When leading people communication is critically important. Fail to communicate effectively and you fail to lead. I found this great article by Russell Kern on “B-to-B Insights: A Perfect ‘10’“ describing a communication model from Target Marketing that would be useful to all leaders. Although the model is meant for direct marketing, the model is a useful tool to help us think through the key ingredients necessary for communicating powerful messages. When crafting your message use the pyramid model, illustrated below to guide your thinking….
Challenge #1 : Getting Their Attention
People are overwhelmed with messages all day, each one competing for their attention, time and energy. So the first challenge for any message is overcome this noise, to do this your message has to grab the peoples attention. This is what the first row at the bottom of the pyramid is for, it’s to help you grab the reader’s attention and this requires your message to be:
- Arresting: How eye-catching is your message? What have you done to make it impressive, noticeable or striking? A message that is arresting is not necessarily one that shouts from the rooftops. Interest can be piqued by speaking softly. Curiosity can be aroused by not using any words at all. Or, alternatively, by not using any pictures.
- Compelling: How forceful is your message? Have you connected with your readers’ hopes, dreams and/or fears? How have you persuaded your readers that they really need to find out more?
- Clear: Is it instantly obvious what you’re offering? Why a reader should care? Why a reader should take action? Are the benefits of doing so readily apparent? Is it easy to see how to respond? Are brand messaging, graphics, standards or package concept getting in the way of any of the above?
- Credible: Are you delivering a message that is honest, realistic, sincere and believable? To what degree have you convinced readers to reduce their skepticism and actually read/listen to you? How about the brand behind the message? Is it well known and well respected? If so, how effectively are you leveraging the brand to maximize your credibility?
Challenge # 2: Getting Them Involved
Remember head and heart in your communication….
We know from the study of psychology that humans typically act on their emotions while using logic to justify their behavior. This is a fundamental concept of brand advertising. For example, consumers buy Mercedes Benz automobiles for the prestige they confer, while pointing to the vehicles’ superior engineering and safety to justify the purchase. We also know that humans always want to move from pain to pleasure. With all this in mind, let’s examine the second row of our pyramid, which focuses on tying into your target’s emotions and logic.
- Emotional: Does your message move your readers to laugh, smile, cry, agree, yell? What have you done to arouse the spirit of your readers? Is your message exciting, poignant or even disturbing to such a degree that you’ll get an immediate “rise” and, hopefully, response?
- Insightful: Have you demonstrated your understanding of your target audience’s problems, needs, desires, hopes, dreams or aspirations? Have you made your audience aware of a new solution or product usage? Having read or heard your message, will they say to themselves, “I’ve never thought of it like that before.” Delivering new insights is hard. It requires field research and knowledge about what your targets are using now and how your product or solution will help them do something better, easier, faster, quicker and/or cheaper.
- Informative: How educational is your message? In exchange for your readers’ consideration are you revealing new, important or little-known information and using it to build your case for action on their part? If they don’t respond this time around, is your message still helpful to them in some way?
Challenge #3: Telling Them ”What’s in it for Them?”
All consumers and business people have one thing in common—they are self-focused and evaluate all advertising messages (brand or direct) from the point of view of self-interest. The challenge, and opportunity, for direct marketers is to use data, past behaviors and market insights to create messages that scream, “THIS IS JUST FOR YOU. HERE’S WHY.” It starts with personalization, but ideally extends way beyond by delivering offers based on past purchases or messages based on insights into job role, responsibility and company size. Before you launch your next campaign, consider row three of the fundamentals pyramid.
- Relevant: What have you done to make both the message and offer germane to your reader? (And not just germane, but important.) How applicable is your offer to the problems your readers are facing?
- Valuable: Do you have an offer that’s important, priceless or, failing that, just downright useful? How well have you persuaded your readers that your offer is worthy of their time and indispensable to the improvement of their daily lives?
Challenge #4: Telling Them What To Do
At the end of the day, everything you do is about driving immediate action. Overcoming complacency, sparking desire in the mind of the reader and prompting response is the ultimate goal for any direct message. Even in this era of integrated direct, this must never be forgotten, which is why the element of motivation sits atop our pyramid.
- Motivating: How moving is your message? How immediate? Have you employed proven response words and motivational phrases (e.g., “discover,” “learn,” “gain,” “reveal,” “take away,” “go now,” “find out,” “visit,” “call today,” “don’t wait,” “avoid missing out”) to drive response behavior? Does your message have urgency built into it?
I thought this to be an excellent model and tool in helping to shape our communication as leaders.
Technorati: Communication, Framework, Model, Marketing, Message, Leadership, Business, Management, Motivation, Relating
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Do you attempt to herd all society into this pyramid? Those who do business with you, do you attempt to herd all economic arrangements into a pyramid?