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How to Tell Your StoryHoning your message
Takeaways
2
A draft message and audience list.1
The importance of audience to your message.2
What ISC can do for dissemination.3
3
“
”
I want you to think
of the United
States, the entire
country, as your
stakeholders…
think big, and take
what you’ve been
working on way
beyond your
context.
Elaine Ulrich
Why Messaging?
Why Messaging?
01 Consistency
Messaging ensures you
hit the high notes every
time, so that nobody is
left behind. It also
means an entire team
can speak with one
voice.
02 Audience First
Messaging begins with
your audience. Starting
with their context
rather than your own
helps them quickly see
relevance.
03 Drives Materials
A developed
message makes it
easier to create
dissemination
products and
reports.
4
Message development
5
Create a message
Determine Audiences
Focus Group It
Internal/External
Revise/Develop Supporting Arguments
Message development
6
Create a message
Determine Audiences
Focus Group It
Internal/External
Revise/Develop Supporting Arguments
7
“
”
Some of these
things are like a
fish swimming in
water, we don’t
know it’s water, so
sometimes we
need someone to
tell us.
Cal Broomhead
Why start with audience?
Supporting Arguments
• Form a narrative – this is where you tell your
story.
• Use different rhetorical devices to achieve
your goal of supporting and communicating
your message. Match your approach to your
audience.
8
Tips to Broadening Your Context
• Focus on process over product.
• Find what you’d expect to be common ground.
• Failure can be as valuable a teaching tool as
success.
• Go back to what inspired you in the first place.
• Tell an anecdote.
9
Talk to ISC for
10
A Sounding Board/Review
Dissemination Strategy Help
Some Outreach Assistance
Clinic Instructions
• Use the worksheet and spend 20-25 minutes
developing a basic topline message and
brainstorming audiences, which you can share
with the group.
• We’ll break and review.
• Pick one audience and spend another 10
minutes on 1-3 potential supporting
arguments for your messaging.
• Break for review and Q&A11
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