Content GPS – How to Speak The Audience’s Language
Once you understand how your clients, customers, employees and audiences think you can communicate with more influence and authority. What we need is a communications GPS and a map that shows us how to speak the audience’s language. Here’s how to develop messages that reach everyone, capture their attention, and motivate them to do what you want them to do.
Turn-By-Turn Directions
It would be fantastic to tap a few terms into your smartphone and get a map with directions that would help you find and connect with the people you rely on for success. Well, it’s not quite that easy, but if you put what you know about people’s learning and thinking styles to work, you can make a better connection every single time.
The Audience is Just Like You
This is the third part of a series of articles about understanding how we are all wired to think, learn and process information. If you missed it, Part #1 gives you a quick, fun quiz that identifies your personal learning style. It only takes a minute or two.
CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE QUIZ
Part #2 gives you some easy tricks and tips you can use to maximize your own performance based on your personal thinking style. If you need to catch up:
CLICK HERE TO LEARN THE TRICKS & TIPS
Now let’s put all of that together for the payoff – how to design content that speaks the language of the audience, grabs and holds their attention, and motivates them to take action.
What Are People Thinking?
Visual – Auditory – Kinesthetic … these are the three basic ways that people think, learn and process information. Let’s think about what they mean when you are developing communications, marketing and event content.
About 40% of your clients, customers, employees and audiences are visual people, so they like to look at diagrams and images and not listen to you very closely.
About 30% are auditory people who like to listen and talk. They don’t pay much attention to all of your pictures, charts and graphs.
And about 30% are restless, kinesthetic people who lose interest quickly because they like to decide, go and do.
To generate the results you need, you have to speak the audience’s language and in the ways that connect with them. So your communications, marketing and event content should be a mixture of all three styles. Think of it as a GPS with the route marked and some irritating voiceover woman with an accent giving you directions.
VISUAL People
Visual communication is universal for all sighted people. Even people who are strongly auditory learners rely on it.
Have you ever wondered why a big portion of your audience tunes out when you give them a long, detailed document, presentation or piece of marketing collateral? Visual people think, learn and process information by seeing images, colors and action. Just like the name suggests, they tend to be big idea or big picture people.
But just because something is on a screen or a page, it doesn’t make it visual!
How You Reach Them
• Communicate benefits and meaning
• Keep it short and focused
• Use lots of relevant visuals
• Use words as graphics
• Go at a faster pace
• No lists or bullets!
What You Say
Use visual terms and language:
“You’ll see the results.”
“Look at this fact.”
“Imagine what would happen.”
Think of your information as an ad or layout. Visual people are attracted by how things look as much as by what they mean.
AUDITORY People
Hearing is #2 on the Sensory Hit Parade. People with a strong auditory communication style like to hear information. Then they do a lot of mental analysis and processing to determine what the sounds mean. All this brainwork requires that they are actively involved. Where visual people tend to tune in and out, auditory people are right there and paying attention.
But just because these people like to hear information, it doesn’t mean you can talk them to death.
How You Reach Them
Think Show & Tell
Step-by-step demonstrations that match words and images work well. They will associate your words with the steps.
Let Them Talk
This is where audience interaction pays off. Give them opportunities to talk. Instead of a presentation followed by discussion, flip it around. Let people talk about the topic first. Then go back and present around what they learned.
Call and Response
There’s a reason why “call and response” is such a powerful communication tool in music, events and sermons. The speaker makes a statement and it’s punctuated by the responses from the audience. So ask the audience to repeat key points out loud. The more you can get people to say it, the more they’ll remember the idea.
Use Music & Sounds
Voices are instantly human. Sound effects define a place. Music is universal. Use music and sounds to communicate and reinforce your ideas.
KINESTHETIC People
These are the forgotten people. Kinesthetic people are all about touching, moving and doing. But they are usually the ones with their heads bowed as they play with their smartphones and pray for the coffee break.
Remember, they can be as much as 50% of the people at the receiving end of your messages, marketing and communications. So get them on board by giving them something to see and do. One of my big pieces of advice is “Always Give Them A Show.” That’s what you do to communicate with this important group.
Kinesthetic people remember what they do – NOT what they see and hear.
How You Reach Them
Keep Things Moving
Take all the tips and techniques you use for visual and auditory people and do them more often.
Short & Active
Use the 3-minute rule. Have no more than three minutes of lecture or explanation before the group does something.
More Discussion & Less Lecture
Form small groups and triads to explore ideas. Instead of discussions, schedule problem-solving and then let each group explain what they decided. Don’t be afraid to use activities in larger groups. I’ve seen extraordinary sessions where the audience just spoke to the people next to them. It doesn’t have to be precise.
Activities and Not Competitions
Kinesthetic people aren’t automatically competitive. They tend to like sports because of all the action – but often business games and competitions get in the way. They like activity and variety, not winning. Make sure activities have a point and a clear result.
Make Your Messages Easy To Follow
So far, we’ve looked at communication styles as three distinct groups. Of course, they aren’t. The goal of all of our communication is to provide messages with value, meaning and insight. Communications, marketing and event content are just the pipe. Just like a GPS helps you reach your destination, a balanced mixture of communication techniques will make your messages the easiest to follow. Here are the landmarks you need to remember:
• The goal of communication is understanding and action.
• Talking isn’t communication. Words alone aren’t meaning.
• Music, sounds, video, words and visuals all have to be in the context of the message. They have to mean something and not just fill up space.
• Communication is active. You don’t watch it – you do it. Give people something relevant to do that personalizes the meaning, and they’ll remember it.
Communication’s Golden Rule
Okay, you may be a Kinesthetic/Auditory or Visual/Auditory person. You know how you like to learn and use information. So take time to customize your message for different “ears.” Make sure your clients, customers, employees tune in and don’t get lost along the way. Tap this destination into your GPS – Communication’s Golden Rule. Then you’ll see the way to:
Communicate to others the way you would have them communicate to you.
