How Public Speaking Can Help Your Marketing

Many people have a fear of public speaking. As a business owner; however, you are probably faced with situations where have no choice but to get involved with some sort of public speaking. You can conquer your fears and your public speaking efforts can help your business’s marketing campaign.

The secret behind successful public speaking

Believe it or not, there is a formula that, if followed closely, will help you to become an expert at public speaking and that expertise that you develop will, in turn, help your marketing efforts tremendously. There are a few different approaches that you can take to accomplish this.

• Proving your credibility: As a public speaker, you are in a position of having to establish your credibility with your audience members. The first thing that you would do in that situation is to say something to convince your audience members that you have the experience that would make them view you as a credible source and an expert in that particular area. When it comes to connecting with your audience, you must do two things very effectively. First, you must reach them on an emotional level. Whatever you choose to say, it must be something that they react to with some sort of feeling. Second, you must convince them that you are someone whom they can trust. Trust and credibility go hand in hand and if you are able to build your credibility, you will probably be able to build your trust with those people as well.

• Reaching your audience members on an emotional level: Everyone (in business and in life) has a story to tell. Your story will elicit an emotional reaction of some sort. The stronger and more effective your story is, the more powerfully your target audience will react to you. If they react to you in that manner, they will most likely eventually want to do business with you at some point. As you are telling your story, it is a great idea to use a combination of words and graphic images. One of the main reasons why images work so well is that many people are visual and they react much more to images than they do to words. An important part of your story is expressing what you stand for and your principles that surround your business. That is where the marketing side comes into the public speaking. You have a business and your business is a clear reflection of who you are. They are tied together very closely.

• Using your logical side: When you are speaking in public, whatever you are expressing must be convincing to the people who are listening to you. As you are speaking, you will need to back up your information with facts from other sources so that your audience members don’t think that you pulled the information out of thin air. Credible resources go a long way. You need to back up whatever you are saying appropriately.

• Making your presentation interesting to your audience: If you go on and on and it is all about you and your business, you will lose the attention of your audience. You must keep it interesting for them,  yet, at the same time, you must get your point across effectively. Your presentation shouldn’t be too long and it should captivate the people who are there to listen to what you have to say. You want to keep them in the palm of your hand throughout your presentation.

• Don’t just stand in one place and talk: As challenging as it might be, if at all possible, use visual aids when you are delivering your presentation. If you are able to use them effectively, they have the potential to make your presentation go from good to outstanding. They can captivate and motivate your audience members. Although it seems like such an obvious thing to do, you may be surprised to know that not everyone uses visual aids in their presentations. They really can make a tremendous difference.

• Make sure that you rehearse: Practice really does make perfect. Perfecting your presentation is important for you as a presenter and it is important for you as a marketer. Even if you have a tremendous amount of experience with public speaking, you should always practice before you present. You will be much more comfortable and your efforts will come off much more smoothly. All of your hard work and effort will be obvious once you stand in front of your audience and tell them what you want them to know.

Conclusion

Developing your public speaking skills will help your marketing efforts (and results) tremendously. They truly go hand in hand and they are both critical to the success of your business. Once you have given a presentation, you need to get extra mileage out of it by continuing to interact with the people who attended your presentation. That is just the beginning of your relationship with each person who attended. The relationships will blossom and you will have many productive, fruitful years together. There are many different ways to pursue your public speaking opportunities, which you can then tie into your marketing efforts. You should think of public speaking as a form of marketing that works in tandem with the more traditional forms of marketing that you are probably using.

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