At Media First we always advocate the importance of testing your Key Messages in our confidential training sessions. Here Media First’s Sharon Francis explores why messaging should be the core part of any communications strategy and what happens when you get it wrong.
It’s always interesting at the start of our media training session when we ask the delegates what they think the single key message is around the issue they have come to discuss. Often it can be a wide variety of different answers! Messaging really does matter – it’s the core part of any communications strategy from which everything else will flow. This is the reason that following the Lib Dems victory (ahem!) in Eastleigh the press packs have decided that it’s Cameron who should be in the firing line and all sides of the media political spectrum are questioning whether he is still the man for the job.
The messages delivered by the Tories before, during, and after the by-election were confusing. At a local level, no one really knew what their main policies were; they failed to engage with the local electorate; the key messages were messy and incoherent. No surprise then that the fallout from this particular by- election now carries on in the national press as journalists debate what can be done to rectify the situation. If the public starts to believe that the government doesn’t understand them, then they will just stop listening. Which is not good! Loss of control means you’re always on the back foot and, as the budget approaches, it will be interesting to see if the Chancellor tries to offer tax cuts as an olive branch to disillusioned voters.
Once again, from those who really should know better, this is a perfect example of why getting your messages across with clarity, consistency and control is SO important. For any organisation, if you’re going to make a big announcement or if you’re looking to really connect with your customer, the message has to plain and simple. But if you’ve spent weeks working with your PR team working up those key messages why not test them first before you release them out into the world. If the media don’t get it or are confused by it then it’s going to be pretty difficult to get that message across to your customer. Practicing this in a safe training environment means you can test the message and make sure that all of your spokespeople understand what the key points are before going out to the market.
