Why me? Why now? What for?
I got fascinating comments on my anti-doom and gloom post after it was picked up by Grist, and then on the Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog, which has a very interesting post on getting people to act.
All these smart commenters got me thinking, so I revisited some recent research on people taking action for various causes. There were three considerations that were consistently pivotal to getting people to act: a personal connection to a cause, a sense of urgency (as happens during Hurricane Katrina or humanitarian disasters) and a sense of confidence that an organization would have a real impact on real lives. The urgency one is important - and so relevant to the gloom and doom discussion. So I’d like to add the following to the conversation. We need to make a call to action feasible, but we also need to make it irresistible by answering three questions for our audience.
-Why me? Why is our issue personally relevant to our audience? What’s the personal connection we forge with them?
-Why now? Why should they take action now, as opposed to later or never? (This is where consequences of inaction can have a place, as with global warming or pandemic flu, IF AND ONLY IF there is a feasible call to action to prevent the dire scenario. Tell what’s wrong, but then show how to make it right.)
-What for? What impact will result? What lives will be saved, what credible goal will be achieved?
Your message should be the intersection of these three things. “X” marks the spot!
I really appreciated today’s blog. I was just discussing this very thing with our Director of Development. We want to communicate (tell stories) of what’s going on in a way that’s relevant to our constituency. By the way…both he and I are buying copies of “Made To Stick” as a result of your recommendation, that is unless you send 2 to us free!