I’ve been on the road, more or less, for three years. I’ve met with over 100 VP’s and Directors of Corporate Communications. All the meetings have been with multibillion dollar firms located in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Boston, St. Louis, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin.

In those meetings, there are amazing consistencies as to their biggest communication challenges. Here’s one of the biggest:

Their CEO’s often think that simply distributing, emailing, or otherwise publishing a single message is what you do when you want to communicate. They don’t understand that for any audience, you must EARN the right to be heard. Here are the basic things I think you have to do to make that happen:

1. Be very brief.

2. Dice up content. If it takes 5 minutes to read or view something, there should be 5 stories or headlines in those 5 minutes - even if it covers a single theme.

3. Limit the number of communication channels, so people aren’t confused as to where to get their content.

4. If you can, use rich media (video or audio, especially online).

5. Use declarative messages, not passive ones.

6. Get to the point IMMEDIATELY.

7. Be relevant and “connect the dots” to the interests of the reader or viewer.

8. Never be boring.

9. Find multiple creative ways to say the same thing, so your message is retained.

10. …And finally, its all about content. If your content is not strong, there’s no reason to communicate!