Knowing your audiences needs can help you craft communication that really motivates and changes behavior. What history or background does my audience have with my topic? What is their knowledge level regarding what i intend to discuss? What attitudes might they have towards my topic? Are they favorable, hesitant or agnostic? What areas of concern or resistance might they hold? And finally, what inspires or motivates them? With answers to these questions, we can better understand where to start, the depth we need to cover and how to ad scepticism and hesitation.
As we look back on more than 20 interviews with Think Fast, Talk Smart guests, we’ve heard one piece of advice over and again: Know Your Audience. This wisdom echoes what research clearly shows: Content that is relevant and meaningful to an audience is more likely to be heard, retained and acted upon.
The word communication comes from the Latin for to “make common,” yet many of us start our message from the wrong place. As lecturer and podcast host Matt Abrahams shares in this Quick Thinks episode, by taking the time to learn about our audience and their needs, we can better craft our messages for them and be more useful, engaging and successful.
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