Twenty-Four Ways to Connect With Your Audience

By Karen Susman

If you want to get your message across to your audience members, you have to connect with them. Making a connection with your audience doesn’t happen just during your actual presentation. Here are twenty-four ways to connect before, during, and after your presentation.

Connect Before:

1. Do your homework on your audience. Plan your presentation from their perspective. You can’t feel their pain if you don’t know their pain.
   
   
2. Get to your presentation early to check out the physical and emotional atmosphere.
   
   
3. Visit with audience members before your presentation. You’ll learn what’s going on and you’ll build friends in the crowd.
   
   
4. Listen to and observe events and speakers that come before you. If you’re scheduled to speak at 8:15 PM and the meeting starts at 7:00 PM, arrive at 6:30 PM. (Earlier if you have to test audio/visual equipment.) Be ready to adapt your remarks depending on what you hear, see, and feel.
   
   
5. Weave what goes on before your presentation into your presentation. Refer by name to the speaker before you. Ask permission of an audience member to use his name in reference to your topic. For instance, “As Jim in engineering said…”
   
   Connect During:
   
   
6. Use your body. Pause before you begin. Walk toward the audience. If you can’t walk toward the audience, lean in. Use eye contact. Move meaningfully with each point you make.
   
   
7. Observe your audience for their reactions. Respond. Repeat. Shift gears. Don’t be on automatic pilot.
   
   
8. Use appropriate energy. The larger the audience and the room, the more energetic you have to be. Animate your face, too.
   
   
9. Use your voice range, volume, and speed to emphasize and energize your remarks.
   
   
10. Gesture. The bigger the group and room, the bigger the gesture.
    
    
11. Be prepared to be spontaneous. This sounds like an oxymoron, but being able turn on a dime in response to your audience's needs is vital. Remember, your speaking is all about them.
    
    
12. Let your personality shine through.
    
    
13. Don’t read your remarks. Don’t read from slides.
    
    
14. Enliven your remarks with stories, quotations, examples, analogies, metaphors, and unusual visuals.
    
    
15. Don’t overuse PowerPoint. Less is more.
    
    
16. Use pictures in your visuals. Put people, faces, animals, your family, etc. in the pictures. This gives your audience an emotional zap that lodges your points in their brains.
    
    Connect After:
    
    
17. Stick around after your presentation. The good questions come up during breaks and after your bow.
    
    
18. Be available. If you’re rushing or packing up your equipment, anyone who wants to speak with you will feel disregarded. Really listen to people. If you have to vacate the stage quickly to make room for the next speaker, tell fans you’ll meet with them in the hall or at the reception.
    
    
19. Place yourself by the exit doors at the end of your presentation so you can visit, smile, shake hands, and make eye contact.
    
    
20. Offer to send bonus information via mail or email to audience members. Ask them to specify the requested information on the back of their business cards.
    
    
21. Follow through by promptly sending out requested material.
    
    
22. Request the mailing list or cards of attendees. Send them a reminder note within two weeks of your presentation.
    
    
23. Offer to sign them up for your e-newsletter or an email follow up.
    
    
24. Write an article for the audience’s newsletter.
    

Take advantage of the time before, during, and after your presentation to make a connection with audience members. You’ll boost your message’s effectiveness and longevity. You’ll be remembered. And, if you are interested in selling products, services, or yourself to your audience, you’ll maximize your success.


Karen Susman speaks internationally and coaches individuals and groups on power presentation skills. Her special report, 53 Ways To Involve Your Audience, is available at www.karensusman.com/products/htm for just $7. For a free tip sheet on Eleven Ways To Keep Your Audience Interested, e-mail Karen at karen@karensusman.com.

Published in Networking Today, February, 2004.