Chapter 7 of Actionable Messaging Playbook™

I’ll admit, I was never much of a LEGO person. Growing up, I didn’t spend countless hours constructing elaborate castles or spaceships. But when I visited the LEGO Store in Copenhagen, I gained a new appreciation for the genius of LEGOs. Walking into the store, I was immediately struck by the incredible displays — entire worlds, meticulously crafted from countless tiny bricks.

I began to appreciate the 'system'-ness of it all. Each set, from the simplest to the most complex, came with clear instructions, and every piece had its place. The beauty of LEGO isn’t just in the final product but in the process of building it, turning creativity into reality, piece by piece. Yet, there’s also room for free-form creativity. When I was a kid, my neighbor had a bucket of loose LEGOs, and he would just start building, letting his imagination guide him. The possibilities were endless, even though each piece was part of an ordered system.

I realize now that what makes LEGO so captivating (and timeless) is how it transforms chaos into order, one brick at a time, while also allowing for limitless creativity.

Creating a cohesive messaging framework for your brand is a lot like building with LEGO. Just like with LEGO, you start with individual pieces—audience analysis, brand promise, personality, and messaging pillars—and combine them to create something greater than the sum of its parts. And, just like with LEGO, once you have your framework, you can build anything you imagine.

I'm writing a book about Actionable Messaging Playbooks™ in public, right here on LinkedIn. This is post 7 of a multi-part series.

Assembling Your Messaging Framework

It’s time to assemble the elements of your brand into your messaging framework. Go grab all the pieces you’ve been working on and see if you can drop them into the framework below. Your goal here will be to make each piece as succinct as possible. It should be short enough to fit into the boxes without becoming an eye-chart.

Let’s see how this would work for my company, Motive3.

Here are the general inputs for us:

Target

• For us, our ideal customer profile is the ultimate marketing decision-maker at a mid-market B2B company. These companies can range from 50 - 500 employees, and revenue ranges from approximately $50mm to $1b. We occasionally have clients both bigger and smaller, but the mid-market is our sweet spot. But more than size, these are companies that have a burning desire to build a meaningful brand in their market. They want to stand for something. And they need a messaging framework to scale their on-brand communications.

Promise:

• Build Messaging That Resonates & Motivates

Brand Personality:

Things get interesting for us here. But first, let’s break down what makes up a Brand Personality.

Archetype:

• Our primary archetype is The Creator Archetype. It encapsulates the essence of building something new and valuable from foundational elements. Just like LEGO allows users to create endless structures from basic pieces, Motive3 enables communicators to develop a wide range of messaging assets from core frameworks.
• We also exhibit Sage Archetype tendencies, serving as mentors who guide users through the complexities of messaging and teach them how to build impactful communications.

Point of View:

• Our POV is The Innovator: This type aligns well with Motive3’s commitment to creativity and continuous improvement. As an innovator, Motive3 is always looking to introduce new concepts and refine its frameworks to better serve our users.
• The prevailing thinking is that messaging is a creative act that belongs in the marketing department. We think that messaging is a whole company effort, and that with the right tools every employee can be a company storyteller.

Voice (Communication Style):

• Our primary communication style is that of Mystique, which highlights our focus on being observant, independent, analytical and logical. We like to pique curiosity while being thoughtful and strategic.

When you put it all together, our personality is a lot like Professor Dumbledore. Our personality is a creative and helpful guide, focused on continual improvement.

With these in hand, we’ve built out the left hand section of our messaging framework.

Now it’s time for you to fill yours in.

With the framework complete you’ve now got a documented sense of the messenger (that’s you and your brand), and the audience (your target customers and clients). Now it’s time to get down to the business of the message itself. In other words . . . What will you say?

In the last chapter you spent time analyzing your attributes, benefits, and then elevating them into personality infused messaging pillars. Now it’s time to insert those into your framework. Again, here’s how we did it for Motive3.

Messaging Pillars

1. Innovative: Create with Confidence
2. Strategic: Clarify & Command Your Narrative
3. Growth-minded: Energize & Scale Your Company's Message

Attributes

1. We empower clients with innovative tools and proven frameworks, allowing them to confidently develop effective and unique messaging strategies.
2. We guide clients to clarify how they communicate their solution to an unmet need in the market and arm them with a playbook to scale that message.
3. Our collaborative workshop approach led by award-winning writers and strategists engages leadership teams across departments & functions to align and activate their on-brand messaging.

Overall: We empower clients with innovative tools through collaborative workshops led by award-winning strategists, helping them develop and scale effective, differentiated messaging.

Benefits

1. Gain confidence and clarity in your messaging, ensuring it stands out and resonates in the market.
2. Effectively reach a broader audience while consistently communicating why you deserve to win.
3. Align and energize your teams to drive a unified message that can scale.

Overall: Gain confidence and clarity in your messaging, unify and energize your teams, and effectively scale the message of why you deserve to win.

Imagine you’re a fly on the wall at a networking event I’m attending. Watch how I use elements of my messaging framework to drive my communication.

Them: Hi, I’m Joe. I have an accounting company. What do you do?

Me: Hi Joe. I work with companies to develop messaging that resonates with their customers and motivates their customers to buy.

Joe: Really? How do you do that? I need more customers.

Me: We lead workshops with companies' leadership teams that allow them to clarify how they communicate their solution to an unmet need in the market and then arm them with a playbook to scale that message. This helps them effectively reach a broader audience while consistently communicating why they deserve to win.

Joe: Interesting. What’s a playbook exactly?

Me: Well Joe, I wouldn’t send a football team out onto the field and expect them to win without a playbook. We shouldn’t expect our teams to know what to say to customers and prospects without one either. We’ve developed tools and frameworks that allow companies to confidently and consistently develop clear & unique messaging that stands out and resonates in the market. Basically, we give them tools to make staying on-message a lot easier.

Do you see what I’m doing? I’m just putting those little messaging blocks together in different ways.

Now it’s your turn. Plug in your Messaging Pillars, Attributes & Benefits. These are the LEGO®-style bricks that will drive all of your messaging going forward. Take a look at your framework. Using the elements in your framework, you should see how you can put together a handful of statements.

Your Homework:

Framework Development: Step-by-step guide to creating your messaging framework

1. Gather Your Elements: Collect all the pieces you've developed so far, including your audience analysis, brand promise, personality, and messaging pillars.
2. Define Your Structure: Use our template or create a different visual representation of your framework.
3. Integrate Each Piece: Begin placing each element into the framework, ensuring that they align with your overall brand strategy. Check for coherence and make adjustments as necessary.
4. Refine and Simplify: Ensure each piece is succinct and clear. Your framework should be easy to understand and implement by anyone in your organization.

Alignment Check: Evaluate and ensure all elements align with your brand’s vision and goals

1. Review Vision and Goals: Start by revisiting your brand’s vision, mission, and strategic goals. Does your framework align to what you're really up to?
2. Element Evaluation: Go through each element of your framework, asking how it supports and reflects these core aspects.
3. Consistency Check: Ensure that the tone, style, and message are consistent across all elements. Look for any discrepancies and adjust them to maintain uniformity.
4. Feedback Loop: Gather input from various stakeholders to ensure the framework accurately represents your brand and resonates with your audience.

In Summary

Build a Messaging Framework: A well-organized framework sits at the heart of your messaging playbook and can transform chaotic ideas into a clear, creative, and effective messaging tool that enhances your brand’s communication.

Now that you have a cohesive messaging framework, it's time to build the core narratives that bring your brand story to life.

In the next chapter, we will delve into crafting compelling narratives that resonate with your audience and reinforce your brand identity. Get ready to transform your framework into engaging stories that captivate and convert.

If you thought this was helpful, you might consider bringing our Actionable Messaging Playbook™ workshop to your company.

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