Article Category: Speaker Habits Show
by Andrew Dlugan
Audience-centric speakers deliver the speech which the audience wants to hear, using words, concepts, stories, and visuals which will resonate with audience members and lead them to action. But how do you know what the audience wants to hear? How do you know what will resonate with them? How do you know what they are thinking? In this article, we define what audience analysis is, and look at the types of questions you should be asking about your audience. What is Audience Analysis?“Audience analysis is the process of learning who your audience is, what they are thinking, and how you can best reach them.” Audience analysis is the process of learning who your audience is, what they are thinking, and how you can best reach them. Thoughtful audience analysis is one of the best habits you can develop as a speaker. It will help you understand your audience’s perspective and provide maximum value for them. If done well, your audience analysis will provide insights that will help you focus your message, select the most effective content and visuals, and tailor your delivery to suit this particular target audience. Audience analysis studies your audience along three primary dimensions:
Each of these three dimensions is examined in more detail in the following sections. 1. Demographic Audience AnalysisThe aim of demographic audience analysis is to discover who you are speaking to. Depending on your topic and message, some of the following questions will be relevant and some will not:
All of the above analysis may be impacted by qualities of the audience as a whole:
Finally, consider how you relate to the audience with respect to several of the characteristics above:
2. Psychological Audience Analysis“Thoughtful audience analysis is one of the best habits you can develop as a speaker.” The aim of psychological audience analysis is to discover what your audience may be thinking before and during your presentation. Psychological analysis covers both the knowledge (or lack of knowledge) and the beliefs of your audience. Audience Knowledge
It is also sometimes useful to gauge their knowledge compared to yours:
Audience Beliefs
3. Contextual Audience Analysis“If done well, your audience analysis will provide insights that will help you focus your message, select the most effective content and visuals, and tailor your delivery to suit this particular target audience.” The aim of contextual audience analysis is to discover how the speaking event itself may influence your audience’s state of mind. In some ways, this analysis takes who they are (demographic) and what they believe (psychological), and pins it to a certain time and place where you’ll be speaking. Consider the following questions:
Remember that you are speaking to individualsIn rare circumstances, you are able to meet privately with each audience member before your presentation and learn about them and their expectations. However, this is rarely practical. So, you are usually required to infer a great deal from your audience analysis instead. However, you don’t talk to amorphous blobs known as audiences. You talk to individual people, and no two people in your audience are identical. While the individuals in your audience may be similar in many ways, there will always be a range of characteristics: a range of knowledge levels, a range of beliefs, a range of expectations, etc. Even the best audience analysis will have a degree of uncertainty. Next in this Series…In subsequent articles in this series, we look at how to conduct audience analysis and how to incorporate what you learn to improve your presentations. |