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Develop Great Messages

Strategy, tactics, evaluation and measurement, may all be in place and spot-on, but if you’re delivering the wrong message it can all be for naught.  This week, three quick things to keep in mind during the message development phase of campaign and communications planning:

1. You are not your audience. Usually, neither is your organization’s staff.  If you’re looking to make policy change, your audience might not be your organization’s current list of supporters.  Be clear about who you need, and be willing to really understand what will move that audience to act  For example, Environmentalists: you may care about marine ecosystems, but the audience you need to activate on behalf of climate legislation might be much more motivated to preserve clean beaches for their kids to play in.*  Never lie, but always be willing to message to the comfort zone of your target audience, which may not be the people you’ve already got on your side.

2. You can’t say everything you want to, at least not all at once. Your commitment to your cause, issue, and/or organization no doubt has contributed to you becoming an expert on the topic, steeped in the many nuances and details, the evidence trail that supports your position, and the myriad problems with your opponents’ point of view.  Resist the urge to try to cram all of that into your external messaging.  Start with triage: if your target audience could only take in three discrete pieces of information, what would they need to know to be effective advocates, donors, or volunteers?  No cheating on this one – narrow down to three discrete ideas, concepts, or facts, not compilations or greatest hits. Once those three bits have embedded themselves in your audience’s consciousness, what are the next three bits?  And so on.  Develop messaging that builds, always starting with where your audience is.

3. Tell stories. Weave your “three bits” into narratives that can be much more easily remembered, integrated into existing knowledge, and understood than random pieces of information.  Sticking with the environmental example, rather than spitting out statistics about beach erosion or pollution, identity an archetypal beach, one that used to be an oasis for family fun but has been frequently closed due to polluted waters.  Describe, or better, depict the consequences of the pollution – did it give kids rashes or worse? Result in dead fish on the surface? What is the picture your audience should get in their heads about these bits of information? And include a “so what” as the denouement – what can your audience do about it? How is what your asking of them connected to a solution?

Developing excellent messages is an art and a science, grounded in good information and proven techniques, including the three above in addition to many others.  We’d love to know what you’ve done that’s worked, or lessons learned from messaging that has come up short.  Share your thoughts in the comments, or shoot us an email – info@englin.net – to be featured as a future Three Things author.

*Much more on this in a future blog post on Earth Justice’s work in Re: Green – The Ecological Roadmap, A Guide to American Social Values and Environmental Engagement.  Download the executive summary here: http://bit.ly/yAlla (downloads a PDF).