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Whether you have four employees or 40,000, the ability of every member of your team to speak in a unified voice is a very powerful business tool that will help you get higher visibility.

Effective messaging provides you and your team with a PR “codebook” to communicate with all audiences: customers, potential customers, the press, investors, partners and employees. It provides a shortcut for all of your public relations: creating speeches, marketing materials, web site text, news releases and language for proposals, contracts and other official communication. Your team will find it indispensable.

It need not be complex — 2-3 pages is standard. It includes:

1) The ID graph. This is a single paragraph, the “boilerplate,” that describes your organization. Like all of the other messages below, it should answer the question “What Can You Do For Me?” It is often used at the bottom of press releases under “About XYZCo.”

2) The Elevator Speech. Keep it to 3-4 floors! Practice a 15- second pitch on how you and your organization can help your “elevator-mate’s” organization succeed. What they want to know is “What can you do for me?” good conversation starter at networking events.

3) Must Say Messages. These are the four or five most important messages everyone in your organization MUST know by heart. They should be in ALL communication. When you do a press interview, for example, you should weave them into your answers — regardless of the questions.

4) Main Messages. These comprise a couple pages worth of accurate details about your organization/services/products/industry that everyone on your team can cut and paste into proposals, presentations, articles, letters, Op-Eds, factsheets, marketing and sales materials.

Once your messages document it is finalized, you, as CEO, or another senior executive, should present it to the company at an all-hands meeting to underscore its importance.

By Robert Deigh
www.rdccommunication.com

\\ tags: Business, Public Relations