« Lobbying isn't criminal...yet | Home | Good riddance, David Barrett »
January 06, 2006
Relevance and clarity
I woke up early this morning reflecting on my day yesterday — a series of meetings and telephone calls with people who have a story to tell. I was struck by their frustration about their uniform inability to tell their stories to the audiences that matter most to them.
The laments went like this:
“…if they only knew…”
“…I don’t know how we can get their attention…”
“…why doesn’t the media care about the good news? They only focus on scandal and disaster…”
“…if we ‘spin’ this right, we can meet the capital campaign goal…”
And so on.
Two observations:
1. Communicators must be relevant above all else. The audiences are busy. Their lives are crowded with work, young children or elderly parents and sometimes both, church, civic duties, soccer practice.
To be successful, the communicator has to know what’s important to the audiences that matter most. Then craft their communications around that important fact.
2. Many times, the communicator doesn’t deliver a clear and compelling call to action. Let’s face it. Most organizations want to tell their stories because they want to motivate their audiences to take action. “Buy this product.” “Contribute money to our organization.” “Donate blood.”
Relevance and clarity. If communicators have even a chance of succeeding, they have to hit those two factors. Otherwise, it’s a fool’s errand.
Posted Jan 6 2006 @ 06:39 AM