Module 3.2 Analyze Your
Audience
The better you know and understand your audience, the people you will be dealing
with, the better your chances are of having a successful project/programme purpose relationship with them.
Doing some homework, some basic research, before you actually meet them saves time, and
puts you at a distinct advantage.
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1. Analyze Your Audience
What do you know about the people you will be meeting, addressing, selling to,
providing a service for, or working with?
The better you get to know and understand them, and the interests they
represent, even before meeting them, the better your chances are of having a successful
project/programme purpose relationship with them.
The first thing to remember, however, is that as human beings they are as complex
as you are. We all have our careers as well as separate lives away from work. We all have
personal histories, families, hobbies, hang-ups, some successes and some failures, outside
interests, and involvements. They do, too.
So what you should really be asking is who they areor could they
becomein terms of a project/programme purpose relationship with you and your organization, and its
services or products.
There are numerous ways to find this
out ranging from surveys and formal research to talking to people who already know or do
project/programme purpose with them. While there are a variety of ways to do this, the first question is to
determine why you need the information. The answer to that will guide you into the proper
way to get the information you need.
Public speakers, for example, need different information about their audiences than
a sales team would need before going in to make a product demonstration. We will look at
several ways to analyze different audiences.
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2. What Do You Need To Know?
What does your audience really know, or think they know, about the subject?
One way to find that out is to simply ask them, and hope that they will tell you
the truth. At times, however, people would rather be ignorant than appear ignorant. They
dont want anyone to know that they dont know. In other cases, they think they
know more than they actually do, or that they know less than they actually do.
One way around this problem is to look at your audience as a group. If you are
being brought in to speak to them, the people arranging it can usually give you the
information you want.
At times, they will just give you the information, but at other times,
youll have to ferret some or all of it out for yourself.
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3. What Do You Need To Know? (Continued)
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4. What Do
You Need To Know? (Continued)
Once
you know who your audience is, compare their anticipated level of knowledge to your own.
What do you know? What knowledge, information, or attitudes do you share with your
audience? Where do your knowledge and views, and your audiences knowledge and views,
diverge?
To get this, you will very likely have to do some research, some digging.
You will want to know as much about them as possible. While much of this
information could be expected from the person setting up the presentation, you might also
have to talk to others who have dealt with them, or even look for stories about them and
their organization in back issues of the local newspaper.
Past informationhistoryshapes current perception. That perception must be taken into account when shaping
a message designed to either reinforce or dispel the ideas or attitudes people already
have.
For all practical purposes, when it comes to what others think about things, about
us and about what we do, about everything for that matter, perception is realityeven
when the perception is wrong.
We cannot change their reality, until we change their perception.
We cannot do that, however, until we actually know how others perceive the person,
place, or thingthe issue, product, or servicethat we are communicating about.
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5. Audience Breakdown
Whether you are making a speech to an arena or convention center filled with
thousands of people, a presentation in a small conference room, or a sales call in a
potential action sponsor/beneficiarys office, your audience will usually consist of a number of
different kinds of people.
It is much easier to prepare a speech or presentation to a group that shares the
same level of interest or knowledge about a subject. Its when you have a mixed
audience that problems can develop.
With a mixed group, each specific sector poses specific problems. One of the most
common ones is focusing on just one sector at the expense of the others. If you start
talking to one sector about their narrow field of interest or expertise, you could wind up
confusing, ignoring, and very possibly alienating all of those in your audience who are
not in that sector or share their in-depth interests.
Some of the sectors you might encounter in an audience include:
·
Experts: People who understand exactly what
it is you door are offeringand how you do it. They know your subject as
well as you do; both the theoretical and practical aspects. There are a number of
potential problems with dealing with experts. If you are not an expert yourself,
they might lose interest in you and faith in your organization.
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6. Audience Breakdown (Continued)
·
Specialists:
They are either theoretical
or technical experts in one aspect of the subject but may know little or nothing
about the product or service in its entirety. They tend to focus on their areas of
expertise and expect you to be as familiar with those areas as they. Like the experts,
they can monopolize the meeting by focusing on esoteric details of no interest to anyone
else.
·
Technicians: They know how it works, and arent
really concerned about the theory behind it. They might not even understand all of the
theory. But they do know how to use it, and, if it breaks down, fix it. Their questions
are very practical. They are usually specific and they generally want and expect specific
answers to them.
·
Theoreticians: They understand the theory behind it and why
it works, but they are the last people to ask to fix one. In many cases, you dont
even want them operating the equipment.
·
Familiar:
These people know what you
are talking about in general terms. They may have some understanding of the concept, but
not enough to actually use one.
·
Novice: They dont really understand what
it does, how it does it, or even how or why to use it.
·
Decision
Makers: These people
will make the project/programme purpose decisions, actually deciding if the organization should buy it or, if
they are manufacturers, even make it. They are rarely either experts or
technicians.
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7.
Dealing with a Mixed Audience
What do you do when you have more than one audience? What do you do when you
have to reach experts and novices, theoreticians and technicians,
specialists and decision makers
all at the same time? A lot depends on whether you
are talking to them, or writing to them. In either case, you have to decide on whom to
focus.
If you are writing a report that all of these different audiences will see, you can
do an overall introduction and summary that addresses everything you want to cover in
general terms. The report will also include appendices, footnotes, or references to
separate special sections for each of your audiences: technical specifications for the
technicians and experts, marketing information for the sales staff, financial
projections for the decision makers, and so on.
If you have to do all of this in an oral presentation, you have even more of a
problem since you run the risk of confusing some members of the audience, and boring or
talking down to others.
Again, you deliver a general overall introduction and summary that addresses
everything you want to cover in general terms. If you have the time, personnel, and space,
you can then break the audience down into specialized groups: technicians, marketing,
finance, etc. Each group then gets a specialized presentation focusing on their areas of
expertise or decision-making. If you cannot do that, you are better off with written
reports that will supplement the oral presentation. As you cover a topic in general terms,
you tell them where to find the details they might find interesting or helpful in each of
their written reports.
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8. Hiring Outside Analysts
Can you do a good job of getting to know your own beneficiaries? Or, do you need an outside agency to help you get to know them better? There is no one right answer. The only legitimate answer is: It all depends on your ability to really get to know your beneficiaries. This means gathering information and analyzing it.
While you very likely have the staff to do it, do they know how? If not, how long would it take to train them to conduct surveys or any other sort of beneficiary analysis? What jobs would go undone in the process? Moreover, would you do it more than once, or at least often enough to make the training worth the time, effort, and money involved?
Numerous organizations specialize in this sort of task.
One complaint that many organizations have lodged is that the surveys they contracted for did not really give them information they needed, wanted, or could use. The problem here can usually be traced to a lack of communication between the consulting organization and the one that hired them.
One of the dangers in using outside consultants is that they may not know your
specific project/programme purpose, or even your specific sector of activity. When asked about this problem, most
consultants say that they are only as good as the information they are given to work with,
and point out that all they can do is try to get their action sponsors/beneficiaries to be open and honest with
them while they are designing the survey and survey questions.
As we said earlier, there is no one right answer to about hiring an outside consulting organization. If you do hire them, however, you have to be willing to be completely honest with them otherwise you are just wasting your money.
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9.
beneficiary Analysis
Although Left Brain Marketing, of
The consultants point out that most organizations are already sitting on a potential
gold mine of beneficiary information that has been assembled from:
The secret is mining that data by analyzing it properly.
Here are 10 questions that data you probably already have will very likely be
able to answer for you if you take the time to sit down and study it:
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10.
How Well Do You Know the Person Sitting Next to You?
Quite often your audience is the person sitting on your right side in a meeting,
and the one on your left, and across from you, and so on.
In many ways, it is easier to get enough background information to perform an in-depth audience or beneficiary analysis on strangers than it is on your fellow employees.
When you do investigate people outside of the organization, thats called research. But when you do it to people inside the organization, some might call it prying.
So even though you will need the same information, youll have to get it in
different ways. Luckily, you normally have time to do it and plenty of resources. Instead
of formal survey questions, you have four primary tools:
1. Observe. Watch the people around you. See how they operate; what they do and do not do, and how they react to new ideas or situations. What are their strengths and weaknesses, their pet peeves, their areas of interest and disinterest?
2. Read. Have any of them been interviewed by the media, either by the in-house organization media or in local newspapers, or specialized trade or sector of activity journals, magazines, or newsletters?
3. Talk. What do other people have to say about them?
4. Get To Know Them. Take the time to get to know them yourself. If it would be appropriate to ask them to have lunch, or get together after work, do so. In addition, remember, in getting to know them, they are also getting to know you.
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1.
_______________ must be taken into account when shaping a message designed to either reinforce or dispel
the ideas or attitudes people already have.
a. Facts
b. Perception
c. Cost
d. All
of the above
2.
We cannot change peoples __________, until we change their ___________.
a. Ideas,
views
b. Reality,
perception
c. Perception,
reality
d. None
of the above
3.
All of the following are tools to get information on your employees except
a. Observe
b. Read
c. Gossip
d. Talk
4.
One of the dangers in using outside consultants is that
a. They
may not know your specific project/programme purpose, or even your sector of activity
b. They
may be working for your competitors
c. They
probably arent very honest
d. None
of the above
Matching the Columns
1. Experts |
A. They are either theoretical or technical experts in one
aspect of the subject but may know little or nothing about the product or service in its
entirety. |
2. Specialists |
B. They understand the theory behind it and why it works,
but they are the last people to ask to fix one. |
3. Technicians |
C. They dont really understand what it does, how it
does it, or even how or why to use it. |
4. Theoreticians |
D. People who understand exactly what it is you do and how
you do it. |
5. Novice |
E. These people know what you are talking about in general
terms. |
6. Familiar |
F. They know how it works, and arent really
concerned about the theory behind it. |
Answers:
1.) D
2.) A
3.) F
4.) B
5.) C
6.) E
Matching the Columns
1. History |
A. Are rarely experts or technicians. |
2. Reality |
B. Must be taken into account when shaping a message. |
3. Decision
makers |
C. Often can be traced to a lack of communication. |
4. Perception |
D. We cant change this until we change our
perception. |
5. Problem
with outside analysts |
E. Often easier to get about strangers than on fellow
employees. |
6. Background
information |
F. Shapes current perception. |
Answers:
1.) F
2.) D
3.) A
4.) B
5.) C
6.) E
Summary
As we have seen, once you get to know who your audience is, there are many ways
to categorize them and target your information to specific groups and sub-groups. Whether
you are dealing with people inside or outside the organization, preparing a speech that
thousands will hear or a report to a half-dozen fellow workers, the same basic techniques
are used to analyze your audience and target your material to it.
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Test
1. ______
If you are brought in to speak to an audience, the people arranging it can
usually give you the information you want about them.
2. ______
You need to find out what your audience is expecting so you can meet
those expectations, but you should not inform them that you will not meet
them.
3. ______
Once you know who your audience is, there is no need to compare their
anticipated level of knowledge to your own.
4. ______
It is easier to prepare a speech or presentation to a group that shares the
same level of interest or knowledge about a subject.
5. ______
If you are not an expert, the experts in the audience will not lose interest in
you or lose faith in your organization.
6. ______
When you have more than one audience, you can do an overall
introduction and summary that addresses everything you want to cover in
specific terms.
7. ______
In many ways it is easier to get enough background information to
perform an in-depth audience or beneficiary analysis on your fellow
employees than it is on strangers.
8. ______
The better you know and understand your audience, the people you will be
dealing with, the better your chances are of having a successful project/programme purpose
relationship with them.
9. ______
Doing some homework before you actually meet them wastes time, but
puts you at a distinct advantage.
10. ______
Public speakers need the same information about their audiences as a sales
team would need before going in to make a product demonstration.
Answers:
1.
T
2.
F
You should inform them that you will not meet them because you are there to do something else.
3.
F you should compare
4.
T
5.
F will lose
6.
F general terms
7.
F it is more difficult
8.
T
9.
F saves time
10.
F different information
Bibliography
Brown, G. (1995). Speakers,
listeners, and communication: Explorations in discourse analysis.
Cheek, J. (2000). Effective
oral communication.
Perception Is shaped by past information.
This must be taken into account when shaping a message designed to either reinforce or
dispel the ideas or attitudes people already have.
Reality We cannot change this until we
change perception.
Experts People who understand exactly what
it is you do or are offering and how you do it.
Novice They dont really understand
what your product does, how it does it, or even how or why to use it.
Learning Objectives
Q&A
1.
What are some things you should know about your audience?
The first thing you should always know about your
audience is who they are: their titles, jobs, specialties, and fields of expertise. You
should also find out what they know, what their backgrounds are, and how old they are, or
how long they have been with the organization. It is necessary to find out their similarities
and differences. You need to find out what their primary interests are, as well as what
the audience is expecting and prepared to hear.
2. What
are the different audience sectors you may encounter?
You may encounter experts, specialists,
technicians, theoreticians, familiar, novice, and decision makers. Experts are people who
understand exactly what it is you do and how you do it. Specialists are either theoretical
or technical exerts in one aspect of the subject but may know little or nothing about the
product or service in its entirety. Technicians know how it works, and arent really
concerned about the theory behind it. Theoreticians understand the theory behind it and
why it works, but are the last people to ask to fix one. Familiars know what you are
talking about in general terms. Novices dont really understand what it does, how it
does it, or even how or why to use it. Decision makers are the people who will make the
project/programme purpose decisions, actually decide if the organization should buy it or even make it.
3.
What are ten questions that data you probably already have will
answer for you about your audience?
Ten questions that you probably can already answer are: Who are your best and worst
beneficiaries/beneficiary segments? What do they have in common? How can you find more like them?
What is the most efficient media to reach them? Who is most likely to respond to your
product or promotional offer? What is the best method to motivate them? Which beneficiaries
are most likely to remain beneficiaries? Which ones are the most likely to turn to someone
else? What other products are they likely to purchase? Should you primarily focus in
acquisition, retention, or maximization strategies to grow your project/programme purpose?
A.
Analyze Your Audience
Whenever
we communicate, we communicate to a specific audience.
In interpersonal interaction, we have greater opportunity for clarifying
ideas and developing a relationship. When we
write a memo to a beneficiary or delivers a organization profile lecture to potential investors,
there is greater room for ambiguity.
Any
message requires the support of an audience, even in cases where you are not asking an
audience to do anything other than believe what you are saying.
Identify
Your Target Audience:
Sometimes
it is enough to know that a letter needs to be written to all beneficiaries or a presentation
needs to be developed to the press corps. Often,
the audience for a message is more specific. As
such, the better defined an audience, the better you are able to tailor your message to
that audience.
Identify
Audience Needs & Values:
When
constructing message it is ESSENTIAL to carefully and fully consider the interests, needs,
values, beliefs and attitudes of your audience. Generally,
investors look to buy into organizations that are stable enough that they will grow and become
more profitable. Yet, the information shared
with project/program capitalists might vary greatly from the kind of information shared with
individual stock purchasers.
In
short, you need to identify the specific needs of a target audience. The more information you have about the what
exactly a target audience believes, values or needs, the better able you are to provide
information that will satisfy your audience. This
is not to imply that you only tell members of your audience what they want to hear. Instead, you need to frame your message in a way
that external stakeholders will best understand and accept what you are saying.
Frame
the Message:
Once
you know your specific audience and what the audience values and needs, you can carefully
select language and evidence that will appeal to their interests. Furthermore, you will be able to organize
ideas so that you can lead your audience to a conclusion without losing them along the
way.
Most
importantly, framing the message requires that you establish a common bond with the
audience, particularly when you attempt to persuade them.
An audience needs to know that you understand the situation as they
experience it. When an audience believes you
can identify with their experience and that you are taking them into consideration as you
develop plans and policies, they will be more likely to believe what you say and to do
what you ask.