The Delta Media P.R. Clinic

How Key Are Your Key Messages?

By Bernard Gauthier, MA
Managing Partner

In an earlier column, I remarked that organizations with limited budgets have to limit the number of audiences they try to address with their communications programs. That’s only half the process of strategically focusing your communications resources. The second is to make strategic decisions about what you are going to communicate. Getting the best return on your PR investment requires you to focus on sending only truly key messages to your carefully selected audiences.

Know your audience!

Since the end result of communications is to generate action, the first step to selecting key messages is to know where your audience is along the continuum that will take them from where they are now to the action you want to generate. As I see it, that continuum has a few key stops along the way:

Awareness   >   Motivation   >   Instruction   >   Action   >   Habit

Audiences will only consider taking the action you want them to take if they know who your organization is, where you come from and what you propose. If I establish a new association and nobody knows the name of the association and the kind of services we offer members, I can’t expect many members to join until I create that base of awareness. At this stage, these basic awareness messages have to be on the top of my list of key messages.

Awareness is just the start, however. Once my audience is aware, I need to turn my attention to key messages that motivate. These messages focus on how the audience will benefit from taking the action you propose. How will they have more of what they desire and less of what they fear? Does my new store offer lower prices, more products, less hassle or more opportunities to connect with other people? The key here is to focus on the combination of benefits that are unique to your organization and to the actions you want to generate (what legendary advertiser Rosser Reeves dubbed the Unique Sales Proposition, or USP).

If your audience is both aware and motivated, your key messages need to focus on providing clear instructions – a step many organizations overlook. What steps do audience members need to take? In what order? What can they expect at each step? Where do they turn for help if things don’t go as planned? If I have a country full of potential participants in your program who are aware and motivated to get involved but don’t know where to find an application form or whom to call, I have generated frustration instead of action.

And finally, if your campaign is a success and your audience is now taking the kind action you need them to take in order for your organization to be successful, your key messages need to focus on turning that action into habit. Members need to renew memberships. Participants need to participate from start to finish. Customers need to come back and tell others. These key messages should focus on reminders of the key messages listed above and go further to build rapport and relationships with the audience. This is the stage at which soliciting feedback from the audience is most critical.

Focus on the challenge at hand

Knowing where your audience is along this continuum will allow you to select the messages your audience needs most. Fewer messages that are in tune with your audience will allow you to break through the clutter and have more of an impact. Over time, as you successfully move your audience across the continuum, you can adjust the key messages and stay focused on the challenge at hand.

Can one communication vehicle (e.g. a member recruitment brochure) contain awareness, motivation, instruction and habit messages? Of course, but you still need to focus more attention and resources on the messages needed most by the audience. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing your audience in a maze of competing messages, only some of which are truly on the mark.

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