Article Category: Resources for Speakers

Audience Analysis Worksheet [Free PDF Download]


Reading about audience analysis and talking about audience analysis is great… in theory.

But it’s much better if you are doing audience analysis, instead.

To help you make audience analysis a positive habit, I’m sharing a free audience analysis worksheet.

Audience Analysis Worksheet

Go for it… download a copy of this free audience analysis worksheet (PDF).

Why use a worksheet?

I’m a big believer in worksheets, templates, check lists, cheat sheets, etc. I use them professionally and personally for many tasks, including speech preparation. Worksheets help focus your energy and make a seemingly complex task simple to perform.

Here’s why I like this audience analysis worksheet:

Audience Analysis Series
  • It’s short.
    Just a single page, double-sided.
  • It includes a brief overview of the three primary dimensions: demographic, psychological, and contextual.
  • It prompts you to probe into 28 common criteria to ask about your audience.
  • For each question (given in the left column), you simply fill in:
    • A brief analysis of your audience (middle column), and
    • Tweaks you can make to your presentation to better align with your audience. These are practical actions that you can take to improve some aspect of your speech. (right column)

For example, you might fill in the first couple rows like this:

Criteria Analyze your audience To align with your audience, how can you enhance your content?
How old are they? Ranges from 20 to 75 n/a
Men? Women? Mixed? Women Research quotations from women in the field, and tweak stories and anecdotes to feature female heroes.

Note: Use “n/a” if you don’t feel that this particular criteria impacts your presentation.

Using and Sharing the Worksheet

I hope this worksheet helps you perform audience analysis for every presentation that you give. Once you make it a habit, you will find that your presentations will have greater impact with your audiences.

Feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues. Print copies and pass them around if you like.

As always, let me know if this resource can be made even more useful for you. Share your ideas in the comments.

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Add a Comment

Comments icon13 Comments

  1. Kent says:

    Finally, I got something formal to help me to analyze my audience. 🙂

  2. Tim Riecker says:

    Andrew – I love the worksheet. Thanks for this series reminding us that our audience and their needs must always be our primary focus. I’ve posted your information on my blog.

  3. Andrew I would be remiss if I didn’t take the time to thank you for this Audience Checklist. I routinely gather as much information as I can about an audience but this makes it consistent and more efficient.
    Thanks, I appreciate it.
    Betty

    1. Andrew Dlugan says:

      You’re welcome, Betty.

      I’m looking for opportunities to offer more templates and checklists to Six Minutes readers.

  4. Excellent! This is really helpful – thanks for providing such great resources, insightful and practical – thanks.

    1. Andrew Dlugan says:

      You’re welcome, Peter.

  5. JazQ says:

    Thank you so much for the audience analysis worksheet. From Toastmasters, I am beginning to expand my public speaking opportunities and your worksheet is so timely for me. Your articles on audience analysis have been very helpful. Thanks for your generosity!

  6. Tom Fuszard says:

    Powerful worksheet, Andrew. Thanks for sharing.

  7. odell says:

    I am trying to put together a presentation that I can use everytime I have to present my non profit to a group etc.
    Thanks

  8. sofiane says:

    Hello ,
    my name is Sofiane ,i m new to the public speaking,thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.God bless you!
    Do my audience need to know the subject of my speech?do they need to know what i m going talk about during the audience analysis ?
    Thanks

  9. Vance Halstead says:

    Hello! I’m an English teacher in Japan and I teach presentation and logical speaking courses. I find your site very useful. Thank you! I would like to download the audience analysis worksheet for presentations, so i’m subscribing. I can’t seem to find a link on the page. Please help me out.

    Thank you,
    Vance

    1. Vance Halstead says:

      I found it. Thanks!

  10. Susan Hodo says:

    I’m using these tools to enhance my Beginning Speech public high school class.

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