Transcript for:
Effective Audience Analysis for Presentations

hello this is Ella Nika welcome to the next in our series from w w mi public speaking skills calm to improve your public speaking skills what we're going to be talking about today is one of the aspects that's at the core of your presentation one of the most important parts of your preparation as you're preparing for your talk whether you're going to be talking with 600 people or you're just going to be speaking with a small group of six the most important thing you need to do is understand who your audience is who are they made up of what sort of needs do they have and what we're going to be talking about today is something called the audience analysis and this is a quick set of steps that you can do as you're preparing your presentation so that you can know as you're going in you can feel comfortable with who your audiences and as your audience is listening to you they understand that you've customized your presentation for their needs and their wants and their interests so how do we start the first thing you want to do as an analysis who are they who are the people that you're speaking with are you doing a presentation for the Presidents and vice presidents within your company or are you speaking with managers or perhaps new recruits are you speaking with a group of children are you speaking with the group of college students who who's your audience made up of and how many are there so within your analysis you're looking at am i speaking to 600 people if so you need to tailor your presentation for a large group and we'll talk about how to do that or am i speaking to a small group of six either way you need to understand who they are and how many they are then we need to take a look at their understanding what is their understanding of the topic are you going to be delivering a two-hour talk to a group of scientists or are you speaking with people who are new to you topic perhaps here you're discussing insurance or mortgages with people who are just first buying a house or maybe you're talking with people who have a great deal of understanding you want to make sure as you're preparing your presentation that you know who you're speaking with so that you're not talking above where they are and losing some of them or you're not talking down to them you can quickly customize the presentation for your audience that way then we want to take a look at the demographics what's the age what's the gender what's the educational background of your group find out a little bit of information about these people if it's applicable for your topic is it important that their parents or their young singles or their students is it important that you understand where they're living is that part of your talk depending on on what you're going to be speaking with them about understand some of the demographics when you know just these few things about your audience you can immediately establish a connection with them and go into your presentation with a lot more confidence next we want to take a look at what are their interests or more importantly why are they there why did they bother to take the time to to come and hear you speak perhaps they want to get the certificate at the end of your presentation or perhaps they want to find out more about mortgages because they don't know anything about it and they're about to buy the first house what's their interest in your topic what is their bias perhaps maybe you're going to be speaking about a provocative or a controversial subject and it would be helpful to understand the biases of your audience another thing we want to understand as we're preparing our presentation is the it's what sort of environment will you be speaking in are you going to have an audience of 600 in a large auditorium or an audience of six in a large auditorium you'll want to be thinking about that so that you can tailor the environment so that it's comfortable for your audience is it going to be too hot or too cold do you need to think about opening the windows for ventilation or is it going to be dark and it's right after lunch we make sure they don't fall asleep if you understand the demographics of your audience and you understand there might be older people there or people who need some help with getting in and out of the auditorium if you keep those things in mind your audience will really respect that you have taken the time to prepare for them to come the next thing we want to think about is their needs what sort of needs do they come to the presentation with do they need the certificate at the end of the presentation in order to move on to the next course or to move on to the next level in their diploma do they need this particular information in order to improve their sales skills do they need this information in order to be able to apply for something what needs do they come to your presentation with also what sort of needs do you have do you need something from them if you understand that before you go into the presentation you can also easily tailor and feel more confident as you pivot to presenting them then we can think about customizing what sort of customization can we do based on knowing who they are what sort of understanding they already have about the the demographics how can we customize the presentation based on their needs and their interests how can we customize it so that will feel more comfortable and then lastly expectations what sort of expectations does your audience have coming into the presentation there might be some simple excellent expectations' like timing they expect it to start at 12:00 and they expect it to finish it too if you respect their timing people really appreciate that also what sort of expectations do you have do you expect them to come with a form already filled out do you expect them to to complete a questionnaire at the end of your presentation do you have other expectations from them if you can talk with the person who is organizing the presentation and see if you can get some of these questions answered from them before you begin your preparations but I can can promise you that if you take the time to go through an audience analysis and think about your audience at the core of your presentation you will feel more confident and you will have a successful presentation and you will have a group of people that understand that you customize the presentation based on them thank you for joining me again for another in our series to improve your public speaking skills I'm Melanie and with WWE public speaking skills calm