5 Top Tips for Building Your Message Grid
It never fails us! That magical, four square quadrant known as a Message Grid. We’ve sung its praises before – time and again, the Message Grid has helped us and our clients define the overall narrative of an initiative, by defining ourselves and our opponents first.
Basically, a Message Grid is a box broken into four quadrants:
Us on Us: What I would tell my audience about me;
Us on Them: What I would tell my audience about my opponent(s);
Them on Them: What I believe my opponent(s)would tell the audience about themselves;
Them on Us: And, most importantly, what I believe my opponent(s) will tell people about me.
We often work with clients to complete a Message Grid in the process of building a communications plan or in developing overall messaging for a campaign. Here are a few tips to remember when building your own Message Grid:
Don’t be afraid to list everything you can think of that might be said in each quadrant. This doesn’t mean that all of the messages WILL be used, but rather COULD be used.
Here is a news flash - opposition can (and often does) lie. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the opposition won’t say something that is blatantly not true. They just might – and it’s better to be prepared for it!
Sometimes the same message point can appear in several different quadrants. That’s O.K.
The message grid is not necessarily your campaign’s overall theme, but are messages to be used to support the overall theme.
And finally, once you identify the messages that your opponent(s) could use against you, it helps to use the “What I would tell my audience about me” section to inoculate against potential attacks
Want to learn more about building and deploying Message Grids in your own advocacy, communications, or PR campaign? Click here to schedule a 15-minute discovery meeting with us, or give us a call at 412-551-1770.