Quick Tip – Key Messages Rise from the Dead

Kami Huyse takes my The Key Message Is Dead concept, and provides a practical four-step process for breathing life back into this communications tactic.

Her 4 Steps to Values-Based Key Messages are easy to understand and use:

• Formulate your values in short, easy-to-remember statements;
• Integrate your values into the corporate culture by using every opportunity to compare what you do (jobs and initiatives) with what you say you believe and adjust accordingly;
• Align new and old initiatives with the claims you make about your company, if you say you believe in customer service, generate examples of how you do that;
• Communicate these ingrained values by making a values statement, providing and fact and giving an example:
  KEY MESSAGE = Values Statement/Claim + Fact + Example

Her main point is that anyone in the organization can follow this process, and it results in people internalizing real ways in which the organization’s values apply to their job. The result is real people, using natural language to describe the purpose the organization serves.

Payoff: Your company gains credibility whenever your employees talk to customers, friends, suppliers, strangers … whoever.

Tags: business, communications, on message, pr, public relations