Tamsen Webster explains why messages fail without clear if-then causality. The if-then test ensures you have a desired outcome and a meaningful consequence, which creates a core claim that improves understanding and behavior change.
Sometimes, despite our very best efforts, our messages, as carefully crafted and as important as they may be, don't land. This can be something as simple as the back and forth in a conversation with one of your team members, but it can also be as complicated and as potentially damaging as a message that isn't landing in the marketplace. If you want to understand why your message isn't landing, then one of the first things to check is your if-then. I'm Tamsen Webster. I am the founder of the Message Design Institute, and I've created the Message Design Institute as a community of people who design messages, whose job is to make things make sense for other people. One of the most foundational, primal ways that people make sense of things, including messages, is through causality. If then, cause effect, stimulus response. In fact, this is so primal that we don't even need words to start to make sense this way. Think about babies. Babies start to learn over time that generally if they cry, somebody will come and attend to them in some way. And while I am a mom, I also am a dog mom, and even dogs understand if then. If I do this particular behavior that I can tell my mom wants, then I will get a treat. This if-then aspect of how pretty much any sentient living being makes sense of things is why when something isn't working, we need to look there first. A lot of times, messages, announcements, campaigns, advertising, whatever it might be, only contain one or the other. Meaning they'll say, hey, you need this thing. All right, that's what you want me to do, but why should I get that? So what? So now you know if anyone ever says so what, that's what's missing. And it's also why that pretty universal advice of telling people what and so what is there. It answers that if and then that's in people's head. The other half of that if-then equation can also be the source of the problem. And that's what happens when we only give people an if. And it's tricky because it sounds like we're giving them a then, but we're not really. Here's what I mean. This if often shows up of, if we want to succeed, if you want this thing, then call me, do this. I would say you see this more often in broadcast kinds of messages, meaning sales, marketing, advertising, that kind of thing, where we tend to say, if you want this, then call this number. If you want this, then buy this thing. You might say, but Tamsen, that is an if-then. If they want this, then they should buy it from me. If they want this outcome, then they should hire me. That sounds like a then, but it's not the kind of then that makes sense to other people. It only tells them the initiating action, right? It doesn't tell them what that's actually leading them to do. They know what following a link is. They know what buying something is, but they don't really know what's on the other side of that thing. This is what's so important to understand when it comes to making messages that work, no matter the situation, is that people really need to understand not just the outcome, the if, the effect, the stimulus, which is the thing that they want. They need to to understand the true cause of that desired outcome. And that isn't calling you. It's whatever comes after that. This if-then causality is so primal that if your message doesn't convey it quickly in a way that makes sense to people, the message won't work because there's this open loop in their mind. I know we'd like to think that people would just keep asking until they get the information they want. But when was the last time that you really bothered to keep asking questions to understand something? Probably only if the if was important to you, right? Only if the promised outcome, the potential question answered, was super, super important. When you're talking about trying some new product or asking people to adopt some new initiative, that probably isn't enough. So if your message isn't landing, put it through the if-then test. If, do you have a very clear outcome that the person you're talking to actually wants and desires and they know it? In other words, is it something that they are actively pursuing in one way or another, something they're actively and knowingly interested in? And then also make sure that the then isn't just an action, it's an actual answer, an answer that makes sense with that if. And here's a bonus. When you have a very clear if-then, if you want your message to land, then make sure you've satisfied that causality, you actually get an additional free prize. You've created what we at the Message Design Institute call a core claim. It is the position you take on how a particular approach answers a particular question. That's really important, not just when you're trying to make a message make sense, But also when you're trying to position your organization, especially when you're trying to position your products, services, or even organization against competitive or alternative offerings. When you make sure that your message has both an if and a then, both a cause and an effect, both a stimulus and a response, then you are making the first and most important step to making sure that it will make sense to other people. And it doesn't mean they will always agree, but they will never agree if they don't understand in the first place. Second, when the if and then actually make sense together, and not just to you, to other people, when people can start to see why and how doing that thing would produce that outcome, why it might be possible, then you've not only created understanding, you've created the first steps towards changes in behavior. And that's critical because so often change efforts stop before they ever get started, not just because people don't do something, but because they don't understand why they could or should. So if you wanna make sure that your efforts at creating communications that create the condition for change actually start doing that, then check your if-then.
