goal, to realize your ideal outcome, you must draw a straight and firm line between the topic of your presentation and something meaningful about your audience.

What is it that connects most of the audience to the core of your presentation?  Something about their lifestyles, their background, their profession, their organization?  

Directly be able to answer (and explicitly state in your presentation), why should the audience care?

Existing Knowledge & Beliefs

The other key factor of your audience to understand is what they already know or believe to be true about your topic.  Connecting the existing ideas in their head to your message is critical to helping them along the path from listener to actor.

Does your message align with what they already know or believe to be true?  If so, it’s a lot easier to convince them of your message and to act on it.  Think baby step vs huge gigantic leap.  Baby steps are easier.

Is your audience indifferent to or not familiar with your message or call to action?  If so, you’ll need to use different persuasive techniques and include different types of information in your presentation to convince them of your ideas.

Perhaps your audience is hostile to your idea and or your action step.  In that case, you’ll need to use even more finely tuned strategy to meet them where they are and move them a bit closer to adopting your solution.

Without at least some understanding of your audience’s existing position, you won’t be able to give them what they need to be persuaded by your message.

Environmental Factors

As a speaker, it can be easy to overlook the impact the environment can have on the audience’s ability to listen carefully and remember a presentation.

However, in the audience, there’s a constant tug and pull to turn away from a speaker and instead think about just about everything else. 

The temperature, whether you’re hungry, whether your shoes hurt your feet, and the movements of the people sitting next to you.  How’s the lighting? How’s the sound quality? When is this presentation supposed to end?  

On and on.

There isn’t much you, as a speaker, can do to influence environmental factors that affect your audience.  But recognize that these situational factors are very compelling for your audience to attend to.  You’re in competition with the very room you’re speaking in.

Audience Analysis in Context 

The very nature of how the people in your audience affects your presentation outcome is critical to accomplishing your presentation goal.

Let me give you a real-world example:

You’re a program manager, giving a quarterly update on the new hardware your team is developing in conjunction with an external company.

In the room is your immediation supervisor, the portfolio manager, members of your IPT, and the project sponsor.

The project is going reasonably well, but the development is about 2 weeks behind your program schedule, mostly due to delays in ordering and receiving necessary materials for a prototype build.

Your hope is that after the briefing, stakeholders will be reassured of the value of the project’s hardware and they will give your program access to slightly more of your lead engineer’s billable hours.

In a presentation like this, how can you accomplish this goal?

By clearly articulating the characteristics of your audience and speaking situation and aligning your message to meet listeners where they are.

You should spend extra time addressing the engineering time constraints, the value of the lead engineer’s contribution to the project, and remind of end business value for the developed hardware.  

You should address concerns that were raised at prior meetings.  You should give ample time for leaders to ask their questions and answer them thoughtfully.  You should schedule your meeting around other events in the office so your audience is best situated to listen carefully.  

You should develop your entire presentation with your audience in mind.  What do they need?  What can you give them?

As the program manager in this scenario, following the tips above will help you align your project status and challenges with the mindset and prior beliefs of your audience.

3 Tips for Effective Audience Analysis

The hardest part of audience analysis is getting the information and data you need to make good audience-based decisions.  We’ll talk more about this in another post, but for now, use these three tips to get you started:

• Tip #1: Thinking about the audience, rather than yourself, is more than 90% of speaker do regularly.  Even if you aren’t exactly right about how your audience connects to your topic, you’re already in the right mindset to find success.
• Tip #2: Ask questions!  Of potential or actual audience members before, during, and after your presentation.  Learn about them in the moment.  Even if you can’t implement this information immediately, it will be invaluable down the road.
• Tip #3: Download my public speaking blueprint to put audience analysis on context with your overall presentation development.

Add your name and email to instantly download your blueprint today!

For an in-depth look at other ways to better understand your audience, you can read more on Hubspot.

Key Takeaways

Let’s wrap this up, shall we? The key takeaways to remember from this post are to remember: your audience is the center of your presentation.  Everything you say and do should be focused on meeting them where they are and giving them what they need.

At Presenting Well, I make it my mission to support you in growing and succeeding as a speaker and presenter. 

If you would like to work one-on-one to strengthen your public speaking skills, please drop me a line here [link to your contact page or email]. I love hearing from new people!

Pssst, you can also check out my Public Speaking Blueprint to help guide you on your presentation journey. 

Add your name and email to download the blueprint now!

Cheers,

Andrea

This post was created without the assistance of AI.