Speech writing is a creative task. Some people ignore this aspect and make it way too serious. Others will go way off the deep end the other way and not maintain a professional appearance. Both sides can be guilty of ignoring the importance or coupling a good product with the right marketing strategy and planning. Considering both the eventualities, this article throws light on a few tips for developing your speech writing business.

• Get the message clear – Before drafting the speech, spend ample time with the client and make sure that you understand the core purpose of the speech. This objective must be outlined in your speech in a way that the target audience can easily understand.

• Know your target audience – This might sound cumbersome but believe me it is not a very lengthy task. All you need is a quick overview of the external environment where the speech is to be given along with the regional characteristics of the population. For instance, a message intended for the poor and largely uneducated cannot revolve around difficult statistics or complicated scientific facts. On the contrary, the speeches drafted for a conference can certainly be a high-end product.

• Couple with right supporting material – Visual aids and other such means of supplementary communication can add the desired flavor to an otherwise dull topic. The supporting material along with the right body language can prompt an otherwise less interested audience to sit up and listen.

• Add the salt – Add the humorous touch to your speeches. This can liven up the audience and help you gain many more listeners than otherwise. Metaphors and one-liners are also members of the same family and must be used among lines. However, do not overdo it. Also, while using such terms and phrases, please keep your key message in mind and try not to deviate too much from it.

• Be your own editor – There are mistakes, which maybe nobody can identify, but counting on this does not makes any sense. Your speeches are your business, so they must be written with the utmost precision. Give each speech a thorough proofreading and grammatical check before you hand it over.

• Jargons and dictionary – The use of jargons or complicated words from your dictionary depends entirely upon the target audience and the environment wherein the speech is to be delivered. At times to ensure that the message reaches a particular segment, you can use jargon or words from the local language and to help form a bond with the audience. However, there are speeches which have no scope whatsoever for such phrases.

These simple tricks of self-editing and understanding the message can help you sideline competition in the long run and achieve the desired growth in the speech writing business. Writing speeches is an art.