Some issues occur time and again
Communication can be a complex matter, in fact some people make a life's work out of studying it. Most of us don't have the time or motivation to do that, but we still want to communicate effectively.

In the course of assisting our clients communicate with their potential customers we find some issues occur time and again. There are no magic solutions to these problems, but there are key principles which can help. Here we have set out three of these principles which can help you get your message across to the people who need to hear it.

Audience, audience, audience
All communication involves an audience, the people who will receive the message and, hopefully, respond to it. Successful messages, the ones which generate the right responses, are the ones shaped with the audience in mind.

Ignore the audience - write for your boss rather than your clients - and it will ignore you. Which means the first thing to consider, before writing a single word, is 'who is my audience?'

When you've a good answer to that question you can tackle the second stage, the audience's expectations. Architects, for example, are used to receiving product information in a set format, so information intended for architects should respect that format. For your audience the format may be different, so you must ask 'what form does my audience expect my message to take?'

The third, and final, stage is to identify the correct medium for your audience. Do they prefer glossy brochures, emailings, printed mugs, CD-ROM? Is the Internet beyond them, or is it an essential? Whichever it is, you need to know.

Now, with the three parts of audience identified it is time to start drafting. Which brings us to our second key: seeing the wood in spite of the trees.

The wood and the trees
If you know a subject very well, if you are an expert in your field, it can be difficult identifying what others - the newcomers, the passers-by, the visiting experts from other fields - need to know. It's very easy to start from your perspective and give the information you think is important. Unfortunately, that won't always be the information they need: your knowledge is getting in the way.

You know all the trees by name, but they are still trying to grasp the overall shape of the wood. At that stage, tell them about the shape of the wood, point out a few paths. That may be enough, they may never want to know the names of the trees, but some of them may want to come deeper into the wood with you.

Give them a broad view of your products and services, feed them more information as they want it. They may, eventually, ask a question which can only be answered by the most expert of your technical experts, which is when you wheel him out to give the answer; just don't put him on answering the phones.

That brings us to the third principle, which we call the secret of good comedy.

The secret of good comedy
It's an old joke, but it goes like this:

Harry: What's the secret of good comedy?

Bill: I don't know, what is the secret of good co-

Harry: Timing...

And the secret of good communication?

Timing.

Which means giving people the information they need when they need it.

Few people need all the information you can give them at once: as we saw for the last principle they will usually need general information first, more detailed information needs to be available if they choose to use it.

To get the timing of information right you need to understand the process in which you want your audience to participate - identify the points at which information is needed and make it available. You may have to consider more than just your printed material or website.

The big challenge is working out timing in media which don't have the luxury of a timeline, such as brochures or simple web pages. Here, we have to simulate time by the structure of the information - the organisation of the material, the pacing of the text, the detail of the illustrations. It may take a little while to get it right, but it makes life better for your audience, which is what you want.

As we said at the start, these are only three of many principles. If you would like to know more why not contact us?

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