The Power of a Messaging Playbook

If giv­en an hour, peo­ple can typ­i­cal­ly weave their way toward hit­ting most of their brand’s key mes­sages. It gets a lot hard­er when there’s only space for a cou­ple sen­tences on a web page, or if you have just a few min­utes with a jour­nal­ist, poten­tial client or investor. There can be so much to say, and with­out a clear play­book, brand team mem­bers are at risk of being incon­sis­tent, inef­fi­cient and, even worse, miss­ing out on deliv­er­ing crit­i­cal messages.

This is why cre­at­ing a mes­sag­ing play­book is some­thing we rec­om­mend to our clients over and over again. Whether you’re a five-per­son shop or a For­tune 50 com­pa­ny – delin­eat­ing your sto­ry into clear, com­pelling and audi­ence-tai­lored mes­sages is mis­sion crit­i­cal to ensur­ing it lands well with whomev­er you’re shar­ing it with, wher­ev­er and when­ev­er the oppor­tu­ni­ties pop up.

What’s a mes­sag­ing play­book? While it can take many shapes, for our clients it typ­i­cal­ly con­sists of a 2–10-page doc­u­ment that includes hier­ar­chy of mes­sag­ing to lever­age for var­i­ous uses and audi­ence through­out the year – from clients to media, award nom­i­na­tions to bylined arti­cles, investor decks to com­pa­ny town­halls. It can run in tan­dem with a larg­er brand book (think: cre­ative direc­tion, logo usage, etc.) or on its own for use in communications.

The fol­low­ing are a few hur­dles we often see get­ting in the way of teams devel­op­ing a sol­id com­mu­ni­ca­tions playbook:

• It takes some time and investment.
• It involves bring­ing the right peo­ple to the table – usu­al­ly peo­ple at the com­pa­ny who are among the busiest.
• It’s hard to know where to start.
• There isn’t a sense of urgency or direct con­nec­tion to KPIs.
• It’s unclear whose job it is.

These are real chal­lenges. AND the fol­low­ing real­i­ties are also true.

Con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing is mem­o­rable messaging

An incon­sis­tent sto­ry leaves room for con­fu­sion about a brand’s true val­ue propo­si­tion or spe­cial­ty. One of the things we love most about host­ing sto­ry-min­ing ses­sions is that when we bring togeth­er a group of peo­ple, we get so many dif­fer­ent van­tage points about what makes a brand great. While that diver­si­ty is invalu­able, it’s also crit­i­cal to bring all those per­spec­tives into align­ment, to share a con­sis­tent sto­ry that becomes tru­ly mem­o­rable for the audi­ences it’s intend­ed for.

The cost of not hav­ing a play­book is huge drain on com­pa­ny resources 

Yes, invest­ing the time to devel­op a play­book takes some upfront work. But the cost of not hav­ing a mes­sag­ing strat­e­gy eclipses the cost of devel­op­ing one. It’s the dif­fer­ence between start­ing every sin­gle pre­sen­ta­tion, writ­ing project or inter­view with a blank page vs. hav­ing guard rails, ideas and frame­works to use time and time again. Ask any trained artist about con­straints and they’ll tell you bound­aries are instru­men­tal in fos­ter­ing cre­ativ­i­ty, moti­va­tion and inno­va­tion. The same is true when it comes to com­mu­ni­ca­tion. With clear brand mes­sages and struc­ture, com­mu­ni­ca­tion efforts thrive.

Mes­sag­ing work can be some of the most inspir­ing and team-build­ing work you do all year

If you’re with us this far but don’t know how to pull peo­ple togeth­er or where to get start­ed, this is the fun part! And this is the per­fect time of year to think about it. Usu­al­ly, after the hol­i­days, when peo­ple are feel­ing a bit more rest­ed and ready to get orga­nized, we bring a sense of order and rou­tine back to work, too.

We rec­om­mend start­ing with the mar­ket­ing or com­mu­ni­ca­tions team, as well as the exec­u­tive suite and lead­ing sub­ject mat­ter experts. Gen­er­al­ly, the more voic­es the bet­ter at the ini­tial stage. But don’t let that hold you back. We’ve led sto­ry-min­ing ses­sions with just a busi­ness own­er and their mar­ket­ing lead.

Here’s where we might sound salesy, but trust us: Lever­age an out­side facilitator

From my work on both the client side and agency side, I’d argue that brand­ing and mes­sag­ing work is one of the most impor­tant endeav­ors in which to bring in out­side experts for sup­port. For one, inter­nal team mem­bers are so close to the brand it’s hard to “unknow” what you know and objec­tive­ly expe­ri­ence mes­sag­ing. Curi­ous, cre­ative experts can play a crit­i­cal facil­i­ta­tion role ask­ing ques­tions to draw out what’s most impor­tant to you and your audi­ences. In these ses­sions, we often do a lot of heavy lift­ing for our clients, allow­ing them to just talk, ram­ble or file-dump on us, and then we bring it all togeth­er in an orga­nized and com­pelling way. We also help con­sid­er what infor­ma­tion spe­cif­ic audi­ences (like media, for exam­ple) might need and expect, to max­i­mize oppor­tu­ni­ties as they arise.

 

Mes­sag­ing strat­e­gy takes work. But it pays off expo­nen­tial­ly – from align­ing your team, to inspir­ing great work year-round, to mak­ing a mem­o­rable impres­sion on the audi­ences you need to reach. Can we help you with yours in 2025?