Employ the Message Evaluation Checklist to ensure success. Checklists prompt us to look at both obvious and less obvious characteristics. This checklist from Chapter 10 is indispensable for creating audience-focused messages.

Most people fail at communication because they fail to hit the target. Many people fail to even have a target. The target is the specific audience for a message. Creating audience-focused communication is the key to success.

For an audience to attend to, engage with, and act upon a message, they must trust the communicator. Strong audience connections build and strengthen trust. When communicating about science, those audience connections matter. Now more than ever.

Designing and delivering messages that successfully reach audiences and have the desired impact follows a proven strategy. This strategy has three primary focus areas and includes 10 steps.