This One Key Ingredient Could Make Your Message Take Hold

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Whether you’re wanting your media release to be published, your blog to be engaging or your LinkedIn profile to be of interest to potential employers, the one key ingredient that could be the difference between your message succeeding or failing, is a core value; one that resonates with the intended audience.

A core value is a principle of such importance to an individual or organisation that it guides their thinking, language and behaviour. Core values trigger potent emotional responses in people because they go the root of our identity and belief system at a subconscious level.

Some examples of core values are integrity, professionalism, generosity, leadership, teamwork, community, compassion, courage, resilience and the like.

When crafting your message, it’s important to attach it to a pre-existing value which you know your audience holds dear. The emotional tug it’s likely to cause will help the message to gain attention, shape perception and influence action.

Consider how core values could be used in political messaging, for example. Messages about increasing government spending on defence could be linked to the value of safety; messages about retaining weekend penalty rates for casual workers could be linked to the value of fairness; and messages about anti-discrimination legislation could be linked to the value of equality.

Marketing guru Seth Godin* says stories succeed when they tap into an audience who share a worldview. A worldview is made up of rules, values, beliefs and biases, and if a story is framed in terms of the worldview of a specific audience, they are more likely to believe it.

For optimal impact therefore, frame your message (or story) within the context of a worldview and attach a core value to it that is important to your audience. You’ll then have a greater chance of being persuasive and your message taking hold.

*Godin, S. All Marketers Tell Stories, Penguin, USA, 2009.

©Ros Weadman 2019

Ros Weadman is the creator of the BrandCred™ Model, a system for building credibility and trust in a brand, founder of Marcomms Australia and author of BRANDcode®, a PR and marketing guide. 

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