Audience Analysis (Part - C)

"Successful communication rests on having a clear understanding of an audience and its needs." ~ Eileen Scholes

Adapting message to Audience

If you know your audience well, you can quickly analyse the audience and adapt the message in speedy way. But if you do not know the audience and the message is very important, you should take time to analyse your audience formally and write the message while keeping the analysis in mind. You can adapt the strategy of your message, organisation and style to meet the audience's needs.

STRATEGY

• Protect the reader's ego.
• Decide the appropriate mixture of the use of logic and emotions. Also decide what details to use.
•  Choose appealing arguments and convincing statistics that convey readers' benefits.
• Emphasize positive aspects.
• Decide how much information to include in the message.

ORGANISATION

• Convey the message in direct way except in case of bad news.
• Make the organisational pattern clear to the audience.
• Use appropriate heads and sub-headings.

STYLE

• Use easy words, mixture of sentences, and paragraphs with topic sentences.
• Avoid words that sounds defensive/ arrogant.
• Avoid words that provoke negativity.
• Use conversational not "academic" language.
• Prefer to use language that the audience knows best.

VISUALS

• Use graphs, tables and photos to convey the message.
• Design visuals in advance.
• Use appropriate colors.

CONTENTS AND CHOICE OF DETAILS

• Provide and overview of executive summary for readers to have the main points.
• Provide enough detail in the body of the document for the primary audience.
• If the primary audience do not want details, provide such details in appendices. 

ORGANISATION

• Use appropriate headings and tables of contents so that readers can turn to the portions that interest them.
• Use graphs, diagrams and photos at appropriate places of the text.
• Organize the message based on primary audiences' attitudes toward it.

LEVEL OF FORMALITY

• Use more formal style when you write to audience consisting of different ethnic backgrounds.
• Use more formal style for messages for the external audience. For internal documents, one can avoid formality.

USE OF TECHNICAL TERMS AND THEORY

• Put background information under separate headings.
• Provide the glossary of terms at the end in the form of appendix.
• Technical terms can also be defined in sideline material.

Adapting messages to audiences with different needs, one can design the message by following above principles. The message can be homogeneous when the audience consists of the people with same interest, knowledge and needs. 
but when different members of the audience have different needs, it is not possible to meet everyone's needs. In such case one should meet the needs of gate-keeper and primary audiences first.