Finding the hook...

This week I got to spend some time with 30-40 of our Life Mission leaders. These folks are impacting lives and the community in new ways. They a-maze me (hyphen inserted for appropriate pause).

I was honored they invited me to their gathering to spend a few minutes talking about the communications strategy at GCC. Early in, I talked about how effective communications has less to do with sending the right message, and everything to do with releasing the right response.

To release the right response with an audience, you've got to take time to figure out what makes your message worth their time; figure out how it relates to their world. Of course, there is no exact science for fool-proof results, but there are tools that can help.

I just read this post about finding the hook with an audience. In it, he uses a very simple framework to help craft a message to raise drug awareness with high school students.

Are you taking the time to answer these types of questions for your audience before you create your content? This works for packaging a message series, defining event themes, designing a web site, decorating an atrium, writing announcements in your bulletin, asking your husband for more spending money, talking to your teenager ...

• Focus Audience: who are we trying to reach?
• Forum: where can we reach all of them at once?
• Issue: why are we talking to them?
• Accelerators: what helps?
• Barriers: what hurts?
• Hook: how do we ignite their passion?

Comments

[Mark Beeson]

You are great.