Tailoring Your Message

Last week, I sent my post Making Sure You are Understood to my newsletter subscribers. I got a few emails in response - one of which raised a question about tailoring the content for a mixed audience. I was asked the same  question at a workshop last week, so I think it might be of interest to others. I'm sharing the question, and my response to it here with very minor edits.

Hi Narayan

Happy Dussehra. Hope you are doing well. Once again a very nice and thought provoking article. Would like to hear what are some of the strategies you would suggest from understanding the need of the audience particularly if there are more than 1 in the audience so that the message can be fine tuned around concept, content or context.

Regards

SD

Subho Bijoya SD!

Great question!

I'm not going to answer the first part (understanding the need of the audience) today - as I suspect that's something you already know a lot about. In any case, there's loads of good stuff written around that already - and I don’t have anything particularly insightful to add at this point.

I will focus on the second part - having understood your audience, how do you craft the concept, content or context to suit the audience. By some crazy coincidence, this was also a question someone asked at a workshop last week, so that means I don't have to think too hard 😉

First, if you have any influence or control, avoid speaking to a widely diverse audience. Keeping an audience that has significant differences in interests and understanding engaged is  difficult. If you measure your effectiveness as whether you got your message across the way you wanted, the results are most likely going to be disappointing. Easier said than done, but if you have any influence, you should aim to keep your audience as homogenous as possible.

In terms of selecting your key messages, rather than try and convey everything that anyone in the audience might potentially want to know, focus on the few ideas you think everyone should hear. You can handle other specific interests via Q&A, and/or point them to where they can find more tailored information.

The message itself, as you already know, has 3 parts - Concept (the point you are trying to make), Content ( the particulars - which includes proof - offered as statistics, case studies, stories, anecdotes, testimonials, quotes; and process - steps on how to, related information etc), and Context ( the big picture which is already in people's minds - an overarching model or framework, or a metaphor).

The Concept is what it is - the point you are trying to get across. Here the customising comes from saying the same thing differently. Author and speaker Matt Church, suggests you do this in the following ways : State your point as a brief declaration ( think pithy newspaper headline or an evocative book title), and then restate it with some explanation ( think of the tagline that goes with the book title). For example:

• Declaration : Great leaders think exponentially
• Explanation : To create significant impact, leaders need to go beyond thinking  incrementally, and embrace exponential thinking

Also, try and make your point in as many ways as you can. For example, how would you say it to inspire  a young protege? How would you say the same thing to a cynical and practical peer with low tolerance for bovine manure?  How would you put this to your wise and sagely uncle?

When it comes to Context, you are primarily addressing WHY.  The best way to do this is to frame it in terms of something they already know and accept. This is also why having a very diverse audience is potentially a problem - depending on who you are addressing, you might have to connect your concept to  slightly different contexts. 

For example, think of how you might want to provide context for your message - a sudden change in strategy in response to the market. For someone who is well read, all you probably need to do is utter the magic word - Disruption. For others, you’d have to start with something that is already in their heads - the amazing pace of technology growth picture, everything is made in China picture, or whatever else they already know and think about.

When speaking to a mixed audience, metaphors (Context) and stories (Content) can be particularly useful. That is because we all interpret and relate to metaphors and stories in our own way. As long as you provide plausible linkage to your Concept, a good metaphor or story will get individuals making sense of it in their own unique way.

There's lots of other things that I could say about customising your message to the audience, but I'm going to take my own advice and focus on what I think would be most helpful for you to know now.

Hope this helps!

Narayan

PS: I'm delivering a public webinar on Communicating Upward on 24th October. If this is of interest to you, please register here : https://narayankamath.in/webinar

What are some other ideas you have about customising content for a mixed audience?

​Please leave a comment below or send me an email, and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.