How to Know if Your Message Will Succeed Before You Send It

What makes a message successful?

Can you describe the characteristics of high-quality messaging?

Last week’s post covered the importance of creating audience-focused messages, sharing 7 reasons why communication tailored to an audience is more successful, summarized from Chapter 10 in Communicating Nutrition: The Authoritative Guide, a comprehensive roadmap to creating audience-focused messages.

Checklists are one of the most popular features of the book. These chapter checklists provide an easy and effective way to make sure you have covered all your bases. In this case, to ensure that your message contains all the characteristics of high-quality messages.

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.

Source: Chapter 10, “Effective Messages are Created with and for an Audience,” Communicating Nutrition: The Authoritative Guide, p 159. Used with permission.

Try it out. Evaluate a message you have created and check whether it meets the criteria listed on the checklist.

Not sure if it meets the criteria? Ask your audience. Only they can tell you whether a message is understandable, relevant, and motivating.

If a message falls short in any area, revise it. Make it better. Make it successful.

Need help improving your messages?

Check out these previous posts for ways to create more audience-focused communication:

• What makes a message memorable?

• What makes a message compelling?

• Want strong messages that make a difference? Build them on solid evidence.

• Make your messages remarkable: Achieve the 3 M’s of Impact.

• Wordiness weighs down your message. Cut ruthlessly and be concise.

• Are your messages negative or positive? Reframe hard truths to empower audiences.

“Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

If you like this content, please share it.