How Can A Speaker Best Appeal To An Audience

Why is it essential for a speaker to appeal to their audience?

To appeal to your audience as a speaker, it is more than just the words you say. A speech can be a powerful tool for many different scenarios. Most of the time, speeches are just used to tell a story or pass on a message. In this way, if the speaker isn’t careful, the speech can sound like it’s going in another direction unintended. However, when a person gives a speech of persuasion, they want the audience, or “receiver of the message,” to respond to the speech. This creates a lot of ways for communication. All of this comes down to body language, tonality, delivery of words, pauses, & other minute details.

If you have to give a speech soon, but you’re nervous about it, you’re not the only one. Many people get a little nervous before giving a speech. Fortunately, planning and preparing for the event can help relieve some of the stress.

But how can a speaker best appeal to an audience? The answer to this question can help you get ready for your speech and stop worrying about it. Learn how to be the best speaker you can be by reading on.

Getting your audience’s attention

To appeal to your audience, you need to understand why they are there. You wouldn’t present a persuasive speech to an audience for facts/information in something cold and straightforward like science. The same goes for if your audience was there, in your opinion. If you gave boring points and information dump of a speech, you would never appeal to the audience. The speaker needs to understand the context of the audience to appeal. Once you have figured out the context/goals of the audience, you will be able to dive in deeper to plan your perfect speech.

Understanding the audience so you can appeal to them

The first step to making an audience like you is to know who they are. It’s essential to think about what people in the company need when giving a business speech. They can then speak to those needs and make the speech more interesting for those working in that field.

If you’re giving a speech to a group of customers or people who want to listen, you’ll need to research your audience. Look at the guest list to figure out the ages, genders, and jobs of people who will be listening. Then, you can think of ways to communicate better with this group of people.

Informational Speech

There are many strategies to an informative speech. If the goal is to give a more presentation speech, you need to hook the audience on early to keep their attention. Appealing to the audience can be done with a proper curiosity hook & providing just enough information along the way to keep them curious. Curiosity will appeal to the audience to listen to the speaker all the way through. Interest is powerful if the speech solves a problem. Not a hard rule, but sections should lead into each other.

Example:

Speaker is talking to the audience about section 1 in their speech. They provide enough information, so the audience is interested but makes section 2 solve/build upon section 1.

You keep the audience engaged by building up or solving with future sections or parts of your speech.

Persuasive Speech

The three rhetorical appeals: Ethos, logos, and pathos, are the three main types of arguments and strategies that people use when they speak. They can be broken down into these three groups. These three appeals can be powerful tools for a speaker who wants to be more persuasive when used correctly. If you can persuade your audience, you can appeal to them as a speaker.

Ethos

It’s essential to show that you are qualified to speak to the audience about a specific topic. This is the first part of Ethos. It’s like having all those degrees hanging on the wall in your doctor’s office. As soon as you’ve shown why you’re an expert on the subject, it would help if you built trust. When everything is stripped away, Ethos is about trust. Trust is the first part of appealing to your audience because if they do not trust the speaker, they will not engage with you.

Logos

As you make your case, think of this as the logic behind it. You want your points to seem so simple and commanding that your audience can’t think of a better way to make them.

In Aristotle’s opinion, the best way to use logos is for your audience to reach the conclusion of your argument on their own, just before you make your big reveal. Then, because they were clever enough to figure it out, they will enjoy the fact that they did, and the reveal will be even better.

Pathos

The more emotional you make your logical argument, the more likely it will get people to believe it. So we use pathos in a way that makes us think of something dramatic and sad. Besides, pathos is more complex than that. It can be humor, love, patriotism, or any other emotional response. This is what we call “pathos.”

Once again, the most important thing to do is to know who you’re writing for. If you want to make people angry or sad about how humans have hurt the honeybee, you might not get the response you want from the group that helps people with bee allergies.

You can even invoke pathos by admitting a mistake (We have all made mistakes…). You could try to throw your opponent off balance with this in a clever move.

Pathos is the way you connect with your audience on a human level. If you can make that human connection, you will appeal to them as a speaker building your rapport.

Combine all three to appeal to your audience as a speaker

Finally, even though persuasion speeches are so common, they can be hard to deliver well. Fortunately, there are many different ways to plan a persuasive speech. Most of them fall under the three rhetorical appeals: Ethos, logos, and pathos. In the right way, these appeals can be practical tools for persuading people to do what you want.

Plan Out the Speech for effective delivery to your audience

People can tell if a speaker hasn’t thought about what they want to say well. Because the speaker didn’t even plan, they wonder why they should pay attention to what the speaker says.

To make your speech more interesting and clear, write down an outline. Afterward, your listeners will be able to tell that you care about the subject of your speech. Later, they will sense the excitement and want to hear more because the subject is clear to them as intriguing.

Make that human connection to best appeal to your audience as a speaker

Many people try to sound too formal and robotic when speaking in public. Putting something like this together doesn’t make sense or make you feel bad. It also stops people from asking you questions and talking to you.

As soon as you act like a person instead of a robot, your audience will be able to connect with you more. They’ll be interested in the points you’re making and will be open to your ideas and opinions, so they’ll listen. Read about corporate speakers to get some ideas on being exciting and authentic.

Q/A Time allows the audience to dive deeper into the subject or apply it personally to themselves

As a public speaker, question periods are essential for making your audience feel like they’re part of the show. They let people ask questions about things they don’t understand or want to learn more about. The way they feel is essential.

In addition, setting up a formal Q&A time means that you won’t have to answer questions all the time. As a result, you can better follow your outline and stay on track.

Timing is everything

You only have 60 seconds to get your audience’s attention, so you must engage your audience immediately when you give a speech. But in a persuasive speech, it’s not enough to get your audience’s attention; the speaker also needs to show their credibility quickly. The speaker can build credibility by appealing to their ethical logic or Ethos (talked about above).