First Step to an Effective Speech: Audience Consideration

Knowing the audience before giving a speech is essential to an effective presentation. The audience should be considered in every step of speech delivery from picking a topic to actually giving the speech. In fact, a speaker should start considering the audience before even picking a topic.
The audience is the reason a speech is given. Not considering the audience can make for a failed message delivery. Thinking of the audience as a group of individuals rather than a mass group makes the process much easier. Each individual has a different point of view so finding out as much as possible about each individual is important to become an audience-centered speaker.
This is done by first gathering information about the audience, which can done by observation or by asking general questions. Next, analyze the information given by categorizing and evaluating to determine the listener's psychological profile. Then use all of this information to adapt the speech to the audience.
Besides conducting a psychological profile analysis, a speaker should also do a situational audience analysis. This means doing an examination of a time and place of the speech to make appropriate adjustments. For instance, if presenting right before lunch, use effective techniques to avoid distractions caused by hunger in the individual listeners. The size of the audience, location, and occasion all need to be accounted.
Without considering the audience, a speaker's message will be lost and the speech will be moot. An effective speaker gathers information about the audience members and uses analyzation techniques to adapt the presentation. During the speech, watching for verbal and non-verbal feedback is important to ensure message delivery.