How do you use audience personas to rehearse your presentation?

Almost 80-years later, an individual's behavior first introduced by Maslow has naturally moved on or evolved, arguably hastened by the advent of "knowledge on demand," available via the internet. Ideally, consumers want just enough data so that they can make up their own mind.

Some ways to get started: - send the organiser a form to know the audience profile - find out the common challenges that the audience profile is facing - teach strategies on top of making people feel inspired

After accepting any speaking assignment I try to get audience personas and demographics before preparing for the speech. It helps me tailor my message to resonate with specific groups. By imagining the needs, interests, and challenges of different personas, you can refine your content to address what matters most to them. This approach enhances your delivery, making it more engaging and relevant. It also prepares you to anticipate questions or concerns that may arise. Overall, practicing with personas helps boost confidence and ensures your presentation connects with a diverse audience effectively.

As a general rule, customers will focus first on assessing that their own needs, or the needs of their company, are met. But once those lower-level needs have been met, their attention naturally shifts to the next higher level where they will ensure that their expectations are met by confirming that certain hygiene factors, that every company must have, are present. It is at this point that customers will then begin to validate their initial observations, most likely on the internet, followed then by aligning their core beliefs with that of the company’s. Once the customer has progressed and finally arrived at alignment, you have a willing and able customer wanting to do business with your company.

In my experience, the best person to help you create the audience persona is the event organiser themselves. You must ask them qualifying questions to see what challenges the audience faces and then use tools like past media articles about the topic to narrow it down.

To create audience personas for rehearsing my presentations, I usually start by identifying key segments of your audience, such as their demographics (age, profession, education level), and psychographics (interests, values, pain points). Also, give each persona a name and brief background to make them feel more real. Consider what each persona cares about in relation to your topic—what are their challenges, goals, or questions? Tailor your message by thinking about how each persona would receive your content. Finally, adjust your tone, examples, and delivery style based on these personas to ensure your presentation is relevant and engaging to all segments.

To rehearse your presentation using audience personas, develop detailed profiles for your audience segments, detailing their demographics, interests, and expectations. Tailor your content and delivery style to these personas, using language, examples, and engagement methods that resonate with them. Anticipate and practice responding to their potential questions and reactions. Rehearse with peers acting as these personas to gain feedback and adjust accordingly. This approach ensures your presentation is finely tuned to the needs and preferences of your audience, making it more effective and engaging.

To rehearse your presentation using audience personas, start with the demographic but focus on the psychographic. Psychographics are the beliefs your persona has, what they enjoy doing, what makes them tick, what causes them to be afraid. When you go deeper into the psychographic, you are able to resonate with your persona and empathise with their struggles. The key is to be so good at articulating their problems that they feel you understand them well.

I would suggest start by gathering insights from actual audience interactions, post-event surveys, or one-on-one discussions. Look for patterns in their responses—what resonated, what was unclear, or where engagement dropped. Use this data to adjust your personas’ pain points, interests, or knowledge levels. For instance, if feedback shows some audiences needed more context, modify the personas to reflect a broader range of experience. Continuously refine the personas to ensure they represent evolving audience needs, enabling you to deliver more targeted and impactful presentations in the future.

To refine your audience personas based on feedback, collect and analyze input from various channels post-presentation, noting how different segments responded. Update personas with new insights, adjusting characteristics and preferences to better match audience needs. Test these refined personas in subsequent presentations, observing engagement levels to validate changes. Iteratively apply feedback to continually hone your personas, documenting the evolution and impact on audience interaction. This process ensures your content remains relevant and engaging, improving the overall effectiveness of your speaking engagements.

To refine your audience personas, you can conduct your big conference speech with smaller audiences. This means you can go to smaller testing grounds and get feedback, insight, what resonates and what doesn't to get real feedback. Now you have a MVS (minimum viable speech) that is better off when you finally face a bigger audience!

To keep audience personas updated and relevant, periodically review and refine them based on continuous feedback, industry trends, and direct audience engagement. Utilize analytics tools to monitor changes in audience behavior and preferences, and incorporate these insights into persona adjustments. Engage with peers for broader perspective shifts and stay informed through professional development in your field. This proactive approach ensures your personas accurately reflect current audience dynamics, enabling you to tailor presentations effectively to meet evolving needs and interests.

To keep your audience personas relevant, you have to be on the field. This means giving smaller speeches that test the response to your speech. You could also interview some of them for focused discussions to get answers. Test preferences by coming up with possible topics they will resonate with. Then, craft speeches that align with audience challenge, problems, fears, passions and motivations.

Beyond refining audience personas, consider contextual awareness to align with the audience's broader environment, embrace new technologies for enhanced engagement, and practice cultural sensitivity to connect across differences. Invest in personal development to improve speaking and emotional intelligence skills, and build relationships for deeper audience insights. Be flexible to adapt content during presentations based on audience reactions, and rigorously evaluate and reflect on each performance to continuously improve. These strategies ensure your presentations are dynamic, relevant, and resonate deeply with your audience.