The Message House Strategy
You are in the communications business, no matter what you do for business!
The Message House Strategy enables you to act on this reality in a simple but powerful way.
The Message House Strategy is the essence of a communications approach I refined during my years as Knight Foundation’s vp/communications. I wanted to help increase Knight’s impact by integrating, elevating, and decentralizing communications.
Frankly, it’s quite simple: Craft crisp messages and get your colleagues to use them.
That’s what the Message House is for. It works, because it’s easy to use.
So here’s how to make Message Houses work for your organization:
Put your key messages (for a project, situation, event, the organization overall, etc.) inside the shape of a house drawn on a blank page. You can download a Word template on this site.
Now tell your colleagues to “stay inside the Message House and bring our message home.” Or “stay inside the Message House, and you’ll be safe.”
Congratulations. You’ve just turned using key messages from something abstract and onerous into something visual, emotional, and fun.
Your colleagues will start asking you for a Message House for everything that matters. Really!
A structured approach to determining your key messages is the second half of the Message House Strategy.
Most often, you only need four messages. You get them from answering the same four questions every time you build a Message House:
First: “What’s the “big picture?”
The answer speaks to the vision. Why does the project matter? It inspires, gives people goosebumps. It points to something bigger than us.
“We are trying to save democracy” is a good example.
Second: “What’s in it for them?”
This “Utility Message” gets across what’s useful to your audience.
An example: “We’ll give you money so you can realize your idea.”
Third: “What is the most likely criticism?”
Find the answer, and then blunt that criticism with a positive message. That’s your “Critics Message”.
For instance, if critics say, “this is too difficult,” then your positive Critics Message is: “It’s easy.”
Fourth: What do you want your audience to do? Call the answer the “Action Message”.
Often, it will be something like: “Go to messagehouse.org to download the template and find out more.”
That’s it. Easy, right? And fun!
As a next step, check out some Message House examples, and the frequently asked questions for additional tips on using message houses. Or download the Message House eBook. It’s just 14 pages and contains all you need to know about the Message House Strategy. If you don’t find your question answered there, simply drop me a note.
I hope you find this useful.
Messagehouse.org founder Marc Fest is available for keynote speeches and workshops on using the Message House Strategy.