Develop an understanding of the needs and expectations of your unique audience. Remember that there's no one message that will appeal to every audience. Instead, get to know the audience before delivering your message by communicating with them through a letter, email, or taking a survey of their thoughts on the topic you'll be presenting.
Work diligently to create strategies that will appeal to the audience's thoughts on the issue at hand. If you know that the audience already agrees with you about your message, think about how you can inspire them to take action and turn more people toward your message. If you know the audience disagrees with your message, you should focus your delivery on persuasion techniques, such as refuting other arguments and providing relevant and substantial evidence for your claims.
Practice your speech or edit your paper from the audience's perspective. Instead of considering whether you're getting your point across, consider how your audience will react to your message. Recognize if you're using language that is condescending or disrespectful of the opposing opinion and remove such language from your speech or paper.
Encourage the audience to respond to your message. This will let your audience know that you value their opinion, making them more likely to respect and value your message in return. Allow breaks in your speech for audience response and incorporate the responses into the next part of your speech. Use the responses to refute any arguments that go against your own and to determine what your audience thinks of your message so far.