Unlocking effective communication: elevate your message to resonate with your audience
Despite spending over 1 trillion dollars on advertising each year most marketing messages fail to resonate with their audience. what if the key to effective communication lies not in shouting louder but in understanding and connecting personally with each customer?
Mass production, mass marketing, mass communication—these once defined innovation and strategic excellence. The focus was on efficiency: how can I make more things, reach more people, and get my message in front of as many eyes as possible?
But that world no longer exists.
The seismic shift began with mobile phones and personal computers. Today, every aspect of our lives revolves around the personal. We consume information on our individual devices, curate our social media feeds, and expect brands to recognize our unique needs. We're no longer satisfied with being lumped together.
The Cost of Miscommunication
Yet, despite living in an era of constant information, effective communication remains a struggle. Companies pour money into marketing, yet often fail to resonate with audiences.
Proxima estimates that 40–60% of digital marketing spend is wasted, while a Rakuten survey of 1,000 marketers found that 26% of budgets are ineffective. From my own experience with over 1 million dollars spend I'd argue 26% is conservative—mine was closer to 45%. This challenge intensifies when I consider my track record in sales where approximately 60% of my clients' money went to waste
One experience stands out. I launched a campaign for a client promoting their use of a monomaterial, recyclable film for their leading branded grain bar. It was visually stunning and we had packed it with facts about the scope of this innovation. Their CO2e numbers were down 10%, they had reduced the amount of material needed by 150,000 tons and we knew we would soon be basking in consumer admiration and explosive sales. The reality? Complete failure, even lost about 5% market share.
The problem was simple: we talked about what we cared about, not what mattered to the customer. No one buys a product because it reduced waste. They buy because it’s easier, cheaper, healthier, or more fulfilling for them.
Three Fundamental Flaws in Modern Communication
I’ve made every mistake possible when it comes to communication. Here are the three most common—and costly—flaws I’ve seen:
1. Selfish Communication
Most companies focus on their achievements, innovations, and milestones. But customers don’t care unless it benefits them.
My favorite example of this is from years ago. A globally famous dairy company with a leading chocolate milk brand used to have shrink wrap labels on the outside. Procurement, who at this time were at the top of the corporate hierarchy, located a source of this film that was 30% cheaper. They bought it, and were delighted with themselves. However, the film was a few microns thicker than the regular film; it made it about 1/3 through the manufacturing process and completely jammed the machinery. They had to disassemble the machinery to a cog level, clean it out entirely, buy the right grade of film and start over. It was a 2 week 20 Million Euro fiasco. After this, the engineering department were top of the hierarchy.
Growing my readership in a previous role, my first campaign was all about the storied history of the publication, the in depth expertise I had about the industry and how this was going to produce incredible content, listing multiple topics and trends. It was a disaster, we had about 3% engagement rate. 20,000 pounds later and we we losing readers.
Key Insight: Always answer "Why should they care?" Flip the focus from "Look what we've done" to "Here's how it helps you."
2. Cognitive Resistance to New Information
Changing someone’s mind is hard, even when the facts are clear. Our brains are wired to resist updates unless they're framed as personally relevant.
Malcolm Gladwell explores this in Blink and The Tipping Point, showing how snap judgments and social epidemics stem from ingrained cognitive patterns. This is why corporate messaging often fails: companies assume that saying something important guarantees attention.
I had a conference call with the board of a leading retailer. I had all the information and data and passion for this call and knew 100% that we were discussing a solution that would reduce their diversion from 15% to nearly 0. They barely let the introduction pass before saying that if this technology existed they would know about it as they are the biggest retailer in the world and are experts on the market and means. They refused to even entertain the idea that they might not know everything there was to know about the entire market. When I asked them when they had last engaged with this topic (i.e how old their perspective was) they answered "5 years ago". In that time the technology had transformed completely and was significantly cheaper than they remembered it, but they refused to accept the new information.
Key Insight: Frame new information as an enhancement, not a challenge. People don’t resist improvement—they resist disruption.
3. Modality Mismatch
In my conversations with Tony Robbins (AI), communication isn’t just about what you say—it’s about how the other person receives it. We all process information differently:
Tony emphasizes that understanding how people receive information is key to unlocking potential. If you don't know your audience's modality, you’re essentially speaking a foreign language.
I once led a product launch with an incredible webinar and visuals. We covered all the data that showed how people could switch entire product lines to our sustainable solution without losing quality or performance on nearly par for cost. We had almost no engagement and follow up was incredibly slow. We later discovered our audience was almost entirely kinaesthetic learners - they needed to feel the product and experience it being made in order to truly understand how it would benefit their operations. When we switched the launch to an open day and provided samples and let them see the material running down lines for themselves it became our most successful launch ever.
Key Insight: Communication succeeds when it aligns with how audience takes in information.
How to Elevate Your Communication
To truly connect with your audience, follow these principles:
Conclusion: Communication Is a Conversation, Not a Broadcast
Great communication doesn’t happen by shouting louder. It happens when we speak in the language our audience naturally understands, using the sensory modalities they engage with most.
By shifting from company-centric to customer-centric messaging, framing updates as upgrades, and delivering content across visual, auditory, and kinesthetic channels, we don’t just get seen—we get understood.
In a world drowning in content, the only messages that land are those that feel personal, relevant, and worth holding onto.
With thanks to Tony Robbins AI and Malcolm Gladwell for their insight.
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