First impressions are critically important, especially when you’re running for a presidential office and hoping to gain the votes of the people you want to represent. Whether you’re running for office, or you’re a speech writer on a campaign team, putting the right introductory words together is crucial. If you do it correctly, you could have an audience enthralled with every word that comes out of the candidate's mouth. If you do it incorrectly, you may see some people nodding off before the candidate ever gets to the meat of the speech.

Define your audience. Not every group is the same. Concerns will vary. Make a list of character traits that define the group you’ll be addressing and determine the things they will want to hear. For example, speaking to a group of public school teachers will be different than speaking to a group of stock market investors.

Create an introductory sentence based on the stage of the election, the campaign platform and the group of people you are addressing. Depending on where you are in the election process, your candidate may or may not have to introduce himself with his name and the fact that he’s running for president. You may also need to make sure he lists his qualifications for the position. In this sentence, make sure he thanks the audience for taking the time to come and listen to him.

Write a hook to get the attention of the audience. Do this by finding common ground with the people your candidate is speaking to. For example, if she is speaking to a group of manual laborers and she herself once held a job or two involving manual labor, she can sympathize with them if they feel they need more rights, better working conditions or higher wages.

Let the group know that this presidential candidate will make positive changes and list specifically what those changes are in the order that he will talk about them in the speech. When listing these items, find a way to appeal to the emotions of the audience members. Use your list of character traits to give you ideas on how to spark interest in your audience members.

Transition from the introduction into the first talking point of your speech. Exactly how you do this is up to you, but you can generally say something like, “These may seem like a lot of high promises that won’t be easy to keep, but I and my team have come up with a plan on how to use or change the current policies to fulfill these promises.” Then, you start with the first talking point of you speech and explain how something on your campaign platform will be fulfilled and how it will benefit the audience members.