It's a jungle
out there. The marketplace is so thick with information competing
for people's attention that you need some way to hack your way through
it.
With 70 percent
of corporate marketing executives admitting in a recent survey that
they have trouble getting customers' attention, what hope is there
for a small business with limited marketing resources?
Using key
messages can help you break through. Key
messages sharpen your ability to cut through the information
jungle to reach your target audience.
Key messages help
you focus on what's really important to you and your audience. They
get right to the point, delivering the critical information without
wasting the audience's time with unnecessary details.
Think of the process
as creating three or four bullet points
that convey the essence of your information.
Key
message
techniques are one of the most effective public
relations tools because they can be used
for nearly every communication your business employs. They
can help you write a news release, prepare for a media interview,
write copy for an ad or do an outline for a case study.
If you've watched
any of the news briefings by Bush Administration officials since the
September 11 terror attacks, you've seen key message techniques in
action.
For example, in
his daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer usually
opens with a statement that focuses on two or three issues. Fleischer
delivers the administration's view on those issues in succinct statements
-- the key messages.
You'll notice
that Fleischer goes back and reiterates a key
message whenever a reporter asks him a question related
to the issue. The idea is to make sure that the messages are repeated
often enough that they "get through" to the reporters and
the public.
How
do you develop key messages?
You
can start from scratch, by listing key points about the topic. Write
as many as you can think of and then mix and match, combine and condense,
cut and paste ruthlessly until you've got three or four brief bullet
points that deliver the information your audience really needs to
know.
Another technique
is to work from an existing document, pulling out pieces and reworking
them into your three or four messages.
No matter how
you do it, remember to put yourself in the place of the audience you're
trying to reach as you build the key messages.
Think like them -- get inside their heads -- so you can focus on the
key points they want and need to know.
Source:
http://www.grayrun.com/toolbox/prt48.html
