Integration is mission-critical when it comes to the implementation of strategic communications. Many organisations, especially SMEs, prefer the thrill of short-term, fail-and-move-on tactics and output without aligning these experiments within a larger framework and structure. This puts them at a disadvantage with inconsistent messaging and actions against peer competitors and internally amongst their team and employees.
Many organisations and brands are suffering through the scenario of having too many options as news media continue to deliver positive news on the back of a possible recovery. The economy is improving, the vaccine is being rolled out to the population, different industries are planning for an increase in customer demand alongside more digitalisation and the news goes on.
Too many options might lead to marketing and communications efforts becoming diluted through the creation of silos as different business units present their projects as priorities.
The failure to integrate actions across the organisation results in bad communication internally that does not align with the company’s goals and often sends conflicting messages to stakeholders – customers, partners and the ecosystem.
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.
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We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel, and technology spaces.
What is the value of strategic communications in 2021, whether to large organisations, enterprises or SMEs?
The first thing to realise is that regardless of size, all organisations benefit from clear, consistent structure.
Strategic communications is critical to a business succeeding. This is even more so as businesses collectively adapt and recover from the pandemic.
Strategic communications is about creating and executing against a master plan, by coordinating the various channels of communications an organisation has in order to support outreach to decision makers and stakeholders and influence, promote or defend against outcomes.
This includes the sum of all actions, content (for example, copy, images, video etc) as well as intentions that the organisation puts out, as well as those that it chooses not to.
All of these must be aligned to support the organisation’s goals. This process breaks down when business units/project teams are working in siloes or on different timelines, and chooses specific mediums or messages to push out. This creates confusion that can confuse customers, and negatively impact a brand’s reputation.
For example, there might be two different unit announcements in the same week to the media, which might result in the publications choosing one announcement over the other when reporting about the brand.
Another example, a customer service issue that has not been closed on social media might impact a new product/service launch since disgruntled customers might comment about the viability of the product/service just as the awareness campaign is meant to take off.
Secondly, communications is both proactive when it’s about sharing news from a company to customers. It can also be a defensive play when it is about protecting reputation. Having a well-formed strategic communications plan is a form of risk management and insurance for the organisation. The plan actively identifies risks and mitigation tactics as outcomes of pursuing specific business directions and projects. This will help organisations avoid potential crisis scenarios while providing a roadmap for managing the scenario if it happens.
For example, the communications team might have identified cultural nuances to take note of when translating product names or information into local language. This can make the product team aware of a potential customer issue down the road and search for alternative names prior to launch instead of dealing with issues post-launch.
Thirdly, strategy is about differentiation and it’s about showing how the organistion is providing better value to the customer by doing things differently, or in a superior manner instead of providing mere incremental improvements.
When doing outreach to customers or stakeholders, adopt a mindset of providing value to them. This means viewing the organisation’s actions from their perspective. Consistency of messaging across all channels would benefit this mindset and lens.
If your organisation wants to maximise marketing or communications ROI, integrating efforts across different units and efforts – whether from a budget, resources or timing – can benefit the execution. ROI can be achieved both by securing maximum output, as well as increasing efficiency from execution thereby using lesser resources.
As shared earlier, regardless of size of organisation, being clear about goals, and how all actions internally are aligned to deliver value to customers and stakeholders can bring a brand much further during these times.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash