5 BEST TIPS:

Message Development • Map out your year. Focus first on the major recurrent events. • Fill in the calendar with themes; one theme a week works well. • Develop a message for each theme and subtheme. • Pick the audiences and media for each theme. • Work backwards on your calendar from the final event and determine who does what, where, by when, and how. Make assignments.

MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT

Once you have decided on goals, themes, and an overall communications plan, success or failure will depend on your ability to carry it out in an orderly, detailed way. Here are some approaches that have proved useful at this stage.

Annual calendar: Look at your annual calendar — month by month — and fill in major recurring events. In the United States, for example, the president gives a "State of the Union" address to the country, usually in January, at the time the annual budget is released; there are the Group of Seven and Group of Eight meetings in the summer; and the United Nations session opens in the fall. These significant recurring events are linchpins in the White House media calendar in terms of repeating key themes.

Your own major themes might fit into similar recurring events. If privatization is a goal, for instance, that could be a major topic in an annual budget address.

Pick a periodic theme: After you fill in the "must do" events on the calendar, pick a theme for certain time periods, such as a week or a month, relating to one of the five goals to allow you to alternate the "must do" events with your themes. One week, the theme might be agricultural reform, and you would schedule different events that are agriculturally focused. The next week, the theme might be civil service reform, and events would be undertaken to fit that theme.

Make a master calendar: Write the theme for each week on a calendar for at least six months ahead. The calendar will need to be updated frequently because unplanned events will arise and you will need to react.

Select and develop a message for each theme: For example, if the theme for the second week in January is agricultural reform, you would develop a message relating to that theme. Each theme would likely have several subthemes. For example, one subtheme for agricultural reform might be the government's changing agricultural subsidies; another might be new methods for increasing farmers' productivity. During the second week of January, when the theme is agricultural reform, you might emphasize the subtheme of changing agricultural subsidies. You would fill the other weeks in January with your other main themes. Then, you would return to the agricultural theme in February, perhaps emphasizing the subtheme of increasing farmers' productivity. In March, you would again emphasize an agricultural subtheme, perhaps returning to changing agricultural subsidies.

When you pick a theme, know whether or not it relates to legislation or government action. For instance, if the government plans to consider agricultural reforms this year, you would stress that theme before any votes on agriculture are made in the legislature.

Make sure that your message is simple, clear, and direct. Think about how you would like a headline to be written about it and how you would like a first paragraph of a story to read. This will help you refine your message.

For the message of reducing government agricultural subsidies, for example, you could pick three points to emphasize. Having more than three could create confusion and result in their being forgotten. Your points would be repeated over and over throughout the week. For example, you could say that cutting government subsidies would: (1) allow more government funds to be spent on other needed programs, (2) open up more foreign investment in farming, (3) increase private investment and make agriculture more profitable and efficient.

Identify audiences, media outlets, and locations: Ask these questions: Whom do you want to hear your message? Maybe you have several audiences, such as the elderly, students, or women, and each needs a differently focused message. What media outlets are there to deliver your messages? Are there respected third party allies who can reinforce your message? If your message is about agriculture, which farmers' groups would you like to reach? To which media do they pay the most attention?

Select a site with good visual impact to deliver the message. Don't just deliver the message from an office. Make the message visual and relative to what you have to say. If agriculture is your theme for the week, you might deliver your message from a farmers' cooperative on Monday, visit a farmer's family on Tuesday, give a speech to the legislature on cutting subsidies on Wednesday, visit a fertilizer factory on Thursday, and address foreign farming investors on Friday. Invite the press to cover all of these events.

List the media: Look through your media list to determine who would be most interested in your story. If your story is agricultural in nature, plan to contact both those who cover agriculture as well as political reporters. Don't overlook the specialized press, such as agricultural trade journals and magazines read by farmers. Know the reporters and know whether they are reporting on your story positively or negatively.

You might think in stages to ensure that the message is repeated in the newspapers one day after another. In a newspaper campaign, for example, you might focus on:

• Hard news for a first-day story.
  
• Feature news (the farm family) for a second-day story.
  
• An editorial page article for the third or fourth day.

A hard-news story transmits a basic set of facts to the reader as quickly as possible. This doesn't happen with a feature story. With a feature, the purpose of the lead or beginning of a story is to attract attention. With a hard-news story the lead imparts who, what, when, where, why, and how. A feature story enhances the basic facts with details and descriptions so that the reader sees a more complete picture of an event or person. While the news story might say "desk," a feature story might say "light cherry desk."

When you want your message repeated, getting it into different news sections in different forms is often useful. For example, when the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) undertook a campaign on the testing of college students and their knowledge of history and literature, it staged its media campaign so that the news would appear in different sections of the newspaper one day after the other. It mailed its press materials to the hard-news reporters first and to feature and editorial writers second. The latter got the material the day that the hard-news story appeared. The first-day story was a hard-news story about the results of the test. The second-day story was a feature on the test that included the full text of the test, so readers could take it, and a story on how much college students knew when reporters went to local college campuses to quiz them. On the third day, the editorial pages ran editorials on the NEH findings. The result was massive coverage favorable to the NEH.

How to develop a calendar: Decide what material you want to release — press release or media package, for example — on the day you announce your message.

• Work backwards to fill in the calendar and make assignments. For instance, if you need 50 press releases on the day of an announcement, how many days ahead of time do they need to be prepared? How long will it take to get them printed? List that on the calendar and then assign the writing of the press release and establish a deadline by which it must be written, a deadline for its review by a superior, a deadline for it to be printed, and a deadline for it to be inserted into a press package with other materials.
  
• Also write down the deadline for completion of the targeted press list and identify who will compile the list. Write down the deadline for finishing the official's remarks and when his/her statement must be reviewed and by whom.
  
• Write down any other task that needs to be done. Assign each task to someone to complete, and give them a deadline.
  
• Constantly review the calendar to be sure that deadlines are being met.

Written material: Have written material ready in advance for the media. This could include:

• Fact sheet containing economic information on farming.
  
• Fact sheet on your goals in farm reform — spelling out what you want to do and how it will affect farmers and consumers in the short and long terms.
  
• Fact sheet on why reform is needed for the country's future economic well-being.

Special interviews: Set up media interviews between government officials and reporters on this topic. Use radio call-in shows to push the issue. In the United States, the president often focuses his weekly Saturday radio address to the nation on issues that will be prominent the following week.

Local interviews: Schedule local interviews on your theme around the country. Emphasize agriculture, for example, with a local radio station in a key agricultural city. If possible, have statistics available showing how the reforms will affect farmers and consumers in that area.

Experts: Develop messages that others can make on your behalf. Prepare talking points from which supporters who are opinion-makers can make statements on the same theme. For example, in the United States, if the presidential administration is advocating changes related to health care, it might encourage a prominent doctor who agrees with its policies to do television interviews favorable to its position. Experts who can give interviews and speeches, appear on TV and radio, and write opinion pieces in support of your theme can influence public opinion. Develop a way to stay in touch with this group as the issue progresses, perhaps through an e-mail list of Web sites.

Coordination: Coordinate your message with others in the government to ensure that the public does not receive conflicting messages. The media often report on conflicts, and having opposing opinions within a government makes a good story. If the press focuses on this sort of controversy, it will get in the way of your message. Additionally, it is easier to get support for a program if you have all groups involved aligned with you.

Assessment: After each "theme week" concludes, assess how you did and alter the schedule, message, and calendar as needed.