Effective communication isn’t simple. If it was, everyone would be doing it (you see, just there, a horrible cliché – proving the point that communication isn’t easy!)
That said, there are a couple of things you can do to make your life a little easier.
There’s no point in saying or doing something if you’re not sure why you’re doing it.
Firstly, think about your organisation – what do they want to achieve this year? How is your communications supporting that? Where do you fit into the bigger picture?
As part of your annual planning process, make sure all of your communications objectives ladder up to those overall business objectives. The company wants to expand into new territories? How are you going to help them do that? They’re going through a big digital transformation? What do your employees need to know to embed that change in the day to day?
Once you have your objectives, make sure you have a clear strategy or approach which outlines how you’ll achieve that. Only then can you start to do the fun stuff – the tactics. (Not sure on the difference between objectives, strategy, and tactics? Here’s a useful article to help.)
Bottom line: If your activity doesn’t help you achieve your objective or your company’s objectives, don’t do it.
This may seem incredibly simple but your audience is never “everyone”. The fact is, if you’re talking to everyone, you’re going to convince no one. Go back to your objectives and strategy – who are the key people who are going to help you achieve success? Is it your teams on the ground? Maybe it’s 20-30 year olds with no kids. Segment your audience, understand them, and then talk to them directly. If you’re too vague at this point, you won’t be able to connect, engage, and change behaviour.
Personas are a great place to start. If you’re not sure how to these, help is at hand.
Once you know who you’re talking to, have a think – what do you actually want them to think / feel / do afterwards. “Letting them know about X” isn’t good enough. While sometimes yes, you do want to just inform people, there has to be a reason for it. Do you want them to change the way they approach something? Do you need them to coach their team? Do you want them to feel engaged and part of something?
We’re all under pressure with information coming at us from all angles. Make sure your communication has a point.
Bottom line: if you don’t know why you’re doing something, look at your objectives again and figure it out.
It’s all very well having an all-singing, all-dancing plan in place but… how are you going to show you’ve actually delivered? Make sure you have clear evaluation metrics in place to show movement. A lot of that will come from having SMART objectives in place (e.g., increase the number of employees who understand their role in delivering the new long-term plan from 35% to 60% by the end of Q4) but sometimes that isn’t enough.
Think about all the shifts you want to see and then find the data to support them. It might be engagement (clicks, views, comments) but you should also think about behaviour and sentiment change. How do people feel about XYZ? How connected are they to it? How confident do they feel in talking to others about it?
If you don’t have metrics in place, now’s your chance!
Bottom line: if you don’t measure your work, you can’t show your value to those who matter (your bosses!)
Whenever someone approaches you asking you to support them in communications, you should be asking these three questions:
If you help people think in these terms, chances are your communication will be more effective.
Are you having issues with your communications strategy? Maybe you’d like some advice on how to make your communications more effective? I might be able to help.
Beaumont is a communications agency based in Lausanne, Switzerland. We work with clients all around the world to change the way they talk about themselves – helping them create engaging stories that motivate action.
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