Guns are Bad Communication Tools

No, this post was not intended to upset the NRA. This PR tidbit comes from my youngest child: a 2 year-old boy we nicknamed Bubba due to his good-natured 'just one of the guys' personality.

Bubba has pretty good manners for a 2 year-old, but he is 2 and so we are still working on perfecting them. When he asks for something, but forgets to say the magic word, we ignore the request. This usually is enough to remind him to ask again but include the "please." Then the request is granted. Simple process. And usually it works. But sometimes he is too excited and the lesson doesn't sink in immediately. This was one of those times.

Bubba was thirsty and wanted juice. His request came across like this (I'll try to capture the linguistic stylings of Bubba) "I'z thoosty. I'z want joose." I ignored the request since he had forgotten to include the magic word. Instead of rephrasing it though, Bubba decided to just move on to the next likely candidate capable of giving him what he wanted: Dad. He went to my husband and repeated the request, verbatim. "I'z thoosty. I'z want joose." No go. He tried his sister in the same way. (I think she would have helped him, but she was busy emailing friends - a pre-teen activity that can't be interrupted for "joose.")

So, this brought Bubba back to me. This time I prompted him with a "how do you ask?" He quickly remembered what he needed to say and this time asked, "Can I have joose, peeeez?" Bubba got his "joose" and our little story got its happy ending.

So, here we come to our PR Tip of the day: Communication is about quality, not quantity.
Whether you are trying to score some "joose", pitch a product, or drive event participation, the shotgun approach to communication will rarely produce the desired result without a lot of wasted effort/budget. Targeted communication is not only more efficient, it yields higher returns. i.e. it's more likely to get you what you want.

Identify who is most likely to benefit from your product/service or who is most likely to support your initiative - that's your target. This is key and is where many executives take a drastically wrong turn. Unless you have figured out how to run a monopoly in the oxygen market, your client is NOT everyone. Your potential client is part of a smaller demographic. Target them. Get to know them and speak to them in a way that will engage them. (See last week's post about knowing your audience.) It will make better use of your resources and greatly improve your R.O.I.

Bubba eventually learned this through trial and error. He didn't get what he wanted by appealing to the masses (shotgun approach.) He identified a target and tailored his request to produce the desired result.

Lesson learned: Targeted communications aim for success and guns are bad communication tools.