What is Audience Analysis?

Audience analysis is the process of analyzing the audience and adapting your message to fit their
needs. You want to strive to be audience-centered throughout your entire speech. Think of who
your audience is and how you can best reach them with your message. You don’t want to be a self-
centered speaker and focus solely on your own needs and interests. If you ignore the audience, you
will not be a successful speaker. Smart speakers take the time to know their audience, relate to them,
and adapt their message to fit their interests, needs, and knowledge levels.

Why Bother with Audience Analysis?

Why should you even worry about audience analysis? Audience analysis is critical to the speech-
making process. There are several benefits of being an audience-centered speaker. We sort and filter
information based on our own experiences. We call this our frame of reference or our personal set
of interlocking facts, ideas, beliefs, values, and attitudes that we use to filter what we hear and then
make sense of it. If you relate to your audience on some level and figure out how your speech ideas
are relevant to them, they will be more interested and receptive to your ideas. You want to show
them how your speech will impact them and give them an incentive to listen. Audience analysis
increases your credibility because listeners will be more apt to trust you when you show them you’ve
done your research and taken the time to know them better.

Common ground is a desired concept in public speaking. Even in areas of disagreement, common
ground can bring you closer to your audience. Usually when you meet someone for the first time,
you start conversing and figuring out what you have in common. Maybe you know someone in
common, went to the same school, or participate in a common hobby. By highlighting what you
have in common with your audience, you become closer to the audience. Audience analysis can help
unite you and your listeners rather than divide us by our differences. Differences aren’t bad. It would
be really boring if we were all the same! However in audience analysis we are trying to recognize
those differences and similarities so we can construct our speech ideas in the best way possible.
Audience analysis will help you achieve the goals you set for your speech thus being a more
successful speaker.

Direct Methods of Audience Analysis

Direct methods are interviews, surveys, and focus groups where you have some personal contact
with who you are collecting data from. A focus group is a gathering of selected individual
participants who are encouraged to talk in an unstructured way about questions posed by a
facilitator. In this course, your audience will be your peers. You could use this technique by asking
four of your classmates to discuss your speech topic. In this small group setting, you could ask a
variety of questions to gauge participants’ views, attitudes, knowledge, and interest levels pertaining
to your topic. You can also conduct individual interviews with your classmates as a way to analyze
your audience.

Surveys are relatively easy to prepare and can be used to analyze a larger number of audience
members. They can give you a good picture of what the audience knows and thinks about your
topic. In this course, you could prepare a one-page survey asking a variety of questions measuring
the attitudes and behaviors of your audience members. These surveys can include closed-ended
questions, which have fixed answers or choices such as “yes” and “no.” Scale questions can be used
to inquire how your audience feels about something or how frequently they engage in behavior. An
example of responses for a scale question include:

1. Strongly Disagree 2. Disagree 3. Neutral 4. Agree 5. Strongly Agree.

You can also find some valuable information by using open-ended questions where students can
elaborate on the questions.

Indirect Methods of Audience Analysis

Indirect methods are less hands-on but can also be beneficial. Many speakers utilize these less formal
methods when they don’t have the opportunity to talk directly to their audience. You can make
certain observations about your peers based on the interaction you have with them. What do they
talk about? Where do they live? What are their majors? You don’t want to make generalizations
about your audience or stereotype them, but these cues can help give you get to know your audience
better.

For example, you can make the inference that your audience consists of students enrolled in a
college public speaking course. A speech persuading your audience to go to college would not be
effective since your audience obviously already has taken that step. A better alternative would be to
persuade your audience to stay in school and obtain a degree. Indirect techniques also include asking
people other than group members and reviewing secondary research or other written materials
pertaining to your audience.

Conducting Audience Analysis

How the audience feels about you as the speaker will directly impact their receptiveness to your
message. We want our audience to have a positive attitude toward us. Being audience-centered
shows your audience that you recognize them and the situation. This will help you build a positive
relationship with our audience.

There are other strategies you can use to connect with your audience as well. First, you want your
audience to view you as a credible speaker. Listeners don’t trust someone they think is unqualified to
speak on a particular topic. You can enhance your credibility by doing your research and being
prepared. Connecting with your audience through common ground or a personal story will
humanize you as a speaker and make you more trustworthy. A dynamic delivery with strong eye
contact and dressing appropriately will also aid in earning the trust of your listeners.

Demographics Analysis

A demographic analysis is a technique used to draw inferences about your audience based on
categories of information you have available. Some of these categories are age, cultural background,
gender, political affiliation, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. You can’t make
absolute assumptions based on these categories. However, it can give you some insight on your
audience’s background, interests, and beliefs. Additionally, demographics affect our listeners’ frame
of reference. Our audience’s frame of reference will impact how the message is received. Let’s
examine what demographics can tell us about our listeners.
Age can tell you about life experience and even interests. Age can affect the basic concerns of your
audience because at different points in life people have different concerns. Depending on the
situation, you may have listeners in the same age range or a variety of ages represented in your
audience. You want to be inclusive, relevant, and appeal to all age groups in your audience.

Cultural background can impact interests, values, and goals. Cultural groups have different
traditions, customs, standards, communication behaviors, and attitudes toward characteristics such
as age and gender. Be sensitive to the diversity of your audience. Avoid ethnocentric behavior and
language, which judges other cultures as inferior to your own.

Consider gender when preparing your speech. We don’t want to make generalizations about males
and females in our audience. There is a wealth of research that supports the idea that there are
similarities that hold true for most women and most men. However, many times we categorize
males and females with certain interests or roles. When we do this, we risk being incorrect or
offending our audience. Be sensitive that men and women can think differently but don’t make
absolute generalizations about your audience based on their sex. Additionally, we need to be careful
not to alienate our male audience or female audience when choosing a topic and developing our
speech.

Political affiliation can affect how you view a topic. Not everyone identifies with a particular political
group. However, we do know that conservative and liberal groups have contrasting philosophies in
approaching most issues. Knowing the political affiliation of your audience can offer insight on how
your audience views topics such as gun control, abortion, health care, size of government, taxes, gay
marriage, and the death penalty.

There are a variety of religious groups that have different beliefs and attitudes toward a variety of
topics such as war, gender roles, organ donation, vaccines, and divorce. Of course, attitudes may
vary within each group depending on the topic and person. We often think our view is the correct
view. However, we must be aware of the beliefs of other faith expressions to truly understand areas
of disagreement and deliver an audience-centered speech.

Often heterosexual people make the mistake of assuming their audience is composed entirely of
heterosexual individuals. Regardless of your beliefs, we have the responsibility to respect all
diversities in our audience including sexual orientation. Be aware of using offensive language or
language that may alienate your audience members.

Socioeconomic status is the combination of occupation, education, and income. Occupation can tell
you the background and interests of your audience. Education level can tell you about a person’s
perspective and range of abilities. Income can indicate the economic situation and social status of
your audience.

In short, it’s much easier to present to a homogeneous audience. However, we are all unique and
diverse. We need to recognize our differences in an attempt to relate to our listeners and adapt our
message to fit their needs.
Situational Analysis

Being aware of your physical setting will help you be better prepared and more comfortable when
you speak. For example, let’s say you are prepared to speak to 25 people and you walk into a room
of 100 people. What is your reaction? Of course it would be unsettling. You want to control the
factors that you can. Being aware of the physical setting will also ensure you have enough handouts,
visibility of visual aids, and accessibility of equipment. The time of day can impact the alertness of
your audience.

A captive audience versus a voluntary audience can impact the situation. A captive audience is one
where the people are required to attend. Your classmates are a captive audience. In this situation,
interest level is a significant factor. You must generate interest with your topic, and give your
audience an incentive to listen. Ask yourself, “How does the topic affect my audience?” “How can
my audience use this information?” A voluntary audience chooses to attend the presentation so the
interest level is apparent.

Earlier in the lesson we discussed how audience analysis should uncover attitudes about the topic,
speaker and occasion. These factors impact the situation as well and must be acknowledged to be
truly audience-centered.

Adapting to Your Audience

Your goal as a speaker is to remain audience-centered throughout the entire speech process. In the
beginning stages of constructing your speech, you want to get a feel of who your audience is and
how they view your topic. You want to give your audience useful information. Ask yourself, how
will your audience respond to your speech? What will they think of your main points? What will they
think about your evidence? What will they think about your examples and explanations? This will
help you plan an audience-centered speech.

Your delivery will also help you present an audience-centered speech. Maintain strong eye contact.
This shows the audience you recognize and respect them. You should be devoting 90% or more of
your time connecting with your audience through eye contact. Also, recognize the feedback your
audience gives you during your speech. Do they look engaged? Are they nodding their heads? Do
they look confused? Do they look bored? It will be hard for you to stray from your prepared speech.
Experienced speakers will recognize this feedback during their speech and make adjustments. For
example, if you notice your audience looks confused, you can try to explain the concept in another
way to enhance shared meaning.

When you have completed your speech assignment, reflect on the experience. This course is a
learning experience. Think about your speech and how your audience responded to your message.
Review your rubric and peer review. Strive for improvement in the area of audience analysis to
ensure your message is well-received by your audience.

Summary

In this lesson, we learned audience analysis is vital for effective public speaking skills. When you take
the time to learn about your audience and adapt your message to reach them, they will be more
interested in what your have to say. You can analyze your audience using both direct and indirect
methods. Direct methods require contact with audience members through interviews, surveys, and
focus groups. Indirect methods are observations, asking people other than group members, and
reviewing written documents to gather information. Using these methods you can uncover attitudes
about audience’s disposition toward the topic, speaker, and occasion. Demographic analysis and
situational analysis can also give you valuable information about your audience. Effective speakers
consider audience analysis in preparing the speech, during delivery, and after the speech.