Getting that message across … clearly!

Getting that message across ... clearly!


Liam Horan

HAVE you noticed just how difficult it has become to get your message noticed?
And, no, please, don’t switch off now. Once upon a not very long time ago, it was much easier. An advert in The Mayo News and maybe another on Mid-West Radio. A few road-signs, posters in shop windows, and a couple of lines in the parish newsletter if they’d give you the space.
Now, though, it’s all so complex. Not impossible, just complex.
The challenge is to understand this complexity – and still transmit your message so it appears simple. Remember what they used to say about Pat Jennings, the great Northern Ireland ‘keeper – he was so good, he made it look simple, like anyone could do it.
The best advertisements tend to be the simplest ones. But to reach to that simplicity of message, the people at the wheel must first wade through the quick-sand of complexity.
In all your utterances, not just your advertisements, are you transmitting a simple message about your business? Have you thought long and hard about what it is you do so that when it comes to telling the customers, they get it.
Are you making it easy for them?
Or are you confusing them?
Are you telling them all you need to know – or inviting them to tell you what they want?
The classic error is that people try to tell the customer too much. Stop bombarding them. Give them a break.
They have other things going on in their lives, they have neither the time nor the inclination to digest every last nuance of your business.
Tell the customer that you do this, and also that, and don’t forget that we stock this too, and what do you know we have this other stuff over here too, and there might come a time when you’ll have a need for this, and, while I have you…
…and watch them glaze over and switch off.
By and large, they don’t care about the full A-Z of your inventory.
Stop ramming it down their throat. You might think you are doing a great job publicising all you do, but, by and large, you are generating only noise. You are ticking a box, satisfying yourself that you are fulfilling an advertising or public relations function, but, in all likelihood, you are not provoking real interest.
Let’s go back to where I started: the difficulty in getting your message noticed. Twenty years ago, it was all much easier. Now, with the multiplicity of media, and the sheer torrents of information bombarding the public on an ongoing basis, you have to work much harder to get your message out there.

The public is constantly editing out information coming at them. They feel under siege from text messages, Twitters, Facebooks, radio, tv, newspapers, and much more, and they have developed finely-tuned filters to swiftly discard enormous amounts of information as quickly as it hits them.
Don’t presume they are actually taking in what message you are sending out there. Chances are, they’re not. Unless it’s simple, easily digested, and catchy.
Go forth, and simplify.
Go forth, and be bold.
Go forth, and make a statement.
Go forth, and portray your business in a way you wouldn’t have a year ago (they won’t laugh anymore – they’re all watching a way out of the recession now and, privately, and maybe even publicly, they will admire you for your self-confidence.)
The call-to-action for this week, folks: over the Cornflakes tomorrow morning, come up with a one-liner that would help to generate valuable attention for your business. It can’t tell everything. But it might just light a flame somewhere.
One of my favourites was used by the team of Indian builders in London. Or was it New York? Little matter: ‘You’ve tried all the cowboys, now…’ was their slogan. Certainly beats ‘leading commercial and domestic yadda yadda yadda.”

Liam Horan runs www.SliNuaCommunications.com, a communications consultancy based in Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo.