Five questions you must ask yourself

Many organisations spend a lot of time “doing” communications without getting any meaningful results.

And the simple reason is that they start with tactics, rather than strategy.

The difference between strategy and tactics is the difference between knowing where you’re going, rather than getting in the car and hoping for the best. Sometimes you’ll get lucky, but more often than not you’ll take a long drive without really getting anywhere.

Throughout my career I’ve overheard countless conversations, usually well-intentioned ones, about the need to put out media releases, social media content, websites, videos, newsletters or emails. These things all have their place, but they're only effective when they're supporting a clear strategic objective.

So before developing any communications strategy, I ask five questions.

Question one: What do we want to achieve?

Communications should never exist in isolation. Every strategy should be connected to a tangible objective. Are we trying to influence a decision maker? Do we want to build trust or strengthen reputation? Do we need to drive behavioural change, or increase membership, or improve stakeholder relationships?

If the desired outcome isn't clear, it's impossible to know when you’ve achieved it.

Communications is not the goal. It is a means of achieving the goal.

Question two: Who matters most?

All people are created equal. But not all audiences are equal.

A common mistake is trying to say the same thing to everyone all at once. This never works. Effective strategies identify who has the greatest influence over the desired outcome, and then targeting them.

This means you need to choose between customers, employees, members, investors, decision makers, regulators, community leaders or industry partners.

The clearer the audience definition, the more effective the strategy becomes.

Question three: What does your target audience believe?

Understanding your audience and empathising with them is critical. Before you can influence an audience, you need to put yourself in their shoes and understand how they think, what they value, what fears or aspirations motivate them, and what assumptions they hold. You cannot judge them, and you must genuinely listen before you speak.

I have gotten far more out of casual conversations with the woman behind the counter or the man in the street than I have out of polished talking points and high-level brainstorming sessions.

People are messy, and contradictory, and seldom conform to demographics. Taking the time to understand these nuances, whether through research, stakeholder engagement, surveys, media analysis or direct conversations, often reveals gaps between what you want people to think and what people actually believe.

Those gaps are where strategy begins.

Question four: What do we need them to believe?

This is the heart of strategic communication.

Now that you know what you want to do and who you need to reach, and possessing a pretty good understanding of that audience, you now need to think about movement.

Every successful campaign shifts understanding, attitudes, confidence or behaviour.

Your objective cannot be simply to share information; if it is, go back and start at the beginning of this post.

Your objective must be to achieve an outcome, and to do that, you must you’re your audience from one position to another.

By defining the desired change in reputation or belief or action, we create a clear destination for our strategy and in so doing create a framework for measuring progress.

Question five: What evidence do we have?

I think a lot of you will be surprised to learn I only come to the facts at this late stage, but my experience has always been that you must know yourself, your situation, and your desired destination before you even consider taking one step.

And this is why so many communications plans fail: they begin at the end, and do not consider questions one through four.

Now, we know credibility is incredibly important. Trust and reputation are, after all, pillars of communications. And we know the strongest messages are built on facts, evidence and real-world examples.

Far too often organisations focus on what they want to say rather than what they can prove.

Your evidence may come from data, research, customer experiences, operational performance, independent experts or lived experience. Regardless of its form, it can become the foundation for trust if handled properly.

This is the cornerstone of your campaign.

Strategy before tactics

These five questions don't produce a media plan or content calendar, instead they produce clarity of purpose.

Once you understand the outcome you're seeking, your audience and their beliefs, the need to create change and the evidence that support your position, the tactical decisions become much easier.

Channels, messages, content and engagement activities flow from your strategy rather than the other way around.

The most effective communications work I’ve done has never been about being heard, but instead about understanding what needs to change and creating a clear path to get there.

If you ask these five questions, and take the time to really develop a strategy, you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve.

If you’re planning a campaign, navigating change, managing issues or looking to strengthen trust, I'd be happy to discuss how a strategic communications approach can help achieve your objectives.