Developing and maintaining a set of key messages is an important communications task. Good messaging provides a focus and consistency to your communications, as well as clarity and reinforcement for your audiences.

Some principles of effective message creation are:

Good messages consider your objectives

What do we need this audience to do? They are written to appeal to your audience’s interests and concerns. In a local chaplaincy setting, these may include an individuals seeking a British community or addressing local social issues.

Keep it simple

Effective messages are able to put across the key points and phrase them in a way that your audiences can understand quickly. Even a complex issue can be ‘broken down’ into smaller, easier to understand messages.

Variety in your messaging

You may need to vary messages to appeal to different audiences.

Use the language that your audiences use

Try to avoid using jargon.

Test your messages

Those involved in the process of developing messages become too close to them. Always test messages with a small sample from the target audience.

Use the below template and prompt questions to think about and distil some messages for your next project or event promotion. Note: this template is intended to act as a guide for you and the chaplaincy to improve your communications and not for public distribution.