What Campaigns Can Teach Associations About Messaging

While presidential campaigning for this year has taken a backburner to coronavirus, it can teach associations key lessons about effective communication. Presidential campaign slogans—such as “Yes, We Can” or “Make America Great Again,”—have existed for more than 100 years. One of the first slogans in 1840 was “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too  (opens in a new tab)” for President William Harrison and his running mate, John Tyler.

Whether successful presidential campaign slogans or commercial ones like Nike’s “Just Do It,” they offer some important lessons if your association is looking to update its messaging: To be effective, messages need to be memorable, brief, actionable, clear, concise and original.

So, where do you begin if your association is looking to create or update your messages? Take a look at your mission, values statement, and core values. Other places to start include your elevator speech (if it includes more than your name, title and the association where you work) or the paragraph at the end of your organization’s press releases.

These documents begin to define why you do what you do, who you are, and how you do it. Of these elements, the most critical one is why. In essence, your association’s messages are the foundation of your brand, and similar to presidential candidates, your messages are the promise of what you will deliver.

Without messaging, your employees, leaders, or members may be all over the place in the way they describe your organization—causing confusion about who you are and muddling your brand in the process.

Developing Your Message

Message development is a five-step process. Step one is defining the issues, which involves clearly identifying the problem you are trying to solve and the purpose of the research. You also determine any relevant background information that is needed and how it will aid the decision-making process.

Step two is developing the initial concepts. This may include formulating an objective, creating the research questions, and identifying factors that may influence the research design.

The third step—testing—is an important step, and you can do it without busting your budget. If you don’t have the resources to conduct market research, create an ad hoc committee of staff, members, and leaders who can act as an internal testing group. You also can test messages externally with a few “friends” of your association.

Once the testing phase is complete, you do the fourth step: take the information you learned and fine tune the original messages. The fifth step is to retest the revised messages with your stakeholders.

Different Types of Messages

For associations and presidential candidates, there are two types of messages—key and sub. Key messages are overarching and used anytime. In a presidential debate, candidates will bridge back to key messages when asked a challenging question.

Sub-messages deal with a specific issues, such as your annual meeting or Capitol Hill Day. In elections, sub-messages typically reveal a candidate’s opinion on education, healthcare, or the economy.

As the presidential candidates tried to achieve, your messages need to distinguish you from your competitors.

Overall, messages help you tell your association’s story. Effective storytelling happens when you weave personal anecdotes with research and data to create a tapestry that illustrates your association’s story.

So, take a lesson from the 2020 presidential election by ensuring your messages are consistent, brief, authentic, inspirational, and strike a chord with your stakeholders.