7 Points on Developing Key Messages
I was part of a panel of PR pros last week at the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland helping businesses with media relations. My assigned topic was Developing Key Messages and below is the outline I provided the audience.
I think my favorite tip in this set is to create a “logline” for your company or product. In the film industry, a logline is the one or two sentence description of your film. It is actually written before the script and serves as a concise guide to what the film is about. You can use this same approach in developing messages about your company or product. Write the logline first, making sure it is spot on, and then build your various messages off of that logline. It helps keep you from wandering off the point.
Developing Key Messages
1. You are an expert.
• You know more about your field than a reporter does
2. Your knowledge is valuable
• It is valuable to reporters writing stories and can “buy” earned media
3. Before developing your message, who is your audience?
• Reporters, magazine writers, show producers, bloggers, customers
4. Develop general messages about your company
• The “elevator pitch”
• In film it is called the logline
• Who you are and what you do
• These serve as the base message and can be changed for targeted audiences, and fleshed out to be any length you need.
5. Specific messages about your current work/project
• Most interesting information (why is it interesting, different or relevant)
• Most important information (who, what, when, where)
6. Avoid jargon and insider language, bad for reporters really bad for audiences.
• Acronyms
• Slang and jargon
• Technical terms
7. Targeting your message to the right people, same project difference messages based on audience.
• Who is the audience for the message and which media is best to receive it?
• Target based on topic
• Target based on geography
• Target based on best medium to tell the story (TV v. Radio v. Newspaper v. Blogs)