How To Create A Communication Strategy

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Key Takeaways:

• Communication strategies need to have a goal, a target audience, a preferred method of communication, and metrics to determine efficacy.

• The benefits of a communication strategy include: efficiency, consistency, clarity, and being able to reach a specific target audience.

• It’s best to create or alter a communication strategy in the case of changes. For instance, reorganizing the business, altering policies or procedures, starting a new project, or launching a new service or product.

What Is a Communication Strategy?

While there are a few different concepts that can be labeled a communication strategy, in this article, we’ll be focusing on communication from a marketing and public relations perspective.

Also known as a communication plan, a communication strategy is a playbook used to communicate with staff, stakeholders, and the public, as well as establish and maintain a business’s brand.

Many businesses will have different aspects of their communication strategy, depending on who they’re attempting to communicate with. And as it’s a strategy – or a plan – it will have additional details, such as a timeframe.

Developing an Effective Communication Strategy

Creating a communication strategy is like any other project. It requires laying out the aim of the strategy and a timeframe and putting it into achievable steps. In order to build a successful communications strategy, here are some steps to take:

• Determine your goal. The first step you have to take is to know what it is you want to achieve. Are you trying to establish your brand or inform your audience about a new product, sale, or direction the business is taking? Once you’ve selected your primary goal, keep your strategy focused on achieving it.

• Figure out your target audience. Different audiences will require different types of communication. For example, you may be speaking to industry insiders or those that you’re hoping to bring in as new customers. As you can see from this, the messages you’d use would be quite different if you were speaking to the former or the latter.

  It is possible to have more than one target audience – or, at least, a broad audience. If that’s the case, then you’re going to need to broaden your communication strategy. It may even be wise to generate different strategies for your different audiences. But that will depend on your goal.

• Select your method of communication. While it doesn’t need to be just one method, it’s important to decide the ways in which you’ll get your message out. For instance, the way you compose messages on social media will be different than press releases. Advertising and marketing are also forms of communication, and they’ll also differ.

  The majority of businesses communicate over several different platforms, such as social media, marketing emails, internal communications, commercials, advertisements, and public relations. While the purposes of all these are slightly different, they can all fall under the same overarching communications strategy.

• Generate a timeline. Once you have an idea of what you want to say and who you want to say it to, it’s time to decide when you want to say it. Spacing out communications is important. You don’t want to flood your audience with too much at once, or they’ll be overwhelmed by it. You also don’t want to be silent for too long.

  Most communication strategies have a timeline of communications. They start with one on a certain date, then another on the next set date. This is also a matter of deciding when the communication strategy goes into effect. When will the first communication be sent out?

• Assign the primary communications to a person or department. It’s important to have someone in charge and someone whose responsibility it is. That doesn’t mean that one person will be responsible for every communication – that’d likely be too much. However, your marketing and PR staff need to know who’s ultimately responsible.

  Usually, this will boil down to someone being in charge of one section of the communication strategy. Such as, someone will be responsible for all the Facebook posts. Another person will be in charge of writing up marketing emails. That means that everyone knows what their job is and who to go to if things aren’t done properly.

• Assess metrics. In order to determine that your communication strategy is meeting the timeline and is effective, you need to establish metrics. These should be measurable goals, if at all possible so that you can objectively determine its success. It could be a click you get on ads or a website, or sales.

  If you’re just looking for the communications to follow the proper timeline, then that’s easier to assess. However, you’ll need to decide what you’ll do as a remedy if things aren’t getting done on time.

• Review. Lastly, you’ll need to review your progress. This is a matter of making sure everything is done properly and how it’s working. But it’s also a matter of whether or not the strategy is effective and sustainable. If you’re falling behind on your timeline and your sales are stagnant, then it may be time to revise your strategy altogether.

Why Have a Communication Strategy?

Having a communication strategy has several benefits for your business overall. It’s like any other sort of project planning – it assures that everyone knows what the goal is and how to work towards it.

Here are the main benefits of a communication strategy:

• Clarity. As the purpose and audience of the communications will have already been decided, the clarity of the communications will increase. Your team will know who they’re aiming their message at and how to go about reaching them. That leads to clearer, less ambiguous communications.

• Efficiency. Having a plan streamlines the process. Everyone knows what to prioritize and what to drop if they have to. It also leads to focus on the main goal. Not to mention greatly decreasing confusion due to employees being unsure of what they’re supposed to be doing or who they’re supposed to be talking to.

• Consistency. If you have a communication plan, the likelihood of conflicting messages drops drastically. Otherwise, there could be warring strategies, especially in a larger company with many different departments. But a plan keeps everyone on the same page and means they’ll react in a consistent manner – which very much matters in PR.

• Specificity. With a communications strategy, you’ll be able to do much more accurately target specific audiences. That means that you’ll be able to speak to them much more directly and appeal to them a great deal more than a blanket message would.

• Teamwork. Having a plan facilitates teamwork, as everyone knows what the primary goal is. There won’t be arguments over what’s more important to accomplish or who’s in charge of what part of it, as that’ll already be ironed out. If people know what they’re responsible for and what others are responsible for, they can work together more easily.

Creating a communication strategy can have even bigger benefits at certain times. And even if you already have one, it may be wise to generate a new one in the case of:

• Starting a new project. Having a strategy to inform employees about new projects is important – especially in a large business. But depending on the nature of the project, you may also want to inform stakeholders, suppliers, or even the public. All of these will require different types of communication, which makes a strategy important.

• Putting new policies or procedures into place. If there’s a major policy or procedural change, then communicating that to everyone is paramount. There’s likely to be pushback no matter what you do, but effective communication and explanations can help to diminish it.

  It’s also important to make everyone aware of such changes so that they can be in compliance with them. It’s difficult to follow the rules when unaware of what they are.

• Launching a new product or service. If your business branches out into a new venture, it’s important to get the word out about it. That’ll help drive sales, as well as show that your company is diversifying and therefore has added value – as well as growth.

• Company-wide changes. In the case of broad, large-scale changes, communication throughout will make it much smoother. There’s (almost) always going to be resistance to change, partly due to fear of being laid off or transferred somewhere entirely new.

  Letting your employees know what to expect and when will help with anxiety, engagement, and buy-in. Remember that this can have a major effect on your personnel’s livelihood, so you’ll get a wide variety of reactions.

• Communicating with the public. There’s a reason almost every business has an entire department focused on public relations. Saying the wrong thing can severely damage a company’s brand. It can also affect sales as well as being able to reach potential customers.

Communication Strategy FAQ

1. What are the benefits of a communication plan?

   Communication plans have the benefits of making your communications clearer, more consistent, more efficient, and more targeted. All of these benefits will lead to better responses from the recipient, as it’ll be clear what you’re saying, why, and to whom.

2. What should be included in a communication strategy?

   Communication strategies should include the primary goal, target audience, methods of communication, a timeline, and metrics. All of these will allow you to figure out the best way to get your message across.

References

1. Centers for Disease Control – Developing a Communication Plan

Author

Di Doherty

Di has been a writer for more than half her life. Most of her writing so far has been fiction, and she’s gotten short stories published in online magazines Kzine and Silver Blade, as well as a flash fiction piece in the Bookends review. Di graduated from Mary Baldwin College (now University) with a degree in Psychology and Sociology.