We often speak of messaging in public relations and marketing. While messages and messaging are often mentioned, they are often not well understood.

Messaging is not complicated. After determining with whom you are communicating, your stakeholders, determine the three, four or at most five things you want those stakeholders to know and understand.

When creating messages, it is often helpful to think of your communication in the following way: If my stakeholders only take a few things from this communication, I want those takeaways to be A, B, and C.

Those are your messages.

Remember, the best messages are simple, compelling and easily repeated by your stakeholders.