Messaging Dos and Don’ts  

By Juliette Craggs

Are you a start-up or a more established business looking to clarify the value you bring to the marketplace? What it is about your research, product or service that makes you truly unique? 

A messaging workshop is a fantastic way to develop a strong and consistent brand position for a new technology or refresh your existing position to reflect recent progress. At Sciad, we work with start-ups, spinouts and scale-ups to refine their position and translate complex innovation into a message that resonates with their target audiences.  

Before undertaking a messaging refresh, here are a few dos and don’ts to help you make the most of the experience and produce the messaging that will drive your progress to the next level.  

• Do think about why – Is this messaging update a transformation or an evolution? What is right about your current messaging and what isn’t hitting the mark? If it’s a new business or product, what is the most important thing you need to say? 

• Don’t change things for the sake of it – if something ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Parts of your message may already be powerful, and new isn’t always better. You can integrate existing with updated messaging to create the best result. 

• Do consider your audiences – Is the prospective buyer of your product really the most important if you don’t yet have a prototype? Think about who you want to talk to now and in the future and what will resonate best with them.  

• Don’t try to speak to everyone – trying to make your message accessible to everyone may mean you dilute it too far and aren’t communicating what’s important to the people who are important. 

• Do get team buy in – It’s important to get buy in from different parts of the business to ensure the messages work for those that will be using them, whether that’s the scientists or the sales team. 

• Don’t involve everyone! – As the old adage says Too many cooks! People will have different opinions making it very difficult to produce a cohesive, powerful set of messages. 

• Do look at your competitors – take some ideas for things you like and don’t like to help develop a strong brand that will resonate with your stakeholders. 

• Don’t be a copycat – you want to stand out so try not to rely on existing examples. AI large language models like Chat GPT can help provide ideas, but they are built on information that’s already published so can significantly limit creativity. 

• Do engage with the process – It may feel like we’re making you play some weird games or undertake some strange tasks but these can help you think in a different way to tease out the most important parts of your message. 

• Don’t assume you’ll get it right first time – refining a message can take a few rounds of edits, especially when you’re communicating complex science and technology advances. 

As part of a messaging refresh, we undertake competitor and audience research, speak to your key internal stakeholders, get the team in the same room and share ideas, and then refine into a comprehensive matrix. This results in a brand that clearly communicates who you are, what you do and why it matters and can be used to inform all your future activities.  

Get in touch to speak to a member of our team about how we can support you in developing your key messages to take your innovation to the next stage.