Play 5: Craft Your Messages

To build momentum, you’ll be communicating about your initiative frequently—maybe even in your sleep. So, it only makes sense that you should craft a refined set of messages to keep on hand—messages that resonate with your stakeholders and inspire action. Outline a short internal communications plan that includes well-thought-out messages you can reference and infuse into emails, blogs, presentations, etc. This approach will ensure consistency in your communications and result in a clear understanding of your purpose throughout the lifecycle of your effort.

We recommend your communications plan include a Core Message (which you could also call your Mission Statement) and a Tagline. Your Core Message consists of one to two sentences that expand upon your Vision Statement and can be used as your five-second elevator pitch. Your Tagline is a more succinct sentence that captures the heart of what you do and acts as a slogan for your initiative.

YOUR COMMUNICATION PLAN

You’ll be expanding your communications plan in plays 8 and 9, adding the key metrics you’ll use to evaluate your progress and fleshing out your approach to reaching the public. You can use this template to help develop your communications plan.

XR Access Tagline

A community committed to making virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (XR) accessible to people with disabilities.

Teach Access Tagline

“What we have are a few people who know a lot about Accessibility. What we need are a lot of people to know a little about it.” – Matt May, Adobe

TIPS

Create a Plan: Begin to sketch out a communications plan to capture your Core Message and Tagline. Add your Vision Statement to the top of the plan to help you remember to incorporate it into your messages.
Come Back to Your Vision: Don’t lose sight of your Vision Statement. Refer to it as you craft the language for your Core Message and Tagline.
Draft Your Messages: Create messages that are short and to the point. Much like your Vision Statement, your messages will act as guides moving forward when you communicate to others about your initiative.
Include these Elements: For your messages to resonate, they should attempt to communicate urgency, motivate stakeholders to act, demonstrate how your vision will be achieved, and be memorable. Most importantly, make them believable.
Be Creative: Messages can take multiple forms. For instance, the Teach Access Tagline is a quote rather than a statement. That’s okay as long as it aligns with your core goals and objectives.
Create Talking Points: Talking points go deeper than your Core Message and Tagline to describe the specifics of your initiative. They should provide detail. You might include the number of individuals involved in your community and where they work, your accomplishments to date, and what you plan to accomplish during the next year. Review these talking points regularly and update them as your initiative unfolds.
Tailor Your Talking Points: While your Core Message and Tagline need to be consistent, you should have variations of Talking Points in your back pocket that are tailored to speak directly to different groups of stakeholders.

Guiding Questions to Get You Started:

What do you need to communicate to get your stakeholders to pay attention?
How will you convey urgency and motivate stakeholders to act?
What do you need to communicate to different groups to help them connect with your messages?
Which details do you need to include in your Talking Points to present a full picture of your initiative?

Continue to Play 6: Build Your Community