Now that you’ve established your brand identity and honed your messages, you’re feeling pretty good, right? You’ve got a story to tell, you’re focused, you’re compelling, you’re persuasive and ready to fire. But wait, who are you gonna’ tell it to?

To embark upon a communications plan that delivers results (we’ll talk about the components of a strategic communications plan next time) and fuels your mission, you must be deeply and decidedly aware who your key audiences, or stakeholders, are.

At this stage of the game, many of you may already be pretty clear about your most important stakeholders. After all, you’ve taken a hard look at your mission, you’ve clearly identified who you are and what you are seeking to accomplish, and you know who and what you need to help you get there. But, it can be all too easy for social entrepreneurs to develop an overly narrow world-view when it comes to determining one or more key audiences for your marketing and communications. Often times we tend to focus on the hand that feeds us – donors – rather than looking more broadly at other influential and/or critical audiences. And the hand that governs us – our board of directors – is also usually close behind.

While these are truly important audiences to keep apprised of our progress and our challenges, by focusing too much on “cover our butt” or “look what great stuff we’re doing” communications, we are missing the greater possibilities that well-placed marketing and communications can bring us – leverage and scale, resources, publicity, partnerships, global awareness, policy support, behavioral change, the assistance of volunteers and other supporters… The list goes on.

So who can help you obtain or achieve these mission-critical or desirable things? Your list might include foundations, industry associations, government organizations and/or other policy makers, educational institutions, corporations, high net worth individuals, other social entrepreneurs, social services organizations, international groups, non-governmental organizations, tribal councils, business leaders, the media…. And, when we talk more broadly about the concept of “stakeholders” (e.g. people, organizations and/or localities that may have a vested interest in our work – or who may be impacted by what we do, even if not directly involved with us), this list can grow longer still.

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications

Now that we’ve discussed the thinking, planning and steps behind creating a message strategy, let’s look at a few helpful tips you may want to use while you’re “in the trenches.”

My Ten Message Strategy Basics:

1. Never forget the KISS principle (Keep it Short and Simple). Messages should be clear, crisp and easy to understand.

2. Use bullet lists whenever possible to encourage brevity (this includes both your key messages and your supporting data)

3. Be benefits-oriented (try to talk less about what you do and more about how it impacts others and how broadly and deeply)

4. Use powerful, action-based words and phrases whenever possible (e.g. things like “time-saving,” “values-driven,” “cost-effective,” “market-leading,” etc.)

5. Keep acronyms, slang and other hard to understand terminology out of your main messages. Certainly you may have very industry-specific terminology you must use to further illustrate certain concepts and gain credibility, but remember that you will need to tell your story to many types of stakeholders, and each will have a different level of understanding or knowledge. Always start simple and then prepare to build messages outward as needed for specific key audiences.

6. The Rule of 3. You should never have more than three key messages. You can certainly have sub-messages or sub-categories (for instance, if you offer a variety of different products or services they will each have their own set of messages that describe them), but you should always be as brief and succinct as possible.

7. 25-50-100. It can be useful to create a brief “elevator” description of your organization (or product/service) that can be used as an “everywhere” descriptor or boilerplate. There will be times when you only get 25 words to make your case, so start small and focused, and then build on this, perhaps up to 250 words. This type of document would include your topline positioning and key messages written out in paragraph form, and can be a very powerful tool for you when you are applying for funding, building your website, writing press releases, drafting partnership agreements, speaking to reporters, etc.

8. Test your messages on friendly (and non-friendly, if they’re willing) stakeholders. Ask them what appeals to them, what resonates – and what doesn’t. Check for perceptions, understanding and impact, and alter messages as needed.

9. Feel free to use metaphors, analogies and descriptive examples (but use them sparingly!). If you have a complex topic or product, try to find ways to make your story come to life in terms that others can already relate to.

10. Have fun and be creative. Dry, boring, statistics-laden key messages do not catch or keep people’s attention and tend not to translate well (in the case of an international organization). Don’t get too cute or edgy (unless your industry and audience warrant it) and always be relevant and understandable, but definitely think outside the box when you can.

- Diana Reid, Conscious Communications
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Depending on how intricate your positioning and key messages are, you may want to go an extra step and provide data or evidence to support your claims.

For instance, if you say your organization is the fastest at something – you should demonstrate just how fast and provide supporting research. If you claim that your organization has helped to significantly alleviate poverty in a certain region of the world, you’ll want to show how you can prove that. If you’ve helped reduce carbon monoxide emissions by hundreds of thousands of pounds or restored thousands of acres of wildlife habitat you need to say how you know that to be true.

Always use easy to understand references, statistics and credible and defensible third-party research sources to support your claims.

Additionally, supporting points can be useful in simply expanding upon your key messages and providing further details about programs or initiatives. You may not always need extensive data for every single type of communication you may undertake, but before you put any messages out there that can potentially be challenged (or hurtful to your organization if they are not accurate), it’s best to sure you have proof and back-up for any claims that you make, and for overall message clarity.

As I mentioned at the outset, this discussion merely provides a guide to your message development efforts, not a mandate or a “bible.” Each organization and mission is different. And, messaging is often more art than science, so you’ll need to sort of feel your way through it and test a couple theories. As always, don’t be afraid to ask others for help or to try out your ideas on employees, partners, friends, investors, industry experts and others.

In the future we’ll talk more about some of the creative ways you can “assemble” and deliver your messages to further add impact to your story and get your organization and its constituents the resources, support and momentum needed for success.

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications

The next branch of the message tree is where the hard work really comes in. This is where you delve into each of your main support points or focus areas outlined immediately below and create the actual messages you will use in all of your future communications (e.g. some of the wording you’ll use in your grant applications, press releases, website copy, etc.).

This is the really important stuff and where you must be excruciatingly focused, clear and benefits-oriented. Your key messages should tell others what you deliver (and how, if that is a differentiator for you), how your organization/product/service is unique, distinct and how this combination benefits your ultimate customer or stakeholder.

Again using the Skoll Foundation as our example we can note the following details:
• The Skoll Foundation invests in social entrepreneurs through the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship and the Skoll Sector Program.
• The Skoll Foundation also connects social entrepreneurs with key people and resources for success and fuel for change through conferences, online forums, academic programs and more.
• The Skoll Foundation celebrates social entrepreneurs through projects such as public television documentaries and other unique initiatives, in an effort to highlight, support and empower individuals to sow the seeds of positive change in their communities around the world.

For the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, the main messages are:
• Connecting women with financial, intellectual and community resources they need to be successful
• Delivering educational opportunities expose and open minds to entrepreneurial best practices & business success
• Building the next generation of women leaders

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications