Develop and deliver messaging that doesn't suck
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Messaging is a core deliverable for any marketer and communicator, but from what I’ve seen over the past two decades, they typically suck.
The process is terrible and usually involves some kind of aimless brainstorm.
I recently sat down with a friend to help him figure out how to run a messaging workshop and develop the messages needed for a healthcare Startup’s Series A funding announcement. And from there, it spurred me to pull together my best exercises and frameworks.
Download the six exercises and frameworks including examples free of charge!
But also checkout the conversation between Anthony and I below:
Full transcript here:
Anthony:
Basically I'm working with a healthcare investment management firm. A VC firm. And what ends up happening is we end up doing a lot of work sort of off the cuff for some of their like early stage portfolio companies who don't have, you know, any like comms infrastructure. So one of these portfolio companies in particular is we're releasing like their Series A announcement next week.
Howie:
Yeah.
Anthony:
And you know, the client brought up that you know, they'd like to have sort of a messaging brainstorm for them to sort of, you know, get the brand messaging down.
Howie:
I think when you go about messaging, it's almost like one step after you’ve gotten the foundation of the brand down. Right. So I think the, the key question to always ask is, do you have a good handle on their positioning? Which is, you know, how are they different and how are they relevant basically. The key component. So if you think about anybody in their ecosystem from a competitor standpoint or within their category, you know, do they have a good idea of how they're different, right. What's their secret sauce, if you will, that they're different? And then what problem are they solving? So from a relevance perspective, what is that pain that they're taking away? So if, if you feel like, whether it's explicitly written down or intuitively they have a good sense of what that is. Yeah. You can do messaging. But if you don't have, that is very hard to come down to a set of messages, because what you'll find is then you'll just get a collection of stuff.
Anthony:
Right.
Howie:
And they want to say everything. It's very hard to then narrow down and prioritize what's important and what's not.
Anthony:
Yeah.
Howie:
So I would say if you feel like they don't have that, whether it's intuitively or explicitly written down, like what is again, the, the secret sauce, the, the superpower, if you will, that's differentiating. And then what's the pain point that they're really trying to solve for? You might wanna start the messaging brainstorm just to, just to focus on that, because that's really the strategy, right? The positioning, what are you trying to own? And then from there, I would say, when you think about messaging, I always think about it again, you know, this is how I do it, you know, it's, it's not necessarily right. I think about it in two parts. One is the things that you're trying to say. So the what. And then when are you gonna say it? I would focus on the what first.
Howie:
So literally when you think about brainstorming… all the stuff that you wanna say, everything. Put 'em on stickies, you know, a virtual white board, whatever. I dunno how you're doing it, but map them out on a two by two matrix. So again, back to relevance and differentiation, those are the two axes. So high relevance, high differentiation. That's what you want. Those are the drivers. Those are the, all that you wanna say should live there. Yeah. Then there's gonna be high relevance, low differentiation that's table stake stuff. That's like anybody in a category would say, because that's table stake, things that you need to just say, you know, to play. And then there's gonna be ones where, you know, high differentiation, but low relevance that's Koolaid, Koolaid. Right. So they think it's so awesome, but then the customers or whoever, they don't really care about that. I don't really care. They get into the nitty degree stuff. That’s not a benefit that anybody would care about. Then, you know, don't say it, it doesn't matter. Then of course the irrelevant and non-differentiated. Dude, don't even put them on a messaging matrix. That's you know, don't talk about that. Yeah. The idea is once you brain dump all the stickies, all the stuff you wanna say, look at the stuff that's in the highly relevant and highly differentiating category, then you start the cluster, right. What are the themes that start to emerge? I'm sure. You know, for a biotech or a science company, it's always gonna be some sort of technology or research science focus cluster, perhaps there's gonna be a people cluster the type of people, expertise, cluster, and then maybe it's a process.
Howie:
How do they get to the drug or how do they get their treatment cluster? So again, depending on what they put down, you'll find these clusters, right? So that becomes your pillar of messaging. So that's the, what, the one, the, what is done then now comes the, when, when do you say this stuff? So you can think about that as like, you know, look at it from the target audience perspective, right? Who, who are they? Who are they targeting to say this? Sometimes it's a broad audience sometimes specific, but then the key thing is how do we move them from current state to desired state? So they can be a belief that can be what, you know, just like, where are we starting a conversation with these people? Yeah. For some companies that's literally creating a totally new category, like something they haven't even thought about before.
Howie:
So they, they don't even know the problem. So you need to start at here, the problem <laugh> right. Yeah. So that the, when, so, so you start piecing together messages that you found that was relevant and differentiating, and then start to populate this journey from current state to desired state. Right. So if it's the problem, if it's, you know, talk about your offering and then talk about how you can engage with 'em again, just start laying them out in terms of the, when that can give you then, you know, both the architecture for pillars, but also how do you bring them into your world, right? Yeah. A lot of times you can't just start, Hey, this is our platform, da, da, da, what are you talking about? Who are you, what are you talking about? Like, what's the problem? What are we solving here? What's the current state? So those are the three sort of components when I think about messaging. So I hope that was helpful. And we can talk about this more.
Anthony:
Question. Super helpful, super helpful. I think, I guess, you know, one area that I'm struggling with a little bit is, you know, yeah. Obviously, right, like you, you mentioned it earlier, like a biotech company, they're gonna have a lot of this, like really technical jargon and, you know, descriptors of what they're doing. And it's like, how does that sort of fit in to what you were like, you were just saying like the broader brand messaging. Yeah. You know, because I think it's like, we don't, I don't want, I don't want their message architecture to be like super technical. But also there is this piece where it's like, they need to sort of explain to certain stakeholders what it is that they're actually doing, you know? Yeah.
Howie:
What you can do is if you feel like sometimes it comes up organically, sometimes it doesn't. So once you do the two by two matrix, right? Like they put all the stuff they wanna say, and let's say, there's this cluster of, you know, the technical stuff, the science. Right. And if you look at all the sticky, all the stuff that, that has, dude, you would look at it. It's like, it's so deep. There's no benefit. There's nothing that ladders up to something broader. Then you probably need to do a specific exercise on that. So, guys, if you look at this science stuff, nobody will understand what you're saying because it's so deep. So then you go through the exercise of asking the why, so why does this matter? Why does this matter? Why does this matter? You keep asking why does this, why does this matter until you get at a higher enough, you know, messaging that anybody would understand. Oh yeah, I get it. And then this is how you do it. You go down the, I mean, so you, you sort of build it up. And then from a messaging standpoint, you can start at the higher level one. And if you wanna learn more, boom, boom, boom.
Anthony:
Boom. Gotcha.
Howie:
Yeah.
Anthony:
Perfect. And so as far as like, you know, I like what you say about the, the sticky notes and things like that. And that was one thing. And I'm, I'm, again, I'm sort of forgetting exactly how we did it, but I do remember like, you did a really good job at that. Right. Like sort of, having an exercise for everyone that was in the room, which I thought was great because it made sort of more of an interactive environment instead of like people just sitting there staring at us, like talking the whole time. Right. Yeah.
Howie:
Yeah. So, so if you are going be in a room with them, absolutely. So it depends on how many people in a room, what sort of expertise, you know, if it's cross-functional groups, you know, they can just, actually, it doesn't really matter. Like they can just get a packet of stickies and just go. So one idea, one message for each sticky and just put it up there, put it up. So basically what you have is a big poster that has that grid, the two by two and that's it. And then they can just go and put their stuff on. Then when they're done, that's when you, actually, what I do is when they start putting those stuff on, I already start to move things and cluster things. When people start to put things down, I start to move them around. And then that's also sometimes a good time for all of them to take a bio break, you know, five minutes. Whenever they come back, then you walk them through what you’ve found. Like this is all the clusters. And then you start to push like really, is this really differentiating? Is this really relevant? And then you work with them to move things around so that you end up with these clusters, right?
Anthony:
Yeah. That's super helpful. I will definitely try that.
Howie:
Yeah.
Anthony:
Great. Yeah. And I mean, if you have any other like so basically with the sticky notes, the prompt is just to say, like, you're asking them the very simple question of how are you guys different? How are you guys relevant? Yeah. Is that, are there, are there other prompts?
Howie:
Basically all the things that you wanna say, what do you wanna say? Yeah. You can start from like your function. What area do you represent? What do you wanna say? Sometimes it's good to prime them up front to say, all right, these are your target audiences, right? Like this, this is your target audiences. This is their world. If, if you guys have any research or any persona stuff, it is always good to kind of just get grounded in. Alright. You sort of folks that you're trying to influence. Yep. This is what they're thinking about. This is what they care about. These are their pains. These are the gains, right? Like anything to ground them to make that exercise better. Right. Okay. So again, like for, for me, when I, when I, when I worked with clients to build this stuff, I would've really gone through all the all the positioning work. Like again, like, what is your secret sauce? What is differentiating? Yeah. What is positioning and all that before we even get to messaging. But it doesn't mean you can't do this exercise cuz I think, you know, it's just good to even align on that. Anyway, you sometimes going through this exercise, you can find out, oh, this is something that everybody rallies around. That that is the thing that could be, can be that cornerstone for the company, you know? Okay.
Howie:
Yeah. Cause it's always good to ask them. Like if there's only one thing you can say, there's like these five clusters of stuff, what is the one thing, if there's, you can only say one thing, you know, to, to, to your audiences, like what would you say? What
Anthony:
Which would you say? Yeah. Yeah.
Howie:
Doesn't mean that's the only thing that you say forever, but that's the first thing that you would say what's the most important, right? Cause again, messaging is always about hierarchy.
Anthony:
Yeah.
Howie:
Like people can always drill down, but if you start at the bottom, you lose. I mean, nobody's gonna wanna learn
Anthony:
Anything. Exactly. Exactly.
Howie:
<Laugh>
Anthony:
Okay. But yeah, I mean, this is just, it's, it's an art, right? Like it's an art, it's not a science it's so I know like it's just, some people are so good at just, you know, running these type of workshops. So good at taking what's, you know, these like broader concepts and explaining them in a way that like lay people can understand. Right. Like these people, it like one, one issue I have right. Is like a lot of times I'm so deep into the you know, day to day of like working at an agency that like sometimes I forget that like not everyone is doing marketing in comms every day and they're not like, you know, so it's like, you gotta take a step back and say, you know, this is how,
Howie:
Yeah,
Anthony:
This is what it, this is what we do. This is how we do it. You know? So yeah.
Howie:
I mean also if, if, you know, if you have a group of folks that, like you said, very removed from marketing and they are so into the science and technical, it might even be good to open up the entire session with an ad, right? Go find a YouTube video of an ad that's freaking phenomenal. Right. That's you know, even if it's a non healthcare company, like something that just put them in a mood of like, dude we're, we don't have to like double, triple click down to the weeds here, we will get through the weeds, but what's gonna resonate. What's gonna have people emotionally bound to your company. Right. Right. But even if you start off the workshop with with an ad or some like really just inspiring video yeah. That, and then jump into it. I think it will be good. You just set the room in the right mood.
Anthony:
Totally agree. I will definitely look for some of that. Okay. Yeah. This is, this is super helpful. Just to sort of get me to, to start thinking about it. I have a we're we're gonna do the session after the labor day holiday. So I have a little bit of time to sort of brainstorm and, and get myself prepped.
Howie:
How long do you have, how long is the, the session with them?
Anthony:
Two hours. Yeah. Good. Plenty of time, but I, but I wanna also make sure we, you know, we have, we're filling that time. Right. Like we're not after an hour. Yeah. Yeah.
Howie:
I think you'll for sure fill up the time, especially once you, you know, it, it just takes a while, you know, especially if people are like, no, this needs to be there. That needs to be here, you know, depending on the group. And then, and then again, if you wanna fill up the time, if you think about the, the, the story arc, right? Pick like the top three audiences and see how that defers, maybe even break them up into groups. You know, let's say there's the investor group. And then there's the physician group, you know, and then maybe there's an internal group, whatever, pick three top audiences, split them up in groups and then see how they populate, you know, the journey from current state to desired state, you know, from an audience perspective and then come back together and then look at how different or whatever. I mean, you can use it as a way to fill the time and also give you what you need to build, you know, a, a full messaging matrix.
Anthony:
Thank you very much again, man. I really appreciate it. Super helpful. Absolutely.
Howie:
Absolutely. Well, good luck. Good luck. Let me know how it goes
Anthony:
All right. Will do.
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