American Rivers recently hosted a Blue Trails Webinar as part of this year’s series of outreach and support for partner organizations. As the first installment of a two-part series on communications and messaging, Intermountain West Communications Director Sinjin Eberle presented some insights that American Rivers has been developing around expanding our audience, which may be helpful for your organization as well. Watch it today!
With that in mind, here are a few takeaways from Sinjin’s webinar to use or refresh how you might approach developing your own messaging strategies for your organization. Check it out:
- There is no such thing as The General Public: Well, of course there is. But for our purposes, thinking about The General Public is simply way too broad and is like casting a net in a school of multi-colored fish when you only really want the blue ones. Putting some careful thought into exactly who you want will pay dividends with a more focused ability to target the right people. Kayakers may have different priorities than hikers, public officials have an agenda all their own, and your current members are already allied with you. So, to do that…
- Analyze who naturally follows your organization: Then think about who you might think should naturally be receptive to your message/subject, but are not engaged. If you are a river conservation organization, why isn’t every kayaker in the river sporting one of your stickers on the back of his or her truck? If you are an open space conservancy, why isn’t every bird watcher getting your newsletter? What is it about either the awareness of your organization with that specific audience or the image your organization projects that is not compelling them to join? Answering these (often painful) questions will help as you design future communications and outreach.
- Strive to create a conversation: Traditional media, such as newspapers, radio, and television, are one-directional mouthpieces, where a talking head (think, Tom Brokaw) or publication presents the information they choose to distribute, but with very little opportunity to converse back to them. You can’t have a conversation with Tom Brokaw, but you can cultivate a conversation with your members or supporters, and that conversation will increase the allegiance between them and your organization. In our modern, technically connected era, you can begin the conversation through…
- Social Media – breaking Traditional Media by cultivating conversations: While Facebook may be occasionally annoying, it has certainly touched a deep evolutionary nerve within us, sparking its global success. Sitting around a campfire telling stories is a core element of how we evolved – storytelling passed history down from generation to generation, languages were developed and taught, and religion was born and promoted. Now, platforms like Facebook harken back to that ability to receive a piece of information, add your own spin on it, and project it outward to others. Savvy use of these of conversations is key to keeping your members involved and engaged with what you are doing.
- And finally, Walking the Messaging Tightrope: With the primary purpose of communications being the desire to get information out to your current members as well as potential supporters (see, point #2), walking the line between information distribution and compelling stories is delicate, but not impossible. A thoughtful, deliberate approach to targeting your communications to the right people, in the right tone, will pay dividends over time. And, you may need to develop the same informational message into a few different styles in order to reach your collection of audiences (see, point #1) – as these things are rarely “one size fits all.”
Using these steps as guidelines for considering how you reach your current audience, as well as touching new ones, can help raise the awareness, profile, and imagery around your organization and its core mission.
In future webinars, we will explore how to put these tactics in place when developing specific messaging. We look forward to talking with you then!
Photo Credit: Ace Kvale
