How do you create a powerful key message your spokespeople can deliver?

Creating the right message and ensuring it is heard by your audience is often harder than it sounds.

You want something that sounds natural, is easily remembered, sparks curiosity, triggers emotion and ultimately influences and persuades your audience.

At the same time, it must be truthful, short and simple. And it needs to withstand scrutiny.

That’s why our latest masterclass for members of The Media Team Academy focused on messaging.

The session included lessons from our message development and testing courses and was led by Victoria Smith, one of our current working journalist tutors.

And she began by giving 7 top messaging tips.

1 Focus on one message

People often talk about the importance of three key messages.

But we don’t subscribe to the view that three is the magic number.

Why? Because it is too many. And on our training, we teach people to focus on establishing one message.

Victoria said: “You might have heard differently or think that you have more than one message to get across.

“People often talk about three key messages and strategies with five pillars.

“But that will not work well – it is too much for your audience to take in.

“And if your spokesperson is doing a radio interview, it may only last 90 seconds, so there is only time to land one message.

“You must work with them to be clear on what that is. Is it to promote a new product? Is it to talk about a new campaign? Is it to get more donors to a charity? Is it to get more sales?

“Sometimes, it can take a bit of time to work out what that message is.

“But once you have a clear message, you need to focus on it. That means spokespeople bringing it in at the start of media interviews, repeating it further on in the conversation, and going back to it again at the end.

“If that sounds repetitive, it’s because it is. But the audience needs to hear it three times for it to get through.”

2 Be clear on what you want your audience to do

Before you hone your message, you need to be clear on who you are talking to.

Is it local press? A TV news programme? Or something a bit softer, like The One Show?

Who is watching or listening? What age are they? What demographic are they? Are they professional? Male? Female?

Different newspapers, radio stations and TV programmes all have different audiences.

“All these things will help you identify your audience,” Victoria said. “And once you have that in mind, you can be clear on what you want them to take away from the interview.

“For example, do you want them to know about your new product or how to use a new service you are offering?

“Thinking about what relates to your audience will help you hone your message.

“Remember, your audience isn’t the journalist - it is the people behind the journalist. Journalists are conduits to the people who count - the people you want to hear your message.”

3 Keep it simple

If you want people to remember your message, you need to keep it short and simple.

It needs to be a single sentence of fewer than 20 words, contain simple language – no corporate-speak or jargon - and take around 15 seconds to deliver.

Anything longer or containing complex language will be too difficult for people to recall.

Victoria said: “This can be harder than it sounds.

“It is easy to overcomplicate and over-speak and over-explain, particularly if you are new to this and your spokespeople don’t have much media experience.”

4 Loosen the messaging rules

We believe that no matter how well-crafted your message is, it does not need to be repeated verbatim. Authentic delivery is crucial.

“Spokespeople have different delivery styles,” Victoria said.

“That means you may have to adapt your messages to how they speak. Let them take the message and translate it into their language.

“It will sound more natural and realistic.

“You don’t want them to try and memorise a message and repeat it verbatim. When that happens, you lose the eyeline, the gravitas and the audience’s attention.”

5 Support

‘Support’ covers two parts of creating compelling messages.

Any message needs to be supported by examples in a media interview, otherwise, it will become little more than rhetoric. And we will look at the best examples later in this blog.

But when we think about support, it is also the work comms professionals and teams put into helping spokespeople deliver messages in media interviews.

“You may not be giving the interviews, but you are the support,” Victoria said.

“You are their secret weapon - their wingmen and wingwomen.

“This involves developing the message they will use and the example that will bring it to life.

“The audience will be able to hear the confidence of a well-supported spokesperson.

“You may be with them while they are interviewed if that helps. Or you may have helped them prepare so well, that they were just happy to go for it.”

6 Stick with it

We’ve touched on this already.

If you want a message to resonate with your audience, you need to stick with it and repeat it.

Repetition will strengthen the message. But don’t fall into the trap of using the same language - that will bore the journalist and the audience.

Victoria said: “Get to your message at the start, repeat it in the body and come back to it again at the end.

“Often, at the end of interviews, spokespeople are given the opportunity to add something – ‘Is there anything you would like to add?’.

“The answer is always ‘yes’ because you can always go back to your message.

“And then people remember it. The person writing the article is more likely to use it in the headline. Those watching and listening are more likely to go away with your message in your head.

“So, stick with your message - if it is a good one, it will punch through.”

7 Negatives

This is one of the most crucial parts of creating your message. 

You may have a brilliant message, but what pushbacks could you face?

Let’s say your message is about being carbon neutral by 2050. Sounds good. But, if you are a company heavily reliant on fossil fuels, there will be massive pushbacks about whether you can reach that target and whether you should be doing more sooner.

When you get to the point where you are trying to land your message in media interviews, you also need to think about the negative questions your spokespeople could face that might derail your message.

Victoria said: “Think about the negative questions that could come your way by pushing a product, launching a campaign, or admitting you need more donors.

“Anticipate the challenging and tricky areas in advance and plan how to respond.

“This should also include avoiding getting diverted down a rabbit hole, which journalists love to do when they focus on a particular point away from your message.

“You may not always be able to predict the negative questions. But you can use them as an opportunity to say, ‘I’m glad you asked that, people have raised this issue…’ and then go on to say what you are doing about it.”

What else do you need to know to create messages that resonate?

Get your messaging house in order

What else do you need to know to create messages that resonate?

Well, many of you will be familiar with messaging house.

It is a structured, disciplined and well-established approach to creating messages used by businesses, public sector organisations and charities.

The process is essentially the reverse of building a real house.

You begin by creating the key message - the roof of the messaging house.

It is followed by the walls, which are the supporting messages.

And then come the foundations, which are the evidence and examples that ensure those messages resonate.

“There are a lot of messages in this typical version of messaging house,” Victoria said.

“It might work for an internal presentation, but does it work for a media interview?

“I’m not convinced. So, don’t be afraid to change your messaging house for your spokesperson and the subject you want to discuss.

“A better messaging house could have one key message, supported by examples that give that message the evidence and support it needs.”

What examples work best?

“Human examples,” Victoria said.

“When you look at the news, the stories that resonate are those about people. Our brains like stories about people.”

Stories give people a reason to care. They trigger emotional responses, build connections and cut through the noise.

“Give your spokespeople examples to support that key message,” Victoria added. “And get them to practice telling them – some people are naturally better at telling stories than others.

“They may even have stories and examples from their lives that would work.”

What about client confidentiality - can that stop you from telling human stories?

Victoria said: “You can tell stories without using a name. You can say something like ‘we know of one customer who is a single parent, and what we did for her was…”. You can still give us some detail.

“Another thing your spokespeople can do is to speak about themselves and their experiences. Everyone has a story about themselves, a friend, a relative or a colleague.

“Another little trick is for spokespeople to use the words ‘you’ and ‘yours’, rather than ‘the customer’. It is much more informal, reaches out through the interview and helps people listening think, ‘they are talking about me’.”

Statistics, facts and figures can also help support messages.

But bring them to life in fun ways. For example, ‘that’s the height of a double-decker bus’, ‘the length of two football pitches’, ‘the equivalent of walking from one end of Oxford Street to the other’.

Why you need to say AMEN

How else can you help your spokespeople prepare?

The Amen messaging template we use during so many of our communication courses is a tool for refining messages ahead of interviews.

Let’s go through it.

Audience: We’ve talked about this a bit already, but try to get an image of the people you are speaking to in your mind. And think about what is important to them. Sometimes it helps to think about someone in your life - someone intelligent and informed, but who doesn’t really know what you do. How would you deliver a message that is clear, simple and relevant to them?

Message: The spokesperson’s job in the interview is to deliver the message to your audience. Good preparation around understanding your audience will help. For example, if you are talking to a local newspaper, tweaking your message with a bit of geography could help you.

Examples: People need evidence that what you are saying will work. Cast your mind back to Theresa May and her “strong and stable government” mantra – where was the example or evidence to support that? Let’s say you are launching a product to help elderly people live at home independently. You need to give us a human example to show it works. Speak about someone you know or a customer already benefitting from it.

Negatives: Think about the troublesome questions and negative language that could creep into the interview. Make sure your spokespeople know not to repeat that language. Try to anticipate the negative questions and think about how you might answer them. Let your spokespeople know that if they face a question they don’t know how to answer, it is ok to say ‘I don’t know’. They can offer to get the information to them later. And it is far better than getting drawn into guessing and speculating.

What about messages for when things go wrong?

You are not always going to be in the news for good reasons.

Sometimes things go wrong.

And when you have caught the attention of the media because your business or charity is in crisis media management mode, you must still carefully consider your message.

This is where the CARE model we discuss during our crisis communication training is crucial.

Compassion: Having spokespeople who sound like they care and are compassionate is crucial. If you are a building company and there has been a fire on one of your sites, we want to hear an apology from you. If you can’t go there for legal reasons, we still need to hear concern in what you say. Showing human warmth, rather than a corporate approach, will go a long way.

Action: Tell us what you are going to do about the situation. People want to know what action you are taking.

Reassurance: If you can tick the action and compassion boxes, you will reassure people you are working to resolve the situation and that you are doing it now. Trying to put the incident into context and show that it is isolated (if it is) can also help. If the crisis has been triggered by an accident, highlight the safety protocols you have in place and your previously good record.

Examples: Examples, as ever, are crucial. Show people what is being done. Show them exactly what you are doing to tackle that fire on the building site.

Still want more? You can download a message development template to help you prepare your messages in the ‘templates’ section of The Media Team Academy resource hub.

And you can watch all the masterclasses in the ‘masterclass video library’ section of the hub.