The secret components of behaviour changing messaging
Have you ever wondered why so many messages fall on deaf ears?
Have you thought about why so many people ignore advice that would clearly improve their lives?
We all do it.
In both our personal and professional lives.
Picture the person who has struggled with their physical health for years - but who doesn't act on the healthy lifestyle advice they are repeatedly given.
Or the busy GP practice manager who frequently receives sales emails from clinical software companies that could dramatically improve the efficiency of their surgery - but who deletes most of those emails without reading them.
In both of these cases it is unlikely that they ignored the advice because the messenger failed to list all of the benefits.
Nor is it likely that they didn't act because the person sharing the message did it through the wrong channel.
The chances are that the messages, ultimately, did not contain all of the components that we know to be necessary to drive changes in behaviour.
Ultimately, they failed to spark the desire to act.
Make your organisation the hero that is solving the current healthcare challenges
Every story needs a hero.
And what is a hero without an obstacle to overcome?
In the current healthcare setting, the obstacles are numerous.
We have record NHS waiting lists, an overstretched healthcare workforce, rising long term conditions and multi-morbidities, an ageing population and crises in everything from mental health to cancer, or from obesity to the cost of living.
In this story, it is your organisation that is the hero:
Your technology that increases NHS efficiencies, patient safety or clinical outcomes.
Your charity that highlights the research or investment solutions needed to transform care.
Your private healthcare company that is propping up the NHS in its hour of greatest need.
Your NHS Trust that is continuing to deliver gold standard care despite all of the challenges it faces.
To help you tell this story in a way that triggers behaviour change, we have created our Narrative Framework to Action © - a messaging structure that enables you to position your organisation as the solution to the problems caused by the external landscape.
The model works through the below structure and, in our free download, we show you how to paint a picture that really brings to life:
The problem (the external challenge)
Your solution (the hero)
The benefits (why people should care)
The action (what now)
It's vital that each statement made in your Narrative to Drive Action is backed by rigorous and fully cited evidence.
This is especially important in these challenging times, as people increasingly turn to experts that can demonstrate credibility and trustworthiness - making unsupported statements that risk getting called out would seriously undermine that.
So be careful out there.
Narrative To Drive Action - our Action-Driving Messaging System
As well as the narrative framework itself, it is also important to consider the components of the messages you use, to ensure that they cover all of the elements required for behaviour change.
We have distilled this into four key components
Winning Attention - The first step to changing behaviour is awareness, which is why winning attention in the first place is so important. There is no point in having a beautifully crafted message that nobody reads and so a mechanism for winning attention is absolutely required.
Building Authority - Given the challenges in healthcare right now, genuine expertise has become all the more valuable. People are far more likely to listen to the people they trust and, in times of crisis, we put our faith in experts. Building authority for your organisation and its spokespeople means people are far more likely to act in the way you recommend.
Creating Enthusiasm - An estimated 90% of decisions are taken by our emotional brain, so it is vital that any messaging activate people’s ‘motivation drivers’ by appealing to all the brain processes that energise and drive behaviour. If you want to persuade someone to take action you need to make them want to, or at least feel like they should do. Ultimately, you need to create enthusiasm for the behaviour.
Driving Action - Behaviour change frameworks recognise that people can only adopt the behaviour if they understand how to do it (capability). We need to make it easy for people to take the action that is required of them, educating them on how to do it and ensuring that the process is as simple as possible to follow.
How we used our method to make the prospect of a Tinnitus Biobank real
In 2023, our campaign with Tinnitus UK won several national awards:
The PR Week ‘Public Health Campaign of the Year’ (beating Edelman and AstraZeneca)
The CIPR Excellence Award for Best Long Term Campaign
The PR Moment Award for Best Healthcare Campaign
We won those awards because of the significant outcomes we achieved.
We believe that the narrative we uncovered played a massive part in that.
To win attention, we used the hero/villain element of our Narrative Framework to Action:
VILLAIN - The huge mental health impact experienced by people with tinnitus throughout the pandemic
HERO - Our client, Tinnitus UK, who were working to make it possible for dedicated scientists to use a Tinnitus Biobank to find cures for the condition
We also used our AEAA Action-Driving Messaging System:
Attention - Our data showed that 1 in 10 people with tinnitus had experienced suicidal thoughts during the pandemic - what a sad and startling statistic!
Authority - The voices of scientists described how a Tinnitus Biobank would transform their research, which added real credibility to our client's proposal
Enthusiasm - Real stories of people with tinnitus demonstrated the lifechanging difference this facility could make to them, creating motivation
Action - We made it easy for people to understand why they should take the action and how to take the action, through an animated explainer video and simple sign-up process
Significant impacts
This campaign had a tangible impact on people's health and delivered far more than the outcomes that our client had asked for:
The target of 1,000 people registering their interest within the first three months was achieved by 3pm on the first day!
By the end of the first week, 3,500 people had signed up
After receiving a letter, the UK’s biggest medical research funder invited the charity’s Chief Executive to a meeting to discuss collaborating on a Tinnitus Biobank
The National Institute of Health Research - the UK’s second biggest research funder - described our white paper as “an important and clear message”
A leading university requested a meeting to discuss the feasibility of a Tinnitus Biobank.
The campaign secured 172 press articles, including some 16 nationals.
It featured on BBC Breakfast TV and was “one of the most read” stories of the day on BBC News.
It also featured on BBC Radio 1, Radio 5Live and was covered by The Times, the Independent, The Metro, Evening Standard, Daily Express and more.
The estimated actual readership (Coveragebook) was 2.3m.
The Tinnitus Week website was visited 20,000 times in week 1
The educational animated explainer video was viewed 19,000 times - with 1 in 5 signing up
The #TinnitusWeek hashtag attracted 8.6m interactions and content was shared by the Welsh Chief Medical Officer and Age UK among others
The takeaway
Getting the messaging right really is one of the most important steps in behaviour changing campaigns and selecting which messages to prioritise is vital to success.
We have years of experience in this area. As one of our clients recently said "you know just the right language to use to speak not only to our customers, but to their customers as well."
If you'd like to chat to us about applying our messaging expertise to your organisation, then get in touch with us using the form below for a free MERTO Consultation.
To get started yourself, or to learn more about our approach, download your free ‘Narrative to Drive Action’ template below.
