A consultant cannot come up with good core messages for a company

Core messages, corporate story, relevance, customer promise. I don't like getting too bogged down in terms, or overusing buzzwords. But one of the most motivating and important challenges in communication is to identify the one thing you want to remember about your organisation. As long as you get it right.

I once sat in an executive-level workshop at a large company, where a group of ten people spent several hours refining the wording of core messages. As important as it was, it felt like a bit of a waste of time. There was nothing wrong with the objective as such, but the focus was on the wrong things.

The point of the core messages is not spelling, agile wording or sloganeering. The idea that core messages are carefully crafted, memorised phrases that are fed as such to the media, for example, is also in the woods.

Above all, a core message is a promise that appeals to the right audience. An idea that every member of the organisation signs up to. In short: the core message is the truth about the company. In the best case, it emerges among the staff as if by magic. 

Start crafting your core messages with the right questions

Core messages can be formulated in many ways. For example, you can stimulate ideas by asking the questions: why, what and how. What is the need or challenge that the organisation wants to address? What is unique about the approach, product or service? And why should the recipient be interested?

Sometimes just the why is enough. It's about finding that one big idea that the company wants to tell the world about itself. It's easier to get emotion into this kind of message - and it's always worth appealing to emotion.

I believe in summarising. I want to find the one thing about a company that is most essential, that every member of staff believes, internalises and remembers, even in their sleep. Then the core message has a good chance of spreading beyond the organisation. Because even the most eloquent core message is not enough if no one ever hears it. It is important that all staff buy into a common message that is communicated to the world from many different angles through different communication channels.

It may also be necessary to define key messages for individual services or products - once the company-level foundation has been dug out. 

Where do you usually go wrong? 

The biggest danger is that the core message is made up - at worst without consulting staff at all. The message may sound good, but it is not based on the truth about the company's history, operations or spirit. At best, the message has been lived in the company's daily life for a long time, and now it is simply condensed into a core message that speaks to you. And when staff are involved from the outset, it motivates and engages them in their daily work in a way that is quite different from promises dictated from above.

The core message does not stand out. Either play it too safe or see what the competition says. "We can't leave that unsaid either." Yes you can. Core messages should not cover everything, they should arouse curiosity.

Often, the mistake is to look too much into your own navel and not get rid of the talk within your organisation. The company is not inherently important or interesting to the customer, the solutions and benefits it offers are.

The message is not clear. Whether it's a media interview, a presentation or a customer meeting, the realistic goal is to plant one thing in the public's mind. The stronger and clearer the message, the easier it is to do that. It is good to gather and provide facts to support the main message, as long as you keep your eye on the ball.

It is also easy to overdo the core messages. If there are six of them, you have failed to summarise what is important. 

Can a consultant help you shape your core messages? 

An outsider cannot march in with bold ideas and come up with the core messages that will give the organisation life. I, for one, would not dare say that.

But a skilled consultant can help you look at the organisation from the outside, pick out the most relevant ideas from a range of people and condense the core message into one that speaks to you. That's a good basis on which to build effective and visible marketing communications.