Methodologie

“Leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn’t have before. Not two thoughts, or five—just one.”

—On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

If you want people to understand and remember your message, focus on one idea at a time. It’s a fundamental rule of communication.

Even if you don’t need convincing, you probably have colleagues who would ask, “What about multiple, complex messages? What if we’re demonstrating a multi-pronged, long-term strategy to drive shareholder value? Or marketing highly complex B2B solutions to diverse target audiences? What about nuance and accuracy?”

Deep breath. Here’s what you say: Nuance and accuracy are irrelevant if no one pays attention, or worse, gets the wrong message. There is a way to make complicated messages simple without “dumbing down” or misrepresenting the truth.

How do you make complicated messages simple?

1. Take apart your message and identify all the ideas it contains

Sometimes what looks like nuance is several ideas hiding under one blanket. Many of these ideas are irrelevant to the main point. Here’s an example from a real annual report (names have been changed to protect the innocent). This headline introduced one of three top-level messages:

WidgetCo’s strong 2007 results reflect the performance of a balanced portfolio of higher-growth, innovation-driven businesses that align with current and emerging customer needs worldwide.

Look how many ideas are packed in there:

A balanced portfolio gave us strong results in 2007
The businesses in our portfolio are higher-growth and innovation-driven
Demand for our products is worldwide (large) and emerging (growing)
(Taken for granted) Balance is good because we’re not dependent on one business/market for revenue
(Implied) Balance provides a strong foundation for future success
(Implied) Demand for our products will give us strong results in the future
Big idea: Our strength is our balance
Big idea: Our strength is our higher-growth and innovation-driven businesses
Big idea: Our strength is the large and growing demand for our products

An impressive number of ideas (and we could come up with more), but they only clutter up the message. This headline takes three important ideas and buries them.

2. Pick out the main idea

Choosing one idea over the others can feel like deciding which kid goes to college when you can’t afford to send them all. But in this case, it was easy:

“Our strength is our balance”

How do we know it’s the main idea? The designer highlighted the word “balance.” Smart designer. But by the time a designer is highlighting concepts, half your opportunity for getting a message across is gone.

3. Keep the relevant ideas, and set the rest aside

If “balance” is the main idea, why make the audience sift through the other ideas like a prospector looking for gold? Cut the irrelevant parts and here’s what remains:

A balanced portfolio gave us strong results in 2007
(Taken for granted) Balance is good because we’re not dependent on one business/market for revenue
(Implied) Balance provides a strong foundation for future success
Big idea: Our strength is our balance

Notice how the only idea in the original sentence that supports the main idea is “a balanced portfolio gave us strong results in 2007.” The reader must take for granted that (a) balance is good and (b) balance provides a strong foundation for the future. That’s a lot of work to delegate to the reader.

Here’s how this message could have been clearer:

Our strength is our balance. A balanced portfolio helped us achieve strong results last year, and by avoiding exposure to the volatility of individual markets we have a solid foundation for future success.

Or to put it more plainly:

Our strength is our balanced portfolio. It helped us achieve strong results last year, and because balanced portfolios are less vulnerable to the ups and downs of individual markets, we have a solid foundation for future success.

(To be fair, the phrase “our strength is our balance” does appear in the original report. Buried, in the letter to shareholders.)

4. Create new messages for the other ideas

What about the other big ideas? Craft a message for each one, and give each message a turn in the spotlight. Promote one to the cover if it’s more important, or give them equal weight on additional spreads. Less important ideas will make an impression in sidebars, where they don’t have to compete with the critical message. Every idea will get more attention if it has its own moment to shine.

One idea to remember

We all admire teachers who can make difficult subjects easy to grasp. One way they do it is by feeding students one simple idea at a time until they add up to a complicated idea. All your messages become bite sized when you focus on one idea at a time.

Try it out yourself: Look through your communications and find a message that’s hiding too many ideas. Can you make it clearer? Let us know! We’d love to see the results.

Need to make a complicated message clear? Contact Shannyn Roberts to find out how Methodologie can help.