There are many myths surrounding strategic communications and marketing, especially around the discipline and application being superficial, ineffective and that its impact on the business is negligible.
There are a great number of misconceptions about the principles, use and implementation of strategic communications as well as marketing. Many of these revolve around the practice and implementation of the disciplines being opaque, ineffective and at its worst, a waste of resources due to its impact being unmeasurable.
Many of these critiques might even be correct.
Depending on planning, implementation and outcomes achieved, any discipline – strategic communications, sales, marketing, procurement, even finance – can deliver a disastrous execution and result for the organisation. Such thinking is not unique to any single discipline, even though selective viewing of news articles can seem to make it so. Issues with a discipline can be compounded especially when there are differences in opinion and ownership between management and the function or team responsible for delivering outcomes.
Ownership, and the process of selling in ownership can be more important than the execution
Many functions and teams often fail to acknowledge the role of internal selling in of concepts, ideas, plans or take the time (and pain) to explain these plans to management or internal champions.
As the responsible of communicating positioning and messaging is important for our customers, internal stakeholders should be regarded as THE (if not, at least one of the most) most important customers. These stakeholders provide the resources (time, talent and budget) for the programme or campaign to take off. The process of explaining the advantages, benefits or competitive edge the organisation will derive from the successful implementation is key to securing these resources.
In exchange of the resources, it should be clear to internal stakeholders that there is a strategy, structured framework and approach as well as anticipated outcomes.
The process has to answer the question: What does your organisation stand to gain by executing this strategic communications programme or campaign?
Through the Strategic Communications Academy, we provide coaching and training services for teams and practitioners on skill sets and competencies.
Services includes building basic and foundational capabilities on writing, media relations, the use of content and the application of communications through to developing good project management skills and client/stakeholder relationships for practitioners.
SCG also provides problem-solving consultancy services to organisations looking for growth through market entry, market expansion, as well as product and service launches.
Send an email to connect@strtgcommsgrp.com OR book an exploratory consultation through this link OR complete this form and we will connect with you shortly.
We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel, and technology spaces.
Answering the question well requires support for business goals
A common misconception strategic communications teams often shelter behind is that our discipline somehow only delivers ‘above the funnel’ results, that we are great at providing ‘air support’ and ‘shielding’ the organisation. However, when it comes to pushing the organisation’s agenda forward, to grow, scale and expand, that we are merely support crew.
As frequently observed, what we think about tends to become true. If the communications team (or worse yet, their management) in an organisation thinks they are support crew, than they will be.
Instead, strategic communications teams need to fight to own the internal perception that they (as equals to other disciplines) have the capability and creativity to contribute to their organisation’s growth outcomes and business goals.
Connecting the dots from business goals to strategic communications outcomes
Here are some recommendations we believe are critical for every single strategic communications programme or campaign.
As a refresher, these are what the terms mean:
- A goal is long-term, broad and represents a desired result or achievement the organisation is looking to secure.
- An objective is an action created in support a goal, and is specific and measurable.
- An outcome is the final result that happens as a result of accomplishing the multiple objectives and actions in the plan. It is also bounded by the parameters i.e. the objectives that led to the result.
Involve management and/or the business teams in figuring out or stating clearly the business goals, value to the customer, and areas that the brand dominates or differentiates in
Run a SWOT-Gap analysis-Opportunity/Threat matrix combination of models to set up a common baseline of understanding between functions. Thereafter, align the SWOT to answer “So WHAT?”. As a team, come up with strategies to capitalise on strengths and opportunities while mitigating weaknesses and threats. It might also be necessary to bring in a third-party to moderate the workshop especially if there is a need to achieve consensus by different teams.
Align, create and map business goals to strategic communications objectives
The objective has to answer simply and clearly HOW the implementation of the plan will achieve, support or provide an advantage for the business goal.
Set measurements and outcomes early in the plan, framework or approach and reverse engineer the pathway
A common mistake is to start with the implementation concept and idea and end up having to stretch or squeeze the outcomes into the execution. Concepts and ideas are plentiful and what might not work for a specific campaign can be repurposed later.
Setting the outcomes and how to measure these outcomes in relation to business goals makes it clear WHY the programme or campaign is being done. These measurements should be both qualitative and quantitative and map to the objectives.
A litmus test of the objective and measurements is whether other teams can understand it easily. Feedback can be helpful in optimising the plan and also achieving ownership.
Show creativity in coming up with measurements and outcomes
Approach the outcomes with a scientific mindset. Think of finding outcomes to measure and relating back to objectives and goals as a challenge akin to discovering a competitive advantage over a competitor or becoming a leader in your organisation’s niche.
What does successful execution look like? What variables does it impact? Can I measure the impact through a proxy? What does the proxy connect to, from a business, numbers and customers perspective?
For example, if the campaign provides the impression of momentum about a solution, can the sales team use that impression and awareness of our brand to secure meetings? How many of these meetings converted into a sale?
Another example, if we are responsible for interacting with social media followers, how do we get them registered into our database to receive emails or how many of their clicks to our purchase site is attributed to our social media outreach?
A last example, in a crisis, how quickly can we de-escalate the topic in order to minimise damage to the brand and perception of our organisation? Apart from time, can we show a reduction over time of complaints, cancellations or refunds, and how much did the reduction save our organisation in terms of revenue or the customer service team’s time to handle the issue?
Just because a result is intangible does not mean it cannot be measured.