Is your company story getting headlines?

In a world bombarded with messages, you have less than 15 seconds to get their attention and sell your services.
• Does your press release headline grab attention?
• Does your website look inviting?
• Is your company brochure telling your story?
• Is your newsletter eagerly anticipated or put aside for ‘later’?

We experience the world through our five senses – seeing, hearing, touching smelling and tasting. However, we mostly process information through the first three, including smelling and tasting with touch, in a combination known as kinaesthetic. From this, we process information. Many people prefer to process their information visually and therefore think of the world in terms of visual references or pictures. Auditory and kinaesthetic people think primarily in sounds and feelings.

Why this is important is because in writing it is possible to miss part of your audience simply because your language does not meet their model of the world. The first key is to analyse your own language and assess what mode you operate in normally.

If you wish to indicate that you have understood someone’s message, you could say:
• “I see what you mean,” (Visual)
• You could also say, “I hear what you are saying,” (Auditory)
• Alternatively, “I follow what you mean,” (Kinaesthetic)

The difference in these responses is not in the fact that you have understood the message but that you have replied to it in the way that you process your information. Therefore, for me to get you to understand my message, I should switch my language to meet your model of the world.

This is easy, when we are communicating face-to-face but more difficult when writing for a general audience. To use language to its full potential, you need to add visual, auditory and kinaesthetic verbs and adverbs to meet the audience’s model of the world.

The meaning of my communication is the response it gets. Change your language – change your response rate.