Simple Messages Are Good Messages But Even Better Marketing

Communicating your aims clearly is the crux of effective marketing and PR.  If you can’t deliver a message to an audience you can’t market. You might apply scientific models to communications but I believe it will always remain an art.  This is because communications involves people and individually and as a group we are complex, curious creatures who generally but not always act in our own best interests. 

So there is an art to effective communications.  It lies in providing people with relevant information. Information that is easy to understand and that blends logic and emotion. What you say and send must appeal to the heart as well as the brain.  

It is important that your information also offers a clear call to action.  This is a simple statement of what you want people to do whenever they decide to act on your information.  For example, your call to action might consist of asking people to call a hot line, visit a website, consult their family doctor or give to a charity.  

Most likely your business or not for profit has layers of detail ranging from the simple to the complex to pass along.  You are probably keen to get as much out to the greatest number of people in the shortest time possible.  While this is an admirable goal, it is often a futile practice.  You lack the time, energy and effort to simultaneously reach everyone and you most certainly lack the budget.  You also run the risk of overloading the citizen, client or consumer with facts, figures, choices and alternatives and swamping their ability to process your message. 

A good starting point in deciding what people need to receive is to distil the complexity of your information into key messages. Key messages are the essential information people need to know about your issue or organisation.  If they come away from any meeting with you, what are the critical things they should be aware of and act on?

Our daily routines are lived out in constant communications clutter.  Thousands of messages bombard us daily. Some are skilfully crafted while the majority make up the ambient noise we have all learned to live with. So if you want your key messages to cut the clutter they need to be suitable, persuasive and delivered in enough time that people can absorb them and then act.