Everybody close your eyes. Now, imagine you are on a desert island.
The sixth and final of our advanced techniques to grab your audience’s attention is asking them to do something. If you can get the audience to do something, they become active, rather than passive, participants in your presentation. This involvement will likely engage them at a level even higher than the other advanced techniques we have previously discussed.
Things you can ask the audience to do include:
1. Surveys
2. Actions
3. Cooperation
1. Surveys
Ask for a show of hands to reveal group composition, experience or preferences. How many of your audience are left-handed, have taken a bungee jump or like heavy metal music, for example.
2. Actions
Get your audience physically moving in some way. For instance, repeat the above activity, but ask people to stand up instead of raising their hand.
3. Cooperation
Set the audience a very short task that they have to complete together. One idea might be to ask them to work with a partner and quickly brainstorm names for a new product. Perhaps you could give a prize to the pair with the best idea.
