Stop Preaching, Start Persuading Why “Good Work” isn’t enough anymore… and what to do instead
Introduction:
I always had this nagging discontent. A quiet frustration that followed me from one leadership position to the next. Wherever I worked NGOs, foundations, mission-driven media - we were doing great things. We were proud of our values, proud of our work. We partnered with amazing people, launched bold initiatives and in our minds, shaped change. We even considered ourselves leaders in our field. But we never truly reached beyond our circle.
Our communication - the lifeblood of any organization that seeks relevance - was limited to the already converted. The audiences who already understood our language, aligned with our values and needed little convincing. Our messages lived and died inside our own echo chambers. And for a long time, we told ourselves that was fine. Or rather, we told ourselves that it was someone else's fault.
"The public doesn't get it."
"The platforms are broken."
"We don’t have enough budget."
What we didn’t say out loud was more uncomfortable: maybe the problem was us.
The Shift: From Broadcast to Persuasion
The Middle Isn’t Lost. It’s Ignored.
The Comfortable Lie
When you’re in leadership, you learn quickly how to explain away uncomfortable data. Donor reports become a parallel universe. When numbers dipped, we had a story. Anecdotes became evidence. Qualitative narratives stood in for actual traction. We shaped reality to reflect what we wanted to be true. We weren’t dishonest. But we weren’t brave either.
The truth was that we were doing good work that almost no one outside our circles noticed. And instead of admitting that, we kept refining our message for the same audience. We were shouting louder into the same room.
When messaging is designed for affirmation, not impact, even good leaders can misread silence as success.
And this is a pattern I’ve seen across the board. Organizations work hard, often under pressure and want to believe their effort alone should generate attention and change. They confuse effort with effectiveness. And in that confusion, they mistake internal affirmation for external relevance. Staff is inspired, partners are impressed, donors are reassured. But the people they’re trying to reach, the ones outside the room, are untouched. Over time, this creates a kind of institutional self-deception. Entire teams learn how to present “success” in ways that satisfy board members and funders, but not the real-world goals they claim to pursue. They shift focus from traction to justification. And the longer that goes on, the harder it becomes to see clearly. Even the language reflects this. We say things like “awareness raising” or “amplifying voices,” but rarely ask: Who is being reached? Who is being moved? Because if we did, we might realize that most of our messages never left our circle to begin with.
This isn’t a moral failure. It’s a strategic one. And it’s one that leaders must be courageous enough to confront.
This cycle is remarkably common. In almost every organization I encountered (big or small, local or international) leaders were emotionally invested in their mission but reluctant to question the efficacy of their reach. Because doing so might also mean questioning their leadership or the work of people so committed to the cause..
The Shift: From Broadcast to Persuasion
Everything changed for me when I began working across sectors and realized how widespread this problem was. Bigger organizations, with larger budgets and more staff, faced the same issue. And still, no one talked about it. Eventually, I stopped blaming the environment and started rethinking the approach.
That shift led to the founding of Logiq Media and the development of what we now call Impact Engineering, a methodology not for communication, but for traction.
We stopped asking, "What should we say?" and started asking, "What resonates with people? What moves people who are not already with us? What would make someone stop scrolling, lean in and feel something? Anything, even if they’d never heard of us before.”
And more importantly: How do we find those people?
This isn't just a rebranding exercise. It is a restructuring of how we think about influence. It means building systems to test and iterate, to collect data not just on reach but on resonance. And to confront uncomfortable truths when things don't land.
True influence starts with rewiring how we think about attention and emotional resonance.
The Middle Isn’t Lost. It’s Ignored.
In nearly every cause driven organization I've encountered, the communications strategy targets two extremes: the loyal supporters and the visible opponents. But the real opportunity lies between them.
That vast middle: people who are working jobs, raising kids, surviving daily life. People who are not against your cause but not engaged either. They don’t reject your ideas. They’re just not paying attention. Not because they don’t care, but because you never reached them in the way that matters … to them. They don’t need white papers. They don’t need awareness campaigns. They need recognition. Emotional connection. A moment that says: This affects me too.
This middle is massive. It’s also the most underutilized audience in civic communications. And yet, when you speak to them in ways that fit their lives and motivations, they engage. Not necessarily as activists or donors, but as aware citizens and brand advocates. That is where long-term influence is built.
Reaching the middle takes grit, but that’s where real impact is forged.
Why Most Leaders Miss This
Because we’re busy. Because we’re convinced of our mission. Because we assume the value of our work should be self-evident. Because we’re rewarded for output, not outcomes. Because many of us come from policy, legal or development backgrounds that value complexity over clarity. And because we think marketing is beneath us.
But the digital age doesn’t reward correctness. It rewards connection.
We now live in an attention economy governed by algorithms designed for entertainment. If your message doesn't deliver emotional value to your audience, it won't reach them, no matter how urgent or important it is.
Leaders who cling to the assumption that good work should automatically attract attention are losing ground. This isn’t about dumbing things down. It’s about smart framing. It’s about packaging truth in a way that speaks to people’s everyday reality. And if we don’t do it, someone else will. Often, with far worse intentions.
The Impact Engineering Approach
At Logiq Media, we stopped treating communications as output. Instead, we engineered it like a product. That means:
Audience-first strategy: Instead of starting with what we want to say, we start with what the audience needs to hear and build common ground from there.
Live-environment testing: We deploy messages into real-world settings and let behavioral data tell us what works.
Continuous iteration: We test, tweak, retest … often pushing 10 or 20 variations before drawing conclusions.
Traction metrics: We focus on actual shifts in perception and engagement across key segments, not vanity metrics.
For one organization, we reframed climate content to engage fatigued audiences and cut petition costs by 27% without increasing ad spend. We also designed human rights messages rooted in cultural values like family and safety, achieving a 42% increase in mainstream engagement. Not because our clients said the right things. But because they stopped preaching and started persuading.
This approach doesn’t just work in theory. It works in practice, in politically complex, culturally diverse and emotionally charged environments. And most importantly, it helps organizations win back audiences they thought were unreachable.
What Leaders Must Do Now
Whether you lead a company or a cause, the lesson is the same:
Kill the echo chamber. Stop validating your strategy based on the audience that already loves you.
Test everything. Run small, fast experiments. Don’t rely on gut instinct when you can get real data.
Design for the disengaged. Your biggest growth isn't in your base. It's in the mainstream middle.
Measure what matters. If your message doesn’t shift behavior, it doesn't work.
Build for traction, not perfection. If you wait for perfect messaging, you’ll miss the moment. Iteration beats idealism.
Invest in emotional intelligence. People don’t engage because you inform them. They engage because you move them.
These are not communication tips. They are leadership imperatives.
A New Standard of Leadership
Leadership today is about choosing the path of relevance not comfort.
Leadership in the digital era isn't about broadcasting values. It's about translating them. It’s about knowing when to let go of the safe, the comfortable and the assumed. Build systems that let you listen, learn and adapt. It’s not enough to be right. You have to be relevant. The leaders who thrive going forward will be those who stop blaming the audience and start earning their attention.
This isn’t about manipulation. It’s about responsibility. If your ideas are worth spreading, you owe them the strategy to succeed. And that begins with humility. You might be doing good work. But if no one sees it, if no one feels it, if no one joins you… it’s simply not enough. Stop preaching. Start persuading.
