How to Talk With the Whole, Wide World

Along with some bad habits, I picked up a few good pointers about communication in my days as a young ad copywriter. Such as:

A message’s effectiveness decreases in direct proportion to the number of people that message is addressed to.

Selling soap or cheese or sedans, this meant that our target was never “women”, but “college-educated women living in urban centers”–or better yet, “women who ride mass transit, read The Daily Beast and buy fresh flowers from the Korean deli once weekly”, or what you whippersnappers call “personas.”

You can extrapolate from that to communicate more effectively with almost everyone by learning to talk to just one person, no matter what your medium: a presentation to hundreds, a podcast to thousands, an article to millions.

Okay, so there aren’t a million people who actually read anymore. Point is, picking one, specific person you know who could benefit from whatever it is you have to talk about will help you craft and deliver your message so it lands with many more. (For those of you who with on-camera or presenting experience, the effect is not unlike “placing” one person in the lens or connecting with one member of the audience so that everyone feels like you’re speaking directly to them.)

To figure out what kind of content will work best, look at your material as it relates to this one person:

• If I did a perfect job of relaying the information, how would my boss respond? Would she know enough to make a certain decision? Would she be excited enough to sneeze about it?
• How much does my uncle know about this subject already? Can I start in the middle, or do I need to ease into it for him?

Then you can work backwards from the desired result to figure out some “ways in”–how to communicate in a way that’s relevant, meaningful and effective:

• Will Chris respond to stories? Hard data? Images? Zen koans?
• What is my hair colorist’s main concern in life? His sense of humor? How can I connect with each of these so my message “lands”?
• Is my sensitive next-door neighbor going to have a negative reaction if I swear like a drunken sailor?
• Is my 90-year-old grandmother going to be able to read this if it’s printed in 8-point type?

In the end, of course, you’re probably speaking to more than one person. But if you start out with a laser-like focus on one, you’re more likely to reach them all. Because not only will you have a real understanding of what your audience wants and needs, you’ll reconnect with what it is about this message that ignites your own passion.

And nothing communicates better than passion…

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