Spitfire Strategies' July/Aug 2009 newsletter, Spitfire Sparks, is packed with incredibly useful tips on communications strategies. One in particular that caught our eye takes a closer look at how to best identify your audience. In our own advocacy evaluation work, we ask advocates to identify the narrowest possible audience and tailor their campaigns accordingly. Hollis Calhoun of Spitfire Strategies reminds readers that it's not about you- your message must reflect your audience. Her 5 tips are as follows:

1. 1. It's not about you. A key Spitfire principle is that the message must reflect the values of your primary audience. The same goes for your title. Who is the primary audience for the piece and what does that audience care about? What is important to them? What piece of your report will they find the most relevant and motivating? Identify this, and incorporate it into your title.
2. 2. What's the big idea? Be creative with your title, but make sure you highlight the core message of the piece. Veering too far off course risks misleading your audience about what they are going to read. This will frustrate your readers and cause them to lose interest. Worse, it could harm your organization's credibility. Instead of just identifying the topic (i.e. second-hand smoke and cancer), reference the main finding of your report (i.e., second-hand smoke linked to increased cancer rates).
3. 3. Short and sweet. Resist the temptation to summarize the entire report with your title. Lengthy titles are confusing and alienating, and increase the likelihood that your readers won't make it past the first few words. Pick the issue most important to your readership, and focus on that. Same goes for the subtitle. Avoid subtitles that read like a laundry list and focus instead on the main idea.
4. 4. Make it memorable. Link it to a current event, use a play on words, or reword a popular quote, book or movie title. Have fun with it. Scan the opinion pages of national newspapers on any given day and you'll see creative, catchy titles that grab your eye and keep you reading.
5. 5. Get a fresh set of eyes on your work. Use the tips above to brainstorm some potential titles. Then share them with others - whether colleagues in your organization or outsiders who aren't as familiar with your issue. Get their feedback, and adjust as necessary.

Read the rest of the newsletter here.