Running head: AUDIENCE ANALYSIS PAPER

Audience Analysis Paper

Adrian Perez

Business Communication

Kelly Parker

Audience Analysis Paper

In any organization or business, different types of meeting will take place with the organization which will involve different situations. It is critical to prepare for a business meeting especially when it involves stakeholders, your managers, salespeople, and customers. The main key to a successful meeting regardless of what is being presented is communication. How will the message be received? What type of audience will be attending? Is the message effective? All these points are important when preparing for a business meeting.

There are different characteristics of the audience to consider when preparing for a meeting. When getting ready for the meeting, identify what kind of audience will attend. There are five different types of audiences to consider. One of them is the gatekeeper, which can stop the message and will not be received by other audiences. The primary audience decides if message will be accepted. The secondary audience can maybe implement ideas after they have been approved. The auxiliary audience will not interact with the message. Last but not least, the watchdog audience has political, social, or economic power, which can base future actions on the message. All these types of audiences are going to influence the message coming across.

There are two important tools to realize when dealing with business meetings, common sense and empathy. For example, if a manager dislikes meeting on a certain room or certain day, try not to meet in that room or that specific date. Another example is if a manager likes meetings a certain way use common sense and satisfy that way. It is also very important to be open and realize that there are different types of personalities in any audience. When presenting any material especially to stockholders, managers, salespeople and customers you have to be professional at all times.

After having this in place, values, beliefs, goals and lifestyles of the audience are the next characteristics to consider. Knowing what your audience finds important allows you to organize information in a way that seems natural to your audience and to choose appeals that the audience will find persuasive (Locker & Kienzler, 2008). To analyze the organizations culture and the organization’s discourse community, ask questions to yourself about the organization itself. What is their mission? What type of environment is the company in?

For a meeting that requires presenting quarterly sales information, two communication channels are required. A communication channel is the means by which you convey the message (Locker & Kienzler, 2008). For this particular meeting, the message will be part written and part oral. The sales report can be shown on the company’s websites or even by giving every individual a copy of the report. Since this meeting involves internal and external audience, it is important that everyone understands and receives the message. Visuals should be considered as well as maybe videos. Everyone in the meeting has to be on the same page, which means message has to be clear and easy to be understood. The sales report is usually done once a month. This report summarizes profitability within the company. It is important to build goodwill, meaning a good image of yourself and of your company.

While trying to build a good image of the company, diversity plays a big part. Remember every organization has different cultures, which involves different people of different age, religion, class and race. Everyone thinks differently and acts differently on every situation. When being the speaker of a meeting, you have to learn and be prepared to use appropriate language and neutral words. What seems right to you might not seem wrong to other people. Event hand movement or gestures might be delicate when involving different types of people. Some people are slower in understanding the message or material being presented and other people are more efficient. Do not discriminate and just be as professional as possible.

How can you ensure the message is effective? Ensuring your message is effective is critical. Not getting the message across will result in a poor meeting causing confusing and frustration. In order to ensure the message is effective, make sure it is clear. The meaning the audience got is the meaning you intended. Answer all the audience questions and make sure the audience has enough information to evaluate the message and act on it. all information in the message should be accurate. Message should be error free in spelling, grammar, word order, and sentence structure. The organization of the message helped the receiver read, understand, and act on the information as quickly as possible. Last but not least, the message built a good will. Following these steps will ensure message effectiveness.

Business communication not only involves communicating a message. It requires time to analyze the type of audience to successfully transmit the message. As mentioned above, the situation and the type of meeting depends on the organization. What never changes is the diversity that exists within each organization.

References

Locker, K. O., & Kienzler, D. S. (2008). Business and Administrative Communication (8th ed.). : McGraw-Hill.