Key messages are the North Star in public relations—they guide storytelling, shape narrative, and anchor campaigns. Key messages encapsulate the most important aspects of your company, cause, or candidate— they are what you want your audiences to understand, remember, and act on. A good message framework gives PR pros a solid foundation on which to build all communications, ensuring consistency and maintaining focus. But you can't just craft your messages and put them on the shelf to collect dust. Messaging must be constantly adapted, tested, and practiced to steer you toward your goal successfully.

Test Them

Launching messaging without testing is like lobbing the proverbial pasta against the wall and hoping something will stick. Using formative research to develop your framework increases the chance of reaching and connecting with audiences – the first time. Evaluative research provides practitioners with proof of what works and points to places that need to be refined to optimize your messaging strategy.

Adapt Them

Messaging must evolve with the changing landscape, reflecting the nuances of time, context, and audience knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes. This flexibility ensures that your overarching story remains consistent while allowing you to frame or emphasize messages differently to resonate with diverse groups over time.

Practice Them

And once you know what works, practice makes perfect. Spokespeople should never wing it—regular practice and message coaching will help them confidently deliver key messages with authenticity, clarity, and consistency.

The mighty message is one of the most powerful tools practitioners can employ to ensure cohesive, compelling narratives that cut through the noise and keep communication efforts laser-focused and impactful. But like any tool, they require constant sharpening to remain effective.

To celebrate Giving Tuesday, we are happy to announce that applications are now open for the 2023 Purpose PRogram! For the fourth year in a row, Scott Circle Communications is offering our no-cost public relations training to D.C. area nonprofits.

Since the Purpose PRogram launched, we have trained ten students - which means we have helped ten DC-area nonprofits elevate their profiles. That means these non-profits can help more people in our community. After our training, our students had the knowledge to:

• Pitch local TV successfully

• Place an OpEd in The Washington Post

• Revamp a newsletter

• Plus other communications successes!

There’s a lot to celebrate at the Circle. We are so proud to be recognized with two more national recognitions from our peers. Not only has Influencer Marketing Hub named us one of the top 15 woman-owned and woman-led public relations firms, but we are thrilled to announce that we are now one of PR News’ 2023 Agency Elite Top 100 agencies in the country.

We are humbled to receive the 2022 Bronze Bulldog PR Award for Best Media Relations Campaign in recognition of our work for the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP). This prestigious honor, managed by the Bulldog Reporter, is the only PR awards program judged exclusively by journalists.

At Scott Circle Communications (SCC), it is our passion to tell stories that can change lives and have a positive impact on the world. We are privileged to work with clients who share this vision and it is an honor to help them achieve their goals. So, it’s particularly special when our work resonates and is recognized by peers in the communications industry.

As a result of the work we have done—and continue to do every day for our clients—we are happy to say that we have been recognized as one of the top certified women owned agencies by Clutch for 2022. This award comes from the feedback and reviews our clients have submitted for our work in 2021.

As a result of our work for clients in 2021, Scott Circle Communications has also been named the number one women-owned PR firm on a top 100 list found on The Manifest. The fact that we not only count ourselves amongst this exclusive group but excel in it is a testament to both skills our public relations experts have built over the years and the support our clients grace us with year after year.

As many of you know, our agency solely focuses on mission-driven work. So, on this Giving Tuesday, I am happy to announce that applications are now open for Scott Circle Communications' (SCC) annual Purpose PRogram! For the third year in a row, SCC will offer our no-cost training communications and public relations training to D.C. area nonprofits.

In 2022, our virtual curriculum and coaching will include monthly presentations and hands-on mentorship from SCC team members on the most important aspects of a strategic communications plan. Every selected nonprofit will leave this program with a communications plan and the tools to implement it.

Please share this information with anyone and any organization you think might benefit from this program.

With more than 740 million active users in 2020, LinkedIn is the largest online professional network. If that alone isn't reason enough to join, the social media platform was recently found to be the most trusted social network, according to Insider.

We've seen an increase in the number of organizations and clients looking to establish themselves as thought-leaders on LinkedIn. The truth is that a thoughtful and best-practice-based page on LinkedIn is critical to building a trusted, engaging, and professional online presence. If you want to lead the pack—like many of your peers—there has never been a better time to take advantage of the platform's growing resources and establish yourself as an industry expert. You will, however, need to make sure you are doing it right if you want to reap the potential benefits.

If you're a thought-leader looking to create or optimize a LinkedIn profile, here are a few best-practice-based tips for success from our agency's social media experts.

Public relations (PR) like any other industry today is changing rapidly due to the digitalization and scope of digital marketing. That’s what many organizations miss when planning their strategies. PR is not direct marketing, but it helps to build the reputation and public image of the organization or an individual. In the era of digitization where new technologies are raising with every new dawn, it is a need for businesses to have a trustworthy, reliable, and visionary PR solution provider to accelerate their growth.

Laura Gross, a determined leader in the PR industry is transforming organizations with creative, scalable, and smart PR solutions through Scott Circle Communications (SCC).