Public Speaking Tips Must-Haves: 5 Secrets on How to Get to Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is essential to a successful speech.

If you don’t connect with the audience and speak to their level, interests, and needs, they will quickly lose interest and get bored and possibly even annoyed.

If you want your presentation to be well received, it must be interesting and engaging to your audience.

You must know as much as possible about them, including their interest, knowledge, and motivation for your topic. Consider what keeps them up at night, what problems they need solving, what their day-to-day activities involve, what ignites their passion, what they resist and feel strongly (negatively) about, and so on. If you are familiar with your audience already, this part of your speech planning will be easy. However, what if you don’t know them well or hardly at all, if at all? Understanding your audience doesn’t need to be scary, daunting, or costly.

Here are public speaking tips must-haves.

1. Online Surveys

Online surveys can be a direct and easy way to get to know your audience. Require people to sign up to attend your presentation and add the required fields they must complete. You might ask about their interest and purpose for attendance and demographic data if relevant such as gender and education level.

2. Face-to-Face Interviews

Getting to know your audience can be done through conversation.  For example, talk to other attendees about your topic when networking at a professional event. If you are the presenter, meet and greet your audience before your presentation to show how you might adapt and revise your speech. You can observe their non-verbal language to understand their response better.  Respondents will also likely have more time to consider their answers and provide you with more detailed insight.

3. Research

A quick internet search can reveal insights into your audience’s goals, activities, culture, and beliefs. For example, when speaking to members of a specific organization, visit their website and third-party websites related to that organization. You could also read through the comments section of related social media sites to learn what ignites people (especially those who support and don’t support something).

4. Site Analytics

Review site analytics of your website and online content to know your audience and learn about their interests. Some analytic tools track the location of visitors, topics, and pages that get the most traffic and specifics on mouse movements (i.e., scrolling activity).

5. Experienced Based

You may already have sufficient experience with your audience to understand their interests and needs, such as if you know them well or have already presented the same speech to a similar audience. You could also speak with people who might be like those who will attend your speech and ask them for information. Talking with your audiences, such as during a meet and greet before you begin your speech, can also help you learn more about them.  Connecting with your audience before you present builds rapport as well.

Audience analysis doesn’t just happen during the planning stage of your speech. Monitor your audience when presenting so you can revise, as needed and on the spot, for example, if you notice that they appear bored or confused. You may need to provide necessary explanations or have a few tricks to keep them engaged.

See You Got This: Everything You Need to Master Authentic Public Speaking, by River Grove Books, to learn more about how to get to know your audience.