How to Develop Effective Messaging

Connectsm has worked with more than 1500 different spokespeople over the years, and we've drawn on more than 22 years of experience to determine what makes messaging effective.

If you were in front of your ideal audience — the most influential editors and analysts in your industry — what would you tell them? The last thing you should do is simply stand in front of them and tell them what you do. Instead, take these steps.

  1. First you will need to set the stage by discussing the problem which has been the impetus for your company’s product. As Theodore Levitt of Harvard Business School famously stated, “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill [when they go to a hardware store], they want a quarter-inch hole.” If people are sold on the problem, they will be sold on the solution. In particular, editors and journalists are inundated with so much material that only something truly novel will catch their attention enough to warrant publishing. For example, showing how the need for mobile bandwidth has exploded within just the last few years is a relevant problem.
  2. It’s not enough to show that there is a need. For your story to make a difference, you have to show that the need is growing, using market drivers — facts about the market that are widely known to be true. As the need grows but the market preparedness doesn’t, a gap springs up. This is the opportunity that the market influencers are looking for, and what you need to show in order to make your messaging effective.
  3. Once you have established that there is a need in the market, you will need to show the options for meeting the need. There is always someone else in the market who has a solution for meeting the need. Rather than ignoring the competition, you should list all the current, reasonable alternatives, and then show how they all fall short of adequately meeting that need.
  4. Once you have thoroughly examined the alternatives, your audience will naturally ask you what you do. This gives you the opportunity to explain how you are uniquely positioned to fill the needs gap.

By taking the time to pique the interest of your audience, and allow them to fully understand the issues and come to their own conclusions, they will naturally understand that your product is worth their time to cover. This is a much more effective way to approach messaging than a more straightforward approach of simply stating what you do.