Messaging is such an important part of building awareness as well as shaping or shifting the perception of a business. It also provides guidance and direction for employees to ‘understand’ the business so they can feel more invested as well as receive a key asset to help them in their role.
Unfortunately, it can often be deprioritized, usually because it’s not considered revenue generating; and the important pursuit of the bottom line can create a heads’ down mentality. However, messaging can play a critical role in whether someone decides to want to find out more about the business, whether they want to go on the journey because the business or the products/services it provides is of interest to them. That someone could well be a prospect, a potential employee or even, crucially for start-ups or scale-ups, an investor.
I’ve managed many messaging sessions over my 25+ years working in communications. The one thing that remains a constant during each session is the confusion around the message from the senior executives in the room.
I often start by trying to establish a benchmark, and I do that by simply asking: “What does the business do, in your own words?”
As I go around the room, it’s clear how fundamentally different the senior executives’ view of the business is from one another. There are a few different things that can shape the response, such as length of time in the business, role type, happiness etc. The concern is that if there are so many different perspectives of the business among the ten or so senior executives in the room, how confusing is it for the external audience, i.e., the customer, prospect, employee, potential employee, analyst or investor.
This is all part of perception shaping and can really change how a business is viewed both internally and externally. Once a perception is established, it takes a lot more time and effort to shift it. That’s why I always try to encourage early-stage businesses to consider their messaging framework and how they want to be perceived as soon as possible.
But regardless of how established a business is, they all need to think about where they want to be in the near future, say the next couple of years. When I speak to CEOs and founders, I put the following to them:
In two years’, you’re in a bar or at an event and start speaking to someone. You tell them the name of your company and they come back and say: “Oh you’re the company that leads in/is the expert in/focuses on x, y and z.”
What do you want that x, y and z to be? Because you need to start sharing that message today. Not tomorrow or in 18 months’ time because you’ll already be behind the perception curve.
Most understand the significance of this and get on board. They have the vision to look beyond the end of the quarter.
So, you want to develop a messaging framework. What’s next?
Getting the senior executives to prioritise developing a messaging framework is only part of the battle. It’s great getting all these expert minds in a room and devising the key messages for the business but the thing that can make or break all the work that goes into the project is how it’s communicated internally first and externally after that.
What I mean is that senior executives need to consider all their employees as message deliverers regardless of their role. Everyone who works for the business should be well-versed in the message because they will be speaking to customers, prospects, potential employees during their work time. They will be talking about the business at sporting or social events at weekends. Each of these conversations goes some way to shaping a perception of the business.
The one thing that absolutely must be avoided is confusion. Consistency is king when it comes to messaging. Repetition breeds retention.
But so often I see the messaging project start and end in the boardroom or with the senior executive team. They’ve gone through the process; they’ve agreed the messaging, but they fail to communicate it internally or assume everyone understands how they arrived at the message. Not providing context can create as much confusion as not providing the messaging in the first place.
It shouldn’t be a script, people should be able to take the message and put it into their own voice, their own words. They can only do this if they understand the why and the what.
Why is this the message?
Why is it important for the business?
What should this mean to the audience?
What perception are we trying to establish or shift?
So, why do some businesses overlook the importance of messaging?
For some, it falls into the ‘not important’ category. Time is precious and so, as a leader or leadership team, you must decide how you spend it. The activities that tend to be seen with greater clarity are the tangible ones, usually revenue generation or product development.
For others, it’s discarded into the ‘too hard basket’. When you consider messaging for a business it can be a large undertaking. There are so many possibilities, so many avenues to consider and so much work required to get to the right message. This can deter some businesses from pursuing this path.
What this leads to is a gradual blurring of what your business stands for. Without clear, considered and consistent messaging employees are going to interpret the business message in various ways. It also means your external communications tools including the website will add to that confusion and the audience you’re trying to reach will have a terrible experience trying to understand your business.
You want to reduce the effort your audience has to put in to understand if your business is right for them and their needs otherwise, they will lose interest and move on. That is why messaging needs to have a focus. It’s about how you want to be perceived now and in the future.
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