Developing key messages is perhaps the most essential practice of a strategic communications department or company. We all know the stress and anxiety of writing the perfect headline or lead sentence, but how often do you sit with your colleagues or clients to diligently develop phrases that represent the main ideas you want to convey to your audience(s)?

If you are a PR professional, you’re probably familiar with this practice; it’s how we develop talking points for clients. However, the act of identifying the features, advantages and benefits (FABs) into phrases that form compelling unique selling propositions (USPs) is a skill I learned years ago.

While talking points ensure everyone says the same thing (especially to the media), key messages developed using FABs ensure that all marketing materials consistently promote the benefits of the offering. Most of us can speak or write about features and some can even follow a feature with an advantage, but this isn’t always easy. Following an advantage with a benefit requires practice and a commitment to connect emotionally with your audiences. Using benefit language is challenging when promoting a service – especially a healthcare service.

Before you begin your next marketing campaign, gather internal experts and other stakeholders to nail down the FABs of your product, service or company by target audience(s). We take our clients through this exercise in the planning stages of a new campaign or initiative. And while the process can prove tedious, the results will pay off time and again. A well-written set of “go-to” phrases that serve as the backbone or core of the campaign creates:

• Consistent, targeted messages across all communication platforms
• Talking points for leadership and other spokespersons
• Up-front buy-in, which often means faster turn-around time for copywriting and approvals
• A cohesive team who is “on the same page” due to the time spent brainstorming to develop verbiage that best reflects the essence of the brand and its audience
• Focus on the features that are most compelling to the audience
• Patient-centricity!

What are FABulous messages?

Auto manufacturers are expert FAB’ers — watch carefully the next time you see a television commercial for a new car to see if you can follow the pattern.

I’ll bet you’ll be able to identify the three components:

• Feature: A prominent part, characteristic or special attraction
  • “The new Cadillac CVS has pop-up navigation, a 40 gig hard drive, wood trim and a sunroof.”
• Advantage: A favorable impression or effect (of the feature)
  • “It’s a luxury vehicle…”
• Benefit: Something that promotes well-being (from the perspective of the recipient)
  • “…that will turn you on.”

Auto manufacturers drive home the benefit by using sound and images. They create their brands on television and rely on the internet and dealerships to sell them.

How to create FABulous key messages

Develop a grid for each offering for each target audience, and if needed, a separate grid for the company. Don’t try to combine products/services or audiences. In the end, there may be enough repetitive phrases to consider combining audiences, but you won’t know this initially. Start first by listing the unique features that differentiate your product from your competitors. Choose selectively as not every feature will benefit every audience. Ideally, features should be ranked by relevance and value.

Next, list an advantage of each feature. Sometimes, one feature will have several advantages or one advantage could apply to several features. While this is tiresome to plot out, you will soon understand the significance of the repetition: patterns may emerge that lead to further exploration — “all of our features have the same advantage; should we combine them to create one message?” or “one feature has multiple advantages and the others have just one; should we focus on the one feature and consider the others low priority?”

Lastly, develop benefit statements for each advantage. Remember, benefits can and likely will be repetitive. They should appeal to our basic human needs — survival, security, social, ego and growth. Often this is the most difficult step to complete. Be patient and ask your favorite professional FAB’er (me?) to help. Soon you’ll be creating FABulous messages with confidence!

Developing key messages is perhaps the most essential practice of a strategic communications department or company. We all know the stress and anxiety of writing the perfect headline or lead sentence, but how often do you sit with your colleagues or clients to diligently develop phrases that represent the main ideas you want to convey to your audience(s)?

If you are a PR professional, you’re probably familiar with this practice; it’s how we develop talking points for clients. However, the act of identifying the features, advantages and benefits (FABs) into phrases that form compelling unique selling propositions (USPs) is a skill I learned years ago.

While talking points ensure everyone says the same thing (especially to the media), key messages developed using FABs ensure that all marketing materials consistently promote the benefits of the offering. Most of us can speak or write about features and some can even follow a feature with an advantage, but this isn’t always easy. Following an advantage with a benefit requires practice and a commitment to connect emotionally with your audiences. Using benefit language is challenging when promoting a service – especially a healthcare service.

Before you begin your next marketing campaign, gather internal experts and other stakeholders to nail down the FABs of your product, service or company by target audience(s). We take our clients through this exercise in the planning stages of a new campaign or initiative. And while the process can prove tedious, the results will pay off time and again. A well-written set of “go-to” phrases that serve as the backbone or core of the campaign creates:

• Consistent, targeted messages across all communication platforms
• Talking points for leadership and other spokespersons
• Up-front buy-in, which often means faster turn-around time for copywriting and approvals
• A cohesive team who is “on the same page” due to the time spent brainstorming to develop verbiage that best reflects the essence of the brand and its audience
• Focus on the features that are most compelling to the audience
• Patient-centricity!

What are FABulous messages?

Auto manufacturers are expert FAB’ers — watch carefully the next time you see a television commercial for a new car to see if you can follow the pattern. I’ll bet you’ll be able to identify the three components:

• Feature: A prominent part, characteristic or special attraction
  • “The new Cadillac CVS has pop-up navigation, a 40 gig hard drive, wood trim and a sunroof.”
• Advantage: A favorable impression or effect (of the feature)
  • “It’s a luxury vehicle…”
• Benefit: Something that promotes well-being (from the perspective of the recipient)
  • “…that will turn you on.”

Auto manufacturers drive home the benefit by using sound and images. They create their brands on television and rely on the internet and dealerships to sell them.

How to create FABulous key messages

Develop a grid for each offering for each target audience, and if needed, a separate grid for the company. Don’t try to combine products/services or audiences. In the end, there may be enough repetitive phrases to consider combining audiences, but you won’t know this initially. Start first by listing the unique features that differentiate your product from your competitors. Choose selectively as not every feature will benefit every audience. Ideally, features should be ranked by relevance and value.

Next, list an advantage of each feature. Sometimes, one feature will have several advantages or one advantage could apply to several features. While this is tiresome to plot out, you will soon understand the significance of the repetition: patterns may emerge that lead to further exploration — “all of our features have the same advantage; should we combine them to create one message?” or “one feature has multiple advantages and the others have just one; should we focus on the one feature and consider the others low priority?”

Lastly, develop benefit statements for each advantage. Remember, benefits can and likely will be repetitive. They should appeal to our basic human needs — survival, security, social, ego and growth. Often this is the most difficult step to complete. Be patient and ask your favorite professional FAB’er to help. Soon you’ll be creating FABulous messages with confidence!

Randee Gannon is a professional FAB’er, and director of client service, for the Dobies Healthcare Group. She has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, public relations and advertising. Her area of expertise includes developing, implementing and measuring strategic healthcare marketing plans.

A brand is only as strong as the connection between the organization’s actions and its messages. After all, your brand is more than what you say – it’s what you do.

So how do you determine what your brand is really saying?  Two words: Brand audit.

A brand audit systematically assesses the company’s brand from three vantage points:

1. Communications: How authentically the company appears in documents, proposals, advertising, Web sites and other venues
2. Internal: What employees think
3. External: What the customer believes

An audit is like peeling an onion one layer at a time to expose the core essence of the brand, and reviewing these three areas can help leadership understand how well the brand aligns with the organization’s strategic priorities and core values. Plus, it creates a road map for both marketers and executives to use in improving the brand’s overall authenticity. 

To learn more, check out our article on brand audits and take the first steps toward truly living your brand.

About the Author

Carol Dobies of Dobies Healthcare Group has 30 years of marketing experience in privately operated and publicly traded healthcare firms. She serves as project leader and creative director, and her expertise is in marketing strategy development, product/service line branding, creative and interactive communications, public relations and internal/team communications.

And wow, what a nice experience! With four children (two families) in tow, we weren’t sure what to expect. Will the hockey be any good? Is the arena nice? Will the kids be bored during the 20-minute intermissions (and for the game for that matter)? Pleasantly, the answers are yes, yes and no!

We’ve always thought that minor league hockey leagues and teams do a great job of marketing their product. So we thought we’d take a look at some of the things they do well … but first a little background.

The Mavericks

The Mavs are an expansion team in the Central Hockey League, an 18-year-old, 15-team organization with clubs in nine Midwest/Southwest states. They are roughly the equivalent of a Double-A minor league baseball team (a step below the Triple-A Omaha Royals, for example, the top minor league affiliate of the Kansas City Royals).

The Mavs home is the brand new Independence Events Center (IEC), a 5800-seat arena conveniently located at the intersection of I-70 and I-470, a few miles down the road from the Truman Sports complex, home of the Royals and Chiefs. We admit having some reservations as we watched the IEC go up, wondering who would fill the place (and pay for its construction). But a successful anchor team plus high school basketball games, college hockey, a separate community ice rink, impressive concerts — and more — have proven our misgivings unfounded.

The Blades

As mentioned, we’re no stranger to minor league hockey. When the Kansas City Blades began play at Kemper Arena in 1990,we served on the Game Staff as the Media Room Supervisor. We were fresh out of college and an internship  in the Mizzou Sports Marketing Department, so the Blades served as a continuation of our love of sports. The late night games with little pay were no problem for a recent college grad with no worries and no mortgage.

Our boss for the Blades was the team’s incredible director of marketing and public relations, Jim Loria (now with the minor league hockey and baseball teams in Sioux Falls, SD). In 1990, Jim was the first employee of the Blades … and what a job he did. His promotions included a few failures and many successes, including …

• A bungee jumper, who leapt from the catwalk at Kemper Arena to a few feet above the ice . (Jim couldn’t bear to watch. And for good reason. This was the arena whose roof had partially collapsed in the 1990s, forcing the NBA’s Kansas City Kings to play half the season at historic Municipal Auditorium.)
• A Garbage Can Toss night, in honor of former NHL goalkeeper and first-year Blade’s coach Doug Soetaert, who a few nights before had conspired with Assistant Coach Ken Morrow to hide a metal trash can in the photographer’s box next to the Blade’s bench. At an opportune time during the next period, Soetaert heaved the can onto the ice in protest of an official’s call … then received a heave from the game. Loria’s Garbage Can Toss night earned a thumbs down from Sports Illustrated in its “Judgment Calls” column.
• Appearances by SI Swimsuit cover model Ashley Montana, Morganna the Kissing Bandit and Kelli McCarty, who was Miss Kansas and Miss USA in 1991.
• Skate with the Players nights on early evening New Year’s Eve games. And nights honoring local heroes like George Brett, a Blades season ticket holder, after he became the first major league baseball player to win a batting crown in three different decades. And free car washes for the car voted as the dirtiest in the parking lot.

Jim came early and stayed late. On the first game in team history, he headed home about midnight the night before. Unable to sleep, he was back to the office around 2 or 3 in the morning for the 7 p.m. night game. Scheming, you can be sure, for the next big event.

The Mavs Product

That brings us back to the Mavs. We’re no expert on what it takes to market a minor league hockey team, but we think some observations of the Mavs, and the Blades before them, could prove beneficial to any company looking to market itself. 

• Hire people passionate about your business. We recently had the pleasure of meeting several of the team’s front office personnel, each of whom you could tell enjoyed working for the Mavs and sharing that passion with others. We sat down for a lengthy conversation with Greg Bergen and the Director of Broadcasting, Bob Rennison, who we knew from our days with the Blades. Bob used to bring his cassette recorder and microphone to the Blades games. Jim Loria would comp him a ticket, and Bob would sit in the upper reaches of Kemper, practicing calling hockey games and waiting for his chance to call a game live. He got that chance, filling in a time or two for Bob Kaiser on the radio, and for Steve Garrett as the rink-side announcer. Bob went on to broadcasting stints in Wichita and Topeka and Kansas City and Avila University before helping bring hockey to Independence. That’s passion.
• Build relationships with the media and community. The Mavs reached out to the local newspaper, The Examiner, and the community at events like the Independence Chamber of Commerce-sponsored SantaCaliGon days before the Events Center was much more than a shell. Sponsoring Dinner on Ice for the Boys & Girls Club is a nice touch as well. The Mavs held a name-the-team contest in conjunction with the Examiner, and held a news conference to announce the winner. Those relationships helped build interest in the new team, and serve the Mavs well today.
• Don’t be afraid to fail in your marketing efforts. Heaven knows the Blades did. We had a post-game rock concert one night that about two people stayed to watch. Maybe three. Literally. Having major league baseball player and Cy Young Award winner “Black Jack” McDowell and his band play after a game seemed like a good idea at the time, we guess, but it didn’t turn out so well. (Like the motivational poster says, though: You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.) The Mavs have the ZOOperstars (think Lil Red for the Nebraska Cornhuskers) entertain during intermissions. They chose a hockey-playing horse as their mascot. Blogger Greg Hall doesn’t like it.  But would the Mavs have been better off being the Presidents or something safe? No, we don’t think so. We personally thought they should have been the Hell Raisers to honor native son Harry Truman.
• Make a pleasant first impression. The Mavs have greeters at the door and around the arena. Just to say hi, the best we could tell, and likely answer a question or two. Nice touch. Nice, too, is the team’s website (built by the good folks at BIGSHOT). One of the Zamboni drivers lives up the street from us. Terry’s a nice guy and always makes a good impression, just like the team. Holly Starr kept the crowd’s attention in the stands and during intermissions on the ice. Steve Garrett did a great job as the announcer. We loved the video board entertainment, especially the kid giving the Herb Brooks Miracle Pre-Game Speech.  As we said, we had four children at our recent game, and they were all entertained, and the parents had a good experience.

O.K., so we like the Mavs and minor league hockey. We just hope you made it through the long post and picked up a thing or two that might help market your product or service or company. We can’t guarantee success, but we can guarantee you’ll miss the shot if you don’t take it!

With the number of users and visits on Facebook growing everyday, it’s safe to say that it has become a powerful marketing tool and medium for companies to generate buzz and excitement for their products and services and to get the attention of loyal customers and even gain new ones.

Here’s a sample of how other companies have used Facebook in their promotional efforts.

• Pepsi’s Refresh Project Uses Facebook to Award Millions to Charity
• Universal Handing Out Free Blu-Ray Movies To Facebook Fans
• 2010 Census Turns to Facebook to Maximize Impact, Reach Young Adults
• IKEA’s Genius Use of Photo Tagging in Facebook
• Mexican Government Uses Facebook to Combat Tourism Declines

With its site offering a platform where companies are reinventing the standards of marketing, Facebook clearly has become more than just a “social” network. Is your company harnessing that power?

An interesting fact about the production of the commercial is how the hybrid’s electric drive mode made it possible to move the car on the set while producing zero emissions. Now that’s green advertising!

With the rise of consumers who are more aware and concerned about the state of the environment, we see the rise of companies that are addressing these consumer concerns in their marketing. Whether it’s through simple product packaging changes to developing new products and services that radically reduce materials, energy, and waste, companies are making the effort to let consumers know that they’re doing their part to save the planet.

According to the NBC “Green is Universal” poll, 60% of consumers will buy eco-friendly products even if they cost more. Sixty-two percent say, “I am buying more environmentally responsible products than I did a year ago,” while 73% believe that “green” is good for the economy. Further, 85% of respondents say that companies have a social responsibility to protect the environment while 19% say they have boycotted a company/product in the past year because it had policies and practices that were not environmentally responsible. (Source, Adage 4/20/09)

As the marketplace continues to fill with new products and services everyday, social responsibility will often sway consumer motivation and increase demand for products and services advertised as eco-friendly. This new demand becomes a very good reason why advertisers will continue to make green advertising a trend that we’ll continue to see more of in the future.