I can’t believe I’m saying this, but people often focus too much on the creative side of new messaging projects. By too much, I mean exclusively.

Yes, the messaging has to be compelling, flexible, and spot-on for the target audience. But all that development work is wasted if you don’t have a plan for making your messaging live beyond the first website revisions and a carefully crafted guidebook that no one reads. For messaging to succeed, everyone (not just the marketing team) needs to use it—in conversation, emails, presentations, wherever. Based on our experience working with a variety of clients on messaging projects, these are the keys to successful implementation:

Enthusiastic leadership. Driving adoption is not as simple as having the grand pooh-bah say “do it.” Leadership needs to embrace it, use it, model it—internally as well as to external audiences. Otherwise, messaging will be seen as optional.

Communicating the benefits. Good messaging solves problems. It provides easily grasped explanations of difficult concepts, clarifies key goals and values throughout the organization, and provides ready answers (even cut-and-paste options) to common questions. Let people know how the new messaging will help them talk about their work more comfortably, effectively, and consistently.

Training. Walking people through practical exercises for using the messaging in real-life situations is essential. This is especially true for sales teams and customer-facing staff: they’re primary message carriers and they need to feel comfortable with their approach. Facilitated role-playing sessions are ideal. It’s also a good idea to provide a refresher a few months down road.

Using new messaging will feel uncomfortable at first—even if it hits the authenticity mark and rings true to everyone throughout the organization—simply because it’s unfamiliar. Without ample reinforcement, people will revert to the words they’ve always used, even if those words inspire reactions like “Huh?” or “Excuse me, I have to go get another drink now.” Then your messaging platform breaks down—and I hate to see good creative go to waste.

A recent piece in the New York Times reveals that living green is driving couples into therapy when one half of the couple is greener than the other. One partner might sneak unsustainably produced meals, set the thermostat too high or drive too much—chiding and guilt ensue. If it goes on long enough, the happy couple is no longer happy. Even families are tense as greener children clash with their not-so-green parents.

This seems a bit ridiculous (for a number of reasons), but it got me thinking about what does work when trying to convince someone (or some company) to change their unsustainable ways. This is the topic of an annual conference called Behavior, Energy and Climate Change; among its lessons:

• Information alone doesn’t work. People usually need some other motivation. Money saved is good; money earned is better.
• The payoff (or bad result from inaction) needs to be relatively immediate. The threat that your town may be under water when the glaciers melt or knowing that you’ll break even on that solar system in a mere 15 years doesn’t get many to change.
• Competition helps. If you know what your neighbor is doing, you want to do better.
• Tracking progress also motivates, especially if you can see how much money you’re saving.

It’s hard to change behavior, and harder still to communicate in ways that make a difference. When I consider these campaigns, the successful ones have this in common: they lead by example. A company credibly demonstrates that they are walking the talk, and others follow or do business with them. Or a campaign fosters friendly competition, so participants naturally follow one another.

Meanwhile, my former housemate will be pleased to know that I’ve drastically shortened my shower times….

More evidence that “save the planet” is bad messaging: Suzanne Shelton of the Shelton Group reports that her firm’s recent national survey of people identified as green buyers found six myths about green “consumers,” including that their top concern is the environment and that their main motivation when reducing energy use is to “save the planet.” The stat there: “When asked the most important reason to reduce energy consumption, 73 percent chose ‘to reduce my bills/control costs’ and only 26 percent chose ‘to lessen my impact on the environment.’”

This shouldn’t really be surprising. A growing body of research suggests that we’re hardwired to focus on the immediate and undervalue future benefits. Marketing gurus have been hammering home for decades the need to answer the key buyer question, “What’s in it for me?” And really, how would you expect people who are treated and see themselves as “consumers” to behave? (A topic I ranted on recently.)

Yet “save the planet” and its variations continue to appear in marketing and advertising by sophisticated companies and nonprofits. Either they believe there are more treehuggers out there than there are; they’re committed environmentalists themselves who can’t believe that everyone else won’t see the light when it’s pointed out to them (the classic error of mistaking yourself for your market); or they just want to paint themselves as green by communicating that they think saving the planet is a good idea. Regardless, it’s time for a new pitch.