Adapting Your Message to Your Audience Module 2 Adapting Your Message to Your Audience ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Module 2 Skills to Analyze your audience when composing messages Adapt the content, organization, and form of your messages to meet audience needs ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Module 2 Outline 1/Who is my audience? 2/Why is audience so important? 3/What do I need to know about my audience? 4/How do I use audience analysis to reach my audience? 5/What if my audiences have different needs? 6/How do I reach my audience? ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Kinds of Audiences Initial Audience: First to receive the message, may route to other audiences, may have requested the message Primary Audience: Makes the decision: to act on your message—or not Secondary Audience: May comment on your message or implement ideas within the message ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Kinds of Audiences Gatekeeper Audience: May stop a message, may be the initial audience, may be external to the organization Watchdog Audience: Pays attention to the messaging between the author and the primary audience, may act on message in the future ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

The Communication Process Perception Interpretation Choice/ Selection Encoding/ Decoding Channel Noise The Communication Process Reality Stimulus *Transmission through a Channel *Perception *Perception *Decoding *Interpretation *Interpretation *Choice/Selection *Choice/Selection *Encoding *Encoding *Feedback Person B Person A ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

Audience Analysis Factors What do I need to know about my audience? Everything that’s relevant to your message! What is relevant? Their Knowledge Base, Demographic Factors, Personality, Values and Beliefs, Past Behaviour ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

Adapting Messages to an Audience How do I use audience analysis to reach my audience? Your adapted message should reflect a unique: Strategy, organization or structure, word choice, style, document design, photographs and visuals ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Discourse Community What is a discourse community? Group of people who share assumptions about The channels, formats, and styles to use The topics to discuss How to discuss topics What constitutes evidence ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

Organizational (Corporate) Culture Behaviour norms in organizations are revealed Verbally through the organization’s myths, stories, and heroes. Nonverbally through the allocation of space, money, and power. ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Audience Needs To reach your audience, focus on Content and choice of details. Organization. Level of language. Technical terms and theory. ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Written Messages Make it easier to Present many specific details Present extensive or complex financial data Minimize undesirable emotions ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Oral Messages Make it easier to Answer questions, resolve conflicts, build consensus Use emotion to help persuade Get an immediate action or response. Focus attention on specific points Modify a proposal not acceptable in its original form ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.

For Written and Oral Messages Adapt the message to the audience. Show the audience how it will benefit from the idea, policy, service, or product. Overcome objections the audience may have. Use a good attitude and positive emphasis. Use visuals to clarify or emphasize material. Specify what the audience should do. ©2007 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. All rights reserved.