Reminder: Message Strategy is a principled approach to what you say and how you say it — in order to achieve a goal. There are 4 principles: Customer-centric, clear, compelling, and controlled. AKA the 4 Cs. AKA The 4 things that make a message work™.
Generally, you know what being clear means. Easy to understand. Not confusing. But there are some other meanings that are especially applicable to marketing and sales: Obvious. Distinctive and unmistakable. Nothing in the way when you’re ready to take action.
Definitions of clear:
Merriam-Webster:
Oxford:
American Heritage:
When it comes to messages, two main defining attributes are simple and specific.
A clear message is one that’s simple and specific.
The famous “Got Milk?” campaign is a good example:
You’ve got two one-syllable words. A visual with a particular use case. And nothing else. Efficient. Focused. Powerful.
“Simple isn’t naïve or stupid; it’s direct and unpretentious.”
Randy Kilgore
Equally well known is the Geico tagline. It’s a great example of being specific.
For a tagline, this is way wordy. More than you’d normally want. But it overcomes this deficiency with specificity: “15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance.” I mean, they could have said, “You might save a lot. Find out with a short phone call.” But the hard numbers are clearer — and more compelling. With a nice parallelism that makes it memorable. (You can just imagine the internal objections to this approach: “We can’t promise a specific amount! It varies by situation.” “Okay, well, is there a minimum amount that anybody could save?” Hat tip to the marketing team for pushing for specifics.)
Clear also means direct. Getting straight to the point.
Check out this before-and-after.
A big, wordy wind-up is especially common when a company’s got to communicate some bad news. Like a rate hike, a product shortage in the distribution channel, or a forced software migration. It’s human nature to want to soften the blow. So they’ll spend two or three paragraphs serving up platitudes like “Since 1967 we’ve striven to…” or “We are living in challenging times.” Blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile you’re reading this and wondering, “Where the heck is this going?” Because it’s vague, and you know something’s coming. At long last, they get to the point. By that time, you’re probably as irritated by the hem-haw as you are by the disappointing revelation. You’ve experienced that, right? I know you have.
The military created its own way to combat this problem. It’s called BLUF — Bottom Line Up Front. And it’s exactly what it sounds like. Put the gist at the beginning. Then all the background and explanation after. It’s designed primarily for emails, but it’s applicable everywhere. Truth is, we could all learn from the BLUF method.
Well duh. It just should be, right? Actually not always. Sometimes there are good reasons to be vague. Teaser campaigns, for example.
When your message is clear, you get the meaning quick. And that’s refreshing. From the audience’s perspective: Please just say what you’re trying to say to me. And get it over with. It saves everybody time. It also makes me appreciate you — even trust you — more. Which means your message is more likely to be effective.
A clear message:
Basically, anything that simplifies and specifies, and makes it easy for me to get the point pronto. Want to help me see sales opportunities? Show them to me. With pictures. Diagrams. Details. Examples that illustrate. Design that’s easy to follow. Language that’s emphatic. And fluff that doesn’t exist.
To make a message clear:
Now, most of us know that simple is good. But a lot of us get simple wrong. And that’s because we use the wrong metric for it.
Most of us know that simple is good. But a lot of us get simple wrong… because we use the wrong metric for it.
Take presentations for example. Some well-intentioned soul will come up with a guideline like “No more than 10 slides.” That’s good, but then people go and cram 100 slides’ worth of content on them. Well, that is not simple. You’re better off having 1,000 slides, with one word each on them. One point at a time — now that’s simple.
Another way people mis-quantify simple is by word count. Again, good, but not quite enough. I’ll give you a couple of silly examples just to make a point. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is one word, but it’s not simple. Antidisestablishmentarianism is one word, but it’s not simple.
At the word level, simplicity is measured in syllables. And the highest concentration of communication power is a single-syllable word.
The highest concentration of communication power is a single-syllable word.
Check out this sales enablement theme that Counterpart created for the Terminix Commercial sales force. It’s one of my all-time favorite examples of single-syllable clarity. Here’s the message we had to convey to the sales force: “If you will commit to deeper training on our services and try to do more pre-call preparation so as to develop a greater understanding of our target segments and their specific needs, then you can elevate yourself beyond an order-taker function and be able to engage in consultative selling, recommending solutions that are more directly relevant and impactful to your customer’s businesses, thereby creating the opportunity for you to be seen as a trusted expert and valuable advisor, and in so doing, you will put yourself in the best position to increase your sales over time.” All of that distilled into six syllables!
We also get simple wrong by summarizing. We try to tell the whole story in just a few words. So we ladder up to some overall takeaway, i.e., a conclusion. Have you ever heard the military expression FUBAR? Look it up. When you generalize and conclude, you end up with a message that’s SUBAR — SUmmarized Beyond All Recognition. “Quality products and fast service.” So generic. We think we’re saving the reader time, but actually we’re wasting their time with a message that doesn’t mean anything. Respect your reader’s intelligence (customer-centric), give them specifics, and let them draw their own conclusions. People are more convinced when they convince themselves. As Dale Carnegie said, all persuasion is self-persuasion.
Heard of FUBAR? When you generalize, you end up with a message that’s SUBAR — SUmmarized Beyond All Recognition.
Similarly (I’ll just keep going on this tangent), we marketers and sales pros are often guilty of over-benefiting. We tell ourselves that the customer is not buying a drill bit; they’re buying a hole. And they’re not buying a hole; they’re buying a framed picture hung on the wall. And they’re not buying a framed picture hung on the wall; they’re buying a beautifully decorated living room. Next thing you know, we’re advertising a drill bit as a source of comfort and peace. It’s ridiculous. I don’t need you to tell me that a car that goes 0 to 60 in 3.4 seconds means I can get home faster so I can enjoy time with my family. Maybe I don’t have a family, and I’m for sure not an idiot. I know what 0 to 60 in 3.4 seconds means, and I know what it means for me. Point is, sometimes it’s OK to talk features without translating them into benefits. I get that a 48-megapixel camera takes good pictures. Just give me the specs. I don’t need you to spell it out for me. Over-benefitting means unnecessary extra words. And that’s the opposite of simple.
Side note: You often see people calling for “clear and concise” communication. To me, this is a bit redundant. Concise is a means of being clear.
Let’s start with simplicity. Don’t try to cram a lot of information into every sentence. Make one point at a time. Write short sentences — 12 to 14 words. And make those words short, for the most part. Single-syllable words are the gold standard. Just ask Arby’s.
(Single syllables makes it simple, but not necessarily compelling. In my first job, working on a regional bank, we came up with the tagline “Here for you.” That says nothing. Every business that’s in business is “here for you.” Simple, but not compelling.)
By the way, simple has been correlated with truthful. According to a study from Harvard Business School:
Toward helping you write simply, let me share a couple of my favorite tools.
The Hemingway App — Great little online editor. The example on the home page is instructive and interactive. Have a go at it. I was able to get it down to a second-grade reading level. How about you?
Editor feature in Microsoft Word — “Document stats” is a must-use. It gives you words per sentence and characters per word. Plus the Flesch Reading Ease score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. When it comes to simplicity in writing, Rudolf Flesch is my greatest influence.
We’ve covered the importance of specifics. Quantify when you can. Favor the concrete over the abstract. As I like to say, concrete is strong. And nothing explains like examples.
Concrete is strong.
Don’t be afraid to break some rules, either, if it brings clarity to your message. You’re not in grammar class anymore.
Someone once said, “Let a list be a list.” If you’ve got three items or fewer, it’s okay to put it in body copy. Any more than that, and you’re just making it hard on your reader. Use bullet points.
Verbal ways to be clear:
Nothing brings an idea home like a demonstration. If you can show it instead of saying it, then you should absolutely do so. Who can forget those viral “Will It Blend?” videos? Comedic and convincing.
And for the sake of simplicity, avoid redundancy. Don’t repeat with words what you’re already communicating with pictures. And vice-versa.
Visual ways to be clear:
For sure. Most of the above are explicit ways. But there are also esoteric ways. And there are exceptions. More on this in a future blog post.
A message that’s vague is the enemy of clarity. Vague messages might lack necessary detail — or have way too much of it. Is your messaging vague?
Want to learn more about making your message clear? Check out these standout works.
“Communication without clarity is noise.”
Farshad Asl
Your input can help me refine the principles of Message Strategy, so I can better help others.
Being clear is a big part of what makes a message effective. Do you agree or disagree with these assertions? Hit me with your cheers and challenges.
Ready to prove or disprove the clear principle? Send me some examples.
Are you creating sales playbooks? An ad campaign? A tagline? How would you rate your own messaging in terms of being clear?
Need to ensure adoption of your sales program, new product offering, or company strategy? Let’s talk.
