MY SERVICES

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The key to crafting smart messaging is knowing your audiences. Messaging is about forging a relationship of ideas with your audiences. It requires you to know your audiences inside and out — the things that motivate and drive them to action, the places they tune into for information, the barriers that might stand in the way of their engagement with you. I’ll help you work through these questions so that the messaging that we craft for your organization or endeavor speaks to your audience’s core values and moves them to think, feel, and act in a way that connects them to your cause.

LET'S TALK ABOUT

DEVELOPING
COMPELLING MESSAGING

With your existing communications reviewed and your audiences better defined, I’ll help you build out your messaging. That might take the shape of a high-level organization messaging platform, or it could be broken down into more focused messaging for specific audiences. In some cases, you may be looking for messaging around specific programs or campaigns. All of this can be tackled at this stage.

In the end, you’ll be provided with a messaging document that can serve as a loose script for your ongoing communications, one that you can adapt easily as you engage with audiences, share your ideas, and continue your good work.

BUILDING

MESSAGE

It can also be helpful to look at your current communications and messaging strategy and explore what’s working and what’s not. I can review your communications and metrics for trends and opportunities using one or more of these approaches:

Reviewing your website, brochures, and other expressions of your organizational brand
Looking at your grant proposal materials to see how you’re talking about your organization or endeavor
Exploring and analyzing media mentions

AUDIT

COMMUNICATIONS

Increasingly, social science research and narrative framing analysis is lending profound insight into the kinds of messaging and storytelling that audiences will be most receptive to. It also sheds light on the ways messaging can unite audiences around a common cause or divide them through misinformation and stereotyping. When crafting your messaging platform, I'll be sure to consult the latest thinking and science around messaging in your field to ensure that we're reinforcing ideas that bring people together and create just and equitable solutions your seeking for your stakeholders.

Conducting a series of one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders
Conducting surveys that help to illuminate larger trends
Holding focus group conversations to unpack key ideas and language preferences
Doing a landscape analysis of other organizations in your field and their communications
Holding a listening session with key stakeholders and members of your team

The first step in developing your messaging is defining who your audiences are. What do they have in common with each other. How do they differ? The best way to get to know your audiences is to talk with them and get their input on your ideas. It can also help to talk with people on your staff or board who engage with those audiences on a regular basis to learn what observations and trends they’re observing in their communication.

As part of my research and discovery process, I will help you define your core audiences using one or more of these approaches: