Presentations are about people. After all, they are the intended audience of your presentations. A successful presentation is rarely a monologue. The audience is part of the presentation and the recipient of your message. It's their response that decides if you've met the objectives that you so carefully created.

In this topic, you'll explore what you must know about your audience before preparing a presentation.

Take a moment to read the following quote.

"Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience."

• Jessica Savitch, American news anchor

Reflection 1: What do you think?

What do you think the speaker of this quote means? What does the quote tell you about creating effective presentations?

• Write down your response for this in a notepad, for your reference

Evaluate your thinking Does your answer account for the following ideas?

Politicians need to know their audience so they can reach their constituents effectively. Likewise, presenters need to understand their audience, and identify what will appeal to them to reach their audience effectively. Imagine for a moment that you're all set to present, but you have no idea who your audience will be. You run a lot of risk if you haven't identified your audience. The more you know about them—what they know and what they want—the more effective your presentation will be!

Reflection 2: What do you think?

Suppose you're working on a presentation about your team's experience working with a new type of technology. Would the presentation be the same if you were delivering it to your peers, team, manager, or executives? Explain your thinking.

• Write down your response for this in a notepad, for your reference

Evaluate your thinking Does your answer account for the following?

Each role's needs and expectations are distinct from the other. So, a presentation created for team members will not work for executives or, for that matter, any other role. In many cases, you wouldn't want to give the same presentation to different audiences. So, you'll have to gather information on your audience and analyze their needs.

What do you want to know about your audience?

You need to think about why your topic is important to your audience. What do they want to learn? Do they know the topic already? Are they experts? You don't want to present basic information to a knowledgeable group, and conversely, a lot of technical details to a novice group. You want to find out what their attitudes are. Are they intuitive? Are they decision makers? And once you know who your audience is and what they want, consider the impact of that on your presentation. Find out your audience's:

• Needs
• Size
• Interests
• Challenges
• Attitudes
• Roles
• Background on subject

How does knowing your audience affect your presentation?

Based on your audience analysis, you might have to alter the style of your presentation. For example, you might decide to use slides to make your point because you are presenting to senior leaders in business who want to see figures. Or, you might adjust the length of your presentation because your audience comprises novice learners who prefer bite-sized chunks of information on a complex topic area. You need more than a superficial analysis of your audience. Knowing your audience impacts your presentation's:

• Tone
• Style
• Length
• Content

A presentation story Learn about the importance of knowing your audience when presenting. Review the following situation.

• Here’s Uma, and she has an interesting presentation experience to share. Uma had to make a presentation to a senior vice president in her organization.
• Uma spent days preparing a deck of 15 elaborate slides, describing every aspect of her team’s cognitive build project and its importance to her organization. She rehearsed her presentation well, making sure she knew every fact and figure and was ready to answer any question the SVP might ask.On the day of the presentation, she walked into the SVP’s office, handed him a folder of printouts from her deck, opened her laptop, and began to make her presentation.About five minutes into her presentation, he interrupted her and said, “Tell me what you want me to do.”What went wrong?
• What went wrong with Uma’s presentation?
• Her presentation was not tailored to suit her audience’s profile. In this case, to suit the senior executive’s needs, time constraints, and knowledge level.
• She was presenting to a high-level executive and should have made her point sooner instead of describing every aspect of her team’s project.

Why is perception important?

While making a presentation, you also need to be aware of how your audience will perceive you, and this perception is based on your role. Similarly, you want to project a certain image. So, if you want to be perceived as knowledgeable, then you need to convey your content in a manner that's easy to follow.

Understand the two types of perceptions and tailor your presentation to them. You need to portray yourself with conviction so that you can impact the audience the way you want to.

Key learning points in this topic

Know your audience before creating your presentation. Tailor your presentation's tone, style, length, and content to suit your audience's profile. Two types of perceptions can impact your presentation:

• How your audience perceives you
• How you want to be perceived