Tamsen Webster breaks down a TD Bank sticker reading "Stand together by standing apart" to show how effective messages clearly define their audience and what action to take. She explains why this particular message works and invites you to submit your own examples.
If you make messages, you dream of something that's short and sweet and does everything it's supposed to do. But those are like finding unicorns. But guess what? I found a unicorn! And that's what we're talking about this week on What's Missing from This Message. This is going to be a super short episode because this is a super short message, and it's one I literally stumbled upon as I was walking around my hometown, Boston, Massachusetts. And here it is. It's this sticker that was on the ground, and it was in front of a TD Bank, and it said, "Stand together by standing apart." And here's why I love it. A, super short, people likely to read it. B, tells you exactly what they want you to do—stand apart. And C, gives you a reason to do that that resonates with their audience. You may look at this and say, "I don't care about standing together." Great, message isn't for you. This is what I love about this message is that TD Bank takes a stand not only with saying, "Hey, here's what we want you to do," but in the way that they ask you to do it. They say just in a super short message, "We believe in a solidarity-based reason to do this, that we think by standing apart, we can actually show how we stand together." stand together around what we share, what we believe, what we care about. And again, you may not care about the same things, but that helps you understand whether or not you're a potential customer or fit with TD Bank. It also helps TD Bank know whether or not you're a potential customer or a potential fit. This is what we would hope any message does. It helps people understand who it's for and who it's not for. And when you've got that kind of clarity, you're much, much more likely to get the audience you serve to stand together with you. If you want me to take a look at one of your messages of any length, preferably short, send it to me at redthreadme@tamsenwebster.com, and you may just see it here on a future episode of What's Missing from This Message.
