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Telling the Right StoryAdapting your message to multiple audiences

AoA Grantees Meeting

Washington, DCJanuary 19, 2006

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What’s Ahead

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What’s Ahead

1. Strategic communications… once more briefly

2. Messaging 1013. Know your audience4. The Art of Persuasion5. Persuade your audience 6. Shaping your message

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Strategic Communications

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Five Steps to Strategic Communications

1. Setting Clear Objectives2. Identifying Audiences3. Creating and Adapting Messages4. Selecting Vehicles/Strategies5. Conducting Evaluation

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Messaging 101

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What are you trying to say?

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Marshalling EvidenceSample MessageEnhanceFitness (formerly Lifetime Fitness) is a low-cost, highly adaptable exercise program challenging enough for active older adults and safe enough for the unfit or near frail.

What’s the evidence (not necessarily the evidence base)?

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Exercise (1)

What’s your message (for an audience you are comfortable with)?

What’s your evidence?

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Know your audience

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What do they care about?

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Primary Audiences

• Aging services providers State and local AAA leaders Executive directors Program directors

• Health care providers Doctors, nurses, social workers, care managers Hospitals Managed care providers and insurers

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Secondary Audiences

• Alternative sites Y’s Senior housing Libraries CCRCs Senior colleges

• Funders Foundations Government – State AAAs, Departments of Health

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Exercise (2)

What’s your message for an audience you are not as comfortable with?

What’s your evidence? What’s new?

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The Art of Persuasion

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Aristotle and the Modes of Persuasion

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Ethos

Based on the perceived credibility of the speaker or the source.

Typical Sources: Testimony (self and others), references and citations.

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Logos

Appeals based on rational evidence.Typical sources: Data, facts, figures

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Pathos

Appeals to personal motives or emotional “truths”Typical sources: Stories, anecdotes, examples

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Mythos

Appeals based on commonly held values, ideas or customsTypical evidence: Narrative to create identification and interest

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Persuading your audiences

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Persuading Aging Services Providers

• Heavier on the pathos, field-based “mythos”• Build ethos for you and program• Connect with their:

Concern for underserved populations Interest in ease of implementation Interest in new member recruitment Concern about cost Interest in better “lives,” not necessarily better

health

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Persuading Health Care Providers

• Go heavier on ethos and logos• Evidence base is helpful.• Provide outcomes from your program, if

available• Connect with concerns about benefits for the

practice• Use short forms – 1 pager, 2 minute video

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Persuading

• Clear concrete language• Concise stories• Compelling data• Shorter forms—one

pagers, information package

• Link to state/national issues

• Organizational benefits – cutting edge, recruitment/ marketing, access to new partners or resources

• Clear concrete language• Concise stories• Compelling data• Longer forms—including

materials, tools• Link to

local/organizational issues

• Practice benefits – ease of implementation, availability of TA, time savings, etc.

Decisionmakers Practitioners

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Shaping Your Message

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Five Steps to Effective Messages

1. Listen in for their frame, values, poetry.2. Marshall your evidence.

-What do you have? What don’t you have?-Remember ethos, logos, pathos, mythos

3. Test and, if necessary, revise.4. Find the right messenger.5. Once you’ve got it, stay with it.

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Strategic Communications & Planning34 West Avenue, Suite E

Wayne, PA 19087

jbeilenson@aboutscp.com610.687.5495

www.aboutscp.com