Communicate in the ‘right’ direction by focusing on the audience: find out what’s on their mind before writing your content. [Photo credit: Nick Fewing]

Last month I was at Georgetown University speaking at a day-long Speechwriting School hosted by the Professional Speechwriting Association. I kicked off the program by talking about the importance of understanding your audience. In other words, not only exploring audience demographics, but diving deeper by asking the hard, messy questions:

What do they genuinely care about?
What are they excited about?
What are their red flag issues?

Since then, I’ve come across another great way to think about your audience, courtesy of Briar Goldberg, TED’s Director of Speaker Coaching. She emphasizes communicating in the “right” direction. What’s that? Hint: it has to do with the ABCs of public speaking, Audience Before Content. I encourage you to read her short article, “Before Your Next Presentation or Speech, Here’s the First Thing You Must Think About.”

Want to learn more about audience analysis? Read my blog and reach out anytime. – Rose at rose@rosespeechwriter.com.