METHOD > 6A Messaging
Business leaders benefit hugely from demonstrating thought leadership.
Bylines, opinion pieces, expert commentary — this kind of content that builds leadership credibility with investors, customers and partners.
But when it comes to actually writing it, something goes wrong.
Content can ends up as a sales pitch disguised as thought-leadership - or a bland, unfocused essay that fails to engage anyone.
The problem isn't writing ability, or expertise.
The problem is that the right questions haven't been asked before a word gets written.
That's what the 6A Storytelling Method solves.
What is the 6A Method?
The 6A Method is the storytelling engine at the heart of Full Funnel PR. It's a diagnostic framework — six questions that every piece of thought leadership content must answer before it's ready for a journalist's inbox.
It works because it forces you to think like an editor, not a marketer. Editors don't care about the product. They care about their readers, about what's changing in the world, and about whether your perspective is credible, timely and backed by evidence.
The Six A method helps fill the holes in the story, to make opinion content compelling.
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Audience
Who are we talking to?
The first question to ask. The Industry" isn't an audience. We first describe the ICP. The more precisely you define who you're writing for, the more likely they are to recognise themselves in the story and the more likely an editor is to see a fit with their readership.
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Action
What should they change?
Describe the behavioural or intellectual shift you want to create: a question the reader asks themselves, a problem they hadn't framed properly, a belief to challenge. Good thought leadership invites the reader to think, not to buy.
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Arc
What is the context?
Every strong article lives inside a wider narrative — a shift happening in the market, a tension between the old way and the new way, a change that creates winners and losers. The Arc is the gravitational field your story sits inside. Without it, your content is static. With it, you're tapping into a story that journalists are already tracking.
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Argument
What is the proof?
Opinion without evidence is noise. The Argument is the evidentiary backbone of a story: data, case studies, impactful events. Strong content combines rational proof (the data that satisfies the sceptic) with human examples (the story that makes the reader feel it). Head and heart together is what makes an article land.
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Authority
Why trust you?
The credibility question. Why is this spokesperson — not just anyone, but this person — qualified to make this argument? Authority comes from direct experience, a unique vantage point, proprietary data, or sheer volume of relevant work. It needs to be visible in the writing and proportionate to the claim being made.
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Attention
Why now?
Timing is everything in PR. Attention element connects your story to something happening in the world right now — a regulatory shift, a data release, a market trend reaching a tipping point, or a news event. It answers the question every journalist asks first: why should I care about this today?
How the METHOD CAN WORK FOR YOU
The 6A Method is a diagnostic checklist, not a step-by-step script.
In practice, I usually start with the Arc (what's changing in the world), work backwards to the Audience (who cares and why), define the Action (what they should think or do differently), then build out the Argument and Authority to support it.
Attention is usually added in last — it provides the topical hook on which to hang the story.
If any of the six answers are missing or vague, the content isn't ready. That's the discipline. It means nothing goes to a journalist until it's genuinely strong enough to earn its place.
Not all content will be written for the media.
But by writing content to the standard that a media publication might publish, it will have far more chance of engaging your market than content that falls below the bar.