Do you remember getting a lecture from your parents or teachers that you had heard before—and finding yourself completely unconvinced because their points were not persuasive the first time? Or perhaps you’ve heard a sales pitch or an ad slogan that seemed lame initially and only more so every subsequent time? This can be a problem for public speakers, too—as a student named Henry discovered while giving a required persuasive speech in an advanced speech class. This speech critiqued the existence of climate change. In making his speech, Henry picked up where he had left off in an earlier informative speech explaining how people uncritically accepted what they heard from television news media. In the original speech, Henry had used climate change as one of the examples of “stories that television media push on people”—and he added that climate change was a myth. At this point in the speech, people had showed that they were critical (rolling their eyes and smirking), but Henry had failed to notice. When he received compliments for his speech delivery, he took that as a sign that his audience had agreed with his message. When Henry revisited the issue in his persuasive speech, he repeated the same criticisms of climate change—and was later surprised to learn that the audience disagreed with him. Henry’s mistake was not in taking an unpopular position about climate change but in ignoring the audience’s reaction to what he had said the first time and simply repeating those arguments for the same audience.

Analyzing your audience also includes gauging listeners’ prior exposure11—the extent to which they have already heard your message. The degree of this prior exposure should guide you either to include particular points in your speech or to craft something entirely new. How can you determine whether your audience has had prior exposure to your topic—and then use that information to shape your presentation? Ask yourself the following questions:

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Has My Audience Heard This Message Before? If your answer is no, your listeners have had zero prior exposure and will have no preconceived notions about or positions on your message. You can craft your message as you want, but you may have to explain all relevant issues and concepts in basic terms. If your answer is yes, your audience has had prior exposure. Move on to the second question.

Has My Audience Responded Positively to the Message? If the goal of an earlier speech on your same topic was persuasion, consider whether audience members actually engaged in the actions or adopted the beliefs the speaker advocated. If the purpose of that earlier speech was to inform, determine whether audience members became interested in the subject and understood the information the speaker presented.

If you answer yes—meaning your audience responded positively to the message in the past—then use the new speech to reinforce the previous message, add any pertinent new information, and motivate your audience to take action (if you are giving a persuasive speech).

If you answer no—meaning your audience did not respond positively to the message in the past—then avoid the approach used in the previous presentation. Now proceed to the third question.

Why Did the Previous Message Fail? Assess what went wrong the last time your audience heard the message. Then use the resulting insights to tailor a more successful approach. In the case of Henry’s speech, he would have benefited from asking his classmates why they disagreed with his position in his first speech. Perhaps he would have discovered that some of them questioned his knowledge of science, some of them knew about climate change only from what they had heard on television, and some may have found him a bit arrogant. Knowing the answers to this question would have given Henry other options for his second speech.

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Additionally, if your audience has had a major change in perspective since the previous presentation, consider whether you need to adjust your message to accommodate listeners’ new viewpoints. For example, during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama pushed for universal health care coverage. Given his win, Democrats assumed that support for the new president would translate into ongoing backing of the health care bill. However, in late 2009, many members of Congress found themselves confronted by angry constituents who were not amenable to the bill.

What happened? Democrats had failed to ask themselves whether anything had changed for voters since their prior exposure to the message. And something had changed—namely, people’s economic situation and job security, due to the 2008 economic crash. Many were concerned about growing deficits and increases in taxes and government spending. As the economic slump continued, voters on both sides of the issue worried about the cost and effectiveness of an expensive federal health care program. Both the Democratic Party and President Obama realized they needed to recalibrate their message to show the necessity of affordable health care access in the face of economic uncertainty. Due to their updated message, they were able to rally support for the Affordable Care Act, which passed in 2010.