Opening Your Story Effectively to Your Target Audience
As you are relating to your target audience (whether in person or in writing), you will need to share a story with them each time you share anything with them. You have many different vehicles at your disposal and you will want to mix them up to ensure that you keep things interesting.
The purpose of the opener
Whether you start right out of the gate with your story or you use some other launching method (such as a quotation, question, etc.), your objective is to grab the attention of your target audience members. After you have gotten their attention, the next thing that you will want to do is to keep them engaged so that they stay with you for the entire time that you are sharing. If you think about that as a journey that you are taking together, you certainly want them to stay with you throughout the entire journey so that your target audience can achieve maximum benefit from what you are sharing with them.
[tweetthis]The opener is so important for you and your audience because it grabs attention and helps them to decide to stick with you.[/tweetthis]Another important purpose that your opener serves is to assist you if you happen to be experiencing any writer’s block. It can help you to get things moving more easily than you would be able to do otherwise.
The effectiveness of your opener
The effect that an effective opener should have is that the reader (or listener) reacts right away to what is being shared. The same should go for the rest of the content as well. If you do it correctly, all of the points that you are making in your presentation (or written content) should be retained by your audience members for a very long time. At the very beginning of the content, your target audience should not only be reacting positively to what you are sharing but they should also be hungry for more and more of what you might share after that point. Once you have effectively nailed the opener, the rest will follow more easily and you will be able to successfully make a wonderful impression on your target audience members.
Be as creative as possible
When it comes to creating content, creativity is essential for your success. One thing that might work very well for you is if you are subtle regarding what you want to share with your target audience. Of course, that will only work when it comes to ideas that you will present in the very near future. It cannot work for the idea that you are speaking about in the present. You can hint at other things that connect well with other ideas and you can use appropriate, clever analogies that clarify the concepts that you are trying to bring across to your target audience. This is a very effective way to engage your target audience and to keep them engaged. They will also add a dimension to the understanding that your audience has of what you are sharing and of what you are doing.
Present yourself as humble
Self-confidence is a wonderful thing in certain situations. However, being humble can also serve you well in other situations. If you come across as though you are not sure that you know all of the answers (which nobody does), that leaves room for your target audience to help you to find those answers. That is truly a win-win situation because you will be making your target audience members feel valued and they will undoubtedly make a solid contribution to your content and to your interaction. It will go a long way to solidifying (or fortifying) your relationship with them. You will find that your relationship must continue to grow or it will wither and die. You want to keep it alive and well at all times.
Conclusion
The opener of your content is very important because it gets the attention of your target audience (if it is done effectively) and keeps them wanting more and more. It is also very important that you have the right sort of information in your opener such as revealing what you are going to share later on. A part of what engages your audience is the idea that you have piqued their curiosity. That is a powerful motivator. All of your content is important and what you choose to share with your target audience members is at the heart of what you are trying to accomplish in business but the opener gets you (and the audience) through the door. It is the first, and extremely important, first step and it lays the foundation for what comes next.
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