You can easily increase the impact of a speech by marketing it to a larger audience outside of the room where it’s delivered. One of the best ways to double or even triple the impact is by “getting your words in print” – getting the speech published, quoted, or reported in the media, or turning it into an article, op-ed, or online column.
If you become highly skilled at marketing, you can build a demand for your speaker’s words and messages—while enhancing your own reputation.
My process for marketing speeches to a broader audience consists of four steps. I call them the four R’s – ready, research, recommend, and report.
The first R is to get ready to market your speech—by setting a goal and including newsworthy content.
First, identify what you want to accomplish by reaching a larger audience. Solicit opinions from people in the organization, including the speaker. Do you want to make the speaker a household name? Generate more customers? Or change the world in some way?
Here are some potential goals:
Get more speaking opportunities
Build brand identity
Make money for the speaker or organization
Reassure the public at a time of low confidence
Build a particular reputation for the organization (e.g., trustworthy, environmentally or socially responsible, good place to work)
Money always makes news! Use this opportunity to reveal changes in the budget or costs.
Another way to make news is to address a topic that’s already “hot,” even if it’s not one your organization would normally speak about. (Public relations professionals--and politicians--are very good at this.) The economy was the topic of choice in the 2008 election season. Getting elected may have been the ultimate goal, but commenting on the economy was an easy way to get attention.
Be sure to include interesting quotes, or “sound bites,” that are clear, clever, and just the right length for a TV newscast or print story. Reporters spend a lot of time trying to get a spokesperson to offer a juicy quote—the kind that makes headlines. Why not help?
The second R is to research your target audience.
A speechwriter, before writing, analyzes the audience, to find out what interests them, what they know, and what they expect to learn from the speaker. Marketing the speech beyond the immediate audience requires additional research, on audiences and publications that can help you meet your goal.
Who is likely to care about your speaker or subject? Who can benefit from the information, and act on it? You can judge this by reviewing speeches and articles previously reported and published, and descriptions that publications and websites provide of their targeted audiences.
There is a huge diversity of publications – in my view, at least one for every purpose. If you want to demonstrate your company is environmentally responsible, you would contact environmental newsletters. A colleague in Washington, who works for Customs & Border Protection, gets speeches reported in law enforcement magazines.
In my line of work, science, there are journals, magazines, and newsletters for almost every field – astronomy, chemistry, oceanography, physics, and so on. All of these are potential outlets for my speeches, depending on my goal.
Consider these types of publications:
Newsletters to employees, members, stockholders, or constituents—from your organization and the organization hosting the speaker
Trade and professional newsletters, magazines, and journals
Local newspapers that might be interested in the speech, the speaker, or the topics referenced in the speech
Hometown newspaper or alumni magazine of the speaker
Consider submitting to speechwriting contests; there are at least four around the country. Winning a speechwriting award may not generate publicity for your organization, but it serves another goal – enhancing your reputation and resume. Why not market yourself once in a while?
The third R is to make recommendations.
At most publications and media outlets, a “gatekeeper” will decide whether to use your speech. This might be a reporter, editor, publisher, or webmaster. There’s a lot of competition for that person’s attention.
Your job is to recommend a way for that person to increase audience size and interest – by including your information. You may be offering a solution to a problem, information about a product of interest to readers, or background that might help readers make a decision.
You can also recommend how to use the material—by publishing the speech, sending a reporter to write about the news in the speech, or turning the speech into an article or op-ed.
If your organization has a media, public information, or communications office, make them your partner in marketing speeches. They are responsible for maintaining relationships with the media, publications, trade associations, and stakeholders that care about your issues.
Remember to coordinate your marketing efforts with the organization hosting the speech as well.
Frequently, a media or communications office will send out a media advisory before a speech, inviting a broader audience to attend or report on the speech. A press release summarizing the speech messages can go out the day the speech is delivered.
There are also ways to publicize a speech online: get it on event calendars; write about it on your blog; post it on your website and link to it with comments on other blogs; sit in on the speech and Twitter it.
Mass-marketing techniques work best when the speaker is well known. In other cases, you will need to rely on personal contact. Use the telephone! In an age when people are glued to e-mail and text messages, it’s easy to let oral communication skills slide. For us speechwriters, I believe that maintaining personal speaking skills is important to our ability to write for others.
The fourth R is to evaluate and report the results.
This step is often neglected – not just in speechwriting, but in many jobs. Salespeople and marketing experts know that evaluating and reporting results is one of the keys to success.
To evaluate the impact of your marketing efforts, look for evidence that your message is getting out and that you are making progress toward your goal. Gather the publications and news stories that mentioned the speech and analyze the context and content. In some cases, you might be able to estimate the potential audience size by determining the number of readers.
Once you’ve evaluated the results, report them to the speaker in a timely manner. If possible, notify the speaker in advance that there is outside interest in the speech, and that it could appear in print, rather than letting him or her find out in the morning paper. You want to be the one to report the results, and to take the credit. You are building your own reputation in addition to the speaker’s.
Then, feed your evaluation of what worked and what didn’t work into your future marketing plans.
In sum, marketing a speech to a broader audience is a matter of being ready with goals and newsworthy content, doing research on audiences, making recommendations, and evaluating and reporting results.
With these four R’s, you can get a larger return on the hard work you invested in a speech; you can double or even triple the impact. And with practice, your reputation as a skilled writer will soon be enhanced by additional admiration – for your marketing expertise.
© Amber L. Jones, 2009
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About the Author
Amber L. Jones writes speeches for the director and deputy director of the National Science Foundation. She has practiced writing, editing, and communications for 30 years at NSF, the U.S. Senate, U.S. Department of Energy, Army Corps of Engineers, and Central Intelligence Agency. Her speeches have appeared in Vital Speeches of the Day, The New York Times, and trade journals. She contributes occasional freelance articles to newspapers and journals.
