The Venn Diagram for Messaging Success

One of the most helpful things for my clients when they’re coming up with their messages is to think in terms of a Venn diagram.

So go to a big whiteboard go to a flip chart put a big circle and that’s you.

That’s what you want all of your messages should go in that circle.

Then have another circle for the media.

All the messages of interest to them.

But that circle up the final circle is for the audience.

What are they interested in.

Put a circle there and plot your messages out because there are gonna be some messages that are only important to you.

I’ve been media training since 1984 on the most experienced media trainer on this platform.

That may be a message I want to say.

Chances are no reporter is going to care about that.

So for plotting that on a Venn diagram that would be in the circle under messages I like but it’s outside of the circle for the reporter or the public.

So you’ve got to look at all of these message points.

And plot them in a Venn diagram.

And then the real trick is eliminate everything that isn’t right in the center.

That isn’t a part of the circle for you the media and the public.

This brings great clarity to it because there’s some messages that are going to be interesting to the public.

Oh we want all your stuff for free.

That’s a message that would be interesting to the readers viewers listeners.

But if you’re in a for profit business that’s not your message you’re not in the business of giving away all your products for free.

So this really helps people I find to look at it through this lens brings clarity and you can figure out what not to say and then figure out what’s truly most important important to you.

Important in the media important to the public.

The big problem so many people have is they go into an interview and they try to force feed a message that’s important to their organization because it’s a part of our marketing document and it’s a part of our approved messages and that’s a part of what our marketing team created for research six months ago.

So we have to say that no you don’t few consistencies in life but when they I can tell you that’s a guarantee.

Reporters don’t care about your marketing document unless it’s a reporter who just follows marketing issues.

They want to know what’s most relevant to this issue today.

Now if it smells like just marketing stuff they’re not interested in it.

So that’s one big problem people have is they’re trying to push generic marketing messages.

You have to look at every single interview you do with a fresh perspective.

Starting from scratch thinking of OK what do we really want the world to know.

And is it interesting to the media and is it interesting to the public.

The other big problem people have is they completely forget their own messages and they’re constantly spending all their time on messages of interest to the reporter so they end up saying things like sure I can understand why the public wants to make our activities illegal and run us out of town.

Well that’s interesting if you’re a reporter.

I doubt that’s a message you want to convey.

So keep this in mind.

You need messages that are absolutely important and interesting and helpful to you and the media and the audience.