Your audience will attend your presentation with certain needs and interests, and it's your job to discern what they are before preparing your speech. Having relevant and current information is a critical factor in producing and delivering a successful presentation. So how can you proceed in the right direction on the road to producing a presentation that is relevant to your audience's needs? Here are some pointers:

• Outline your plans and main points before starting to work on your presentation. You must remember that the main purpose of a presentation is to share information on an interactive level with the audience. Preferably, this information is such that they cannot acquire it simply by reading a readily accessible book, article or handout. Therefore, you must ensure to cover all the main points that are of interest to your audience. The presentation should offer something different that will act as a magnet to attract the interest of your viewers, so figure out what that extra something is that you can offer to the audience to give them that "wow" factor that separates most presentations from the truly effective ones.
  
  
• Do extensive research on the background of your audience, their needs, and factors such as age and gender, their level of familiarity with your subject matter, and what their expectations might be. Take into account the purpose of the presentation in the first place, and try not to deviate from the main theme. You need to respect the fact that the viewer has also taken time out to attend your talk, so the speech should reflect appropriate effort and impart information that is appropriate to their needs.
• No matter how attractive or professional the supporting visuals to your presentation or delivery are, you will succeed only if the presentation is based on content that is informative and solid. Try not to bore the listener with too much unnecessary information; stick to simplicity. Also, be careful not to confuse simplicity with condescension; the audience shall not be taken for granted or assumed to be ignorant. This is where your research regarding the audience's background will help most.
• The structure of the presentation shall be sound, clear and forceful. Without this, even the most appealing delivery, style or visuals will fall flat. It is difficult to design an understandable structure if your objectives are not clear . It is not enough to have a rough road map or a general agenda that pertains to your presentation; it is clarity and flow that is important. In fact, the audience might get exasperated if the presentation lacks focus or is muddled.
• When you are in the process of building your content, try to visualize yourself in the place of your audience. Try to figure out what points would interest them and what answers they would like to know. If the content fails to interest you, do you really think your viewer will care about it? So plan out your speech accordingly. A presentation can be called successful if the audience remembers even three points from the talk.
• Stories and anecdotes are an integral part of a good presentation. The best presenters interweave their content and material with lots of illustrations and personal stories. These anecdotes are also easy to remember and have good recall value. However, a story or an illustration should be concise, crisp and to the point and should support the main content.

In the end, it is vital to remember that it is your level of confidence that will help you out in even the trickiest situations. The key to turn up the confidence level is to get plenty of practice and rehearsals before the actual event. That will ensure that fear and anxiety that is produced from unforeseen events is removed. This in turn will raise your level of self belief and confidence which will help you in making the best presentation possible.