The content of your message is crucial. Equally important is its timing.
Yesterday, I was going to follow up on my grading of the GOP Debate candidates with an oh-so-insightful critique of how well President Obama’s speech communicated. So at 6:45 CST, I thought to myself, ‘I’d better turn on the TV to make sure I set the DVR to grab it.’ To my chagrin, I realized that the speech began at 6 pm CST.
What? Maybe The Message Was Great But I Missed It.
That means that the speech ran at 5 pm MST and 4 pm PST (Surely that one was tape delayed). If Obama was primarily delivering his proposal to the unemployed or solely the East Coast, then it was great timing. If he was trying to communicate to the American people, this was hardly the most effective time. I know that prime time TV costs more and the networks complain, but this is a pivotal time for our nation and Obama was declaring he a had plan for a way forward. Surely this warranted prime time as most people still view a Presidential speech on television.
You can have a great message but if you deliver it at a time your audience isn’t listening, it definitely loses much of its punch?
What are the times when people you need to reach are most available? Does the time you are messaging correlate with the medium on which they will be receiving the message (TV, Twitter, Facebook, Blog, radio)? Who else do you need to get on board (in Obama’s case, business owners, by creating a sense of confidence that things will be okay so they will go ahead and hire rather than delaying)? When are they most available?
What other insights or stories do you have communication timing?
