Messages have a special meaning in public relations. A message is not the same as an advertising slogan or a marketing line; a message is a simple and clear idea that acts as a guiding principle for all kinds of communications, from the content of leaflets, brochures and websites to the agenda for a media interview, to conversations with stakeholders.

Effective key message development is probably the most important tool in the strategic communications box.

A good message will be immediately appealing to its target audience: it should be strongly worded to stand out from everything else that is competing for their attention.

Sometimes we have a lot to say, as we are doing useful things. Having a lot to say can be a problem, though. If you try to communicate dozens of

ideas at the same time, your audience will suffer from “information overload” and end up failing to grasp any of these ideas properly at all. Too many different messages cause confusion, and you risk losing focus.

• Do not use more than three messages at any time.

Communication will never get results if it is delivered in a form that requires your target audience to sit down with a strong cup of coffee, a dictionary, a table of acronyms and a calculator just to understand it. The simplest messages are the best. They require no effort to understand.

• KISS (Keep it seample and stupid) principle is perfect for your campaigns 

You stand the best chance of determining what impression your audiences will take away of your project if they hear the same message from different sources and on different occasions. Without consistent messages, communication lack clarity and when different activities say different things about your project, the effect is diluted. When they all say the same thing about your project, the effect is multiplied.

A good PR programme approaches its public in many ways: by social media channels, by generating newspaper coverage for news events like launches, by promoting case studies and features to magazines, by lobbying policymakers – and dozens of other potential approaches.

• Say nine things – they remember none; Say three things – they remember one; Say three things three times – they remember all three

There is a strong “bottleneck effect” in most PR activities: no matter how much you say, only a small amount of information will make it to your audience. You can only write 500 or so words on a press release before people stop reading. You can only talk for 20 minutes in a speech before your audience lose interest. A 30- minute television interview may be edited down to 30 seconds.

Messages help to ensure that the important information makes it through the bottleneck. By making messages simple you remove all secondary and less important information.