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Newsletter Archives
Think
Like Your Audience: Messaging – Short and Sweet.
In our daily
communications, we strive to be creative and grammatically correct when
we write. However, we need to be clear and concise in the world of messaging.
Messaging should be just that – a message - not a lengthy narrative that
packs too many words onto a small screen. Your audience is on the go and
needs to receive only the most important information in a compact
format.
Keep in mind that the
fewer words you use in your bulletins, the more impact they will have.
You can increase font size instead of relying on your audience to read
long sentences or paragraphs of information to glean meaning and
relevance.
Delivery of messaging to
cell phones, PDAs and desktop messenger platforms require brevity. Also,
concise messaging allows you to rotate bulletins more frequently,
exposing your audience to more communications in less time.
How can we improve this message?
Before
After
-
Never bury the
lead.
Make sure that you
present the most important facts first. As you see in our example,
using a brief title is a great way to grab attention and create
interest.
-
Drop unnecessary
words.
Eliminate unimportant phrases and prepositions as we’ve done here.
(For a handy list of English prepositions,
click here.)
-
Be specific.
Make sure places, dates and times are complete and exact. We’ve
changed “conference room” to “Conference Room A” and have expanded
the date wording.
-
Present all the
facts.
Although we’re tightening up the text, we don’t want to leave any
important details out of the message. In our example, we’ve added
the scheduled end time to the meeting.
Remember: The better
your messages are received – the more your audience will rely on and
look for them on a regular basis.
Copyright 2006. Tech Electronics, Inc. (TEi). All rights reserved.
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