Maximize Your Communication: 5 Essential Steps for a Successful Strategy

Successful communication starts with a strategy to measure its impact on business goals.

Effective communication isn’t about completing the brochure, video or website – it’s about what the communication needs to accomplish and how successful it is at doing just that. When communicators are strategic, employee understanding improves, according to the results of the State of the Sector 2024 report.

Following the five essential steps below demonstrates the ROI (return on investment) on your communication efforts. In doing so, you can prove the value communication has on the business – to your manager, management, your customer or client. By implementing these steps, you can inspire and motivate with the power of strategic communication.

1. Identify the business need or opportunity

Determine the what and the why: know what you want to accomplish and why meeting the goal is important. Then, discuss the what and why with leaders and peers for deeper insight. This insight will ensure clarity and effectiveness, giving you the confidence that your communication is on the right track. 

You’ll also want to explore the answers to questions such as:

• Why does your organization care about this initiative now? What specific challenges or changes are driving the need?
• How will the solution support the business goals? Your department’s goals?
• What are the risks of not accomplishing your goals?
• What potential push-back do you anticipate?
• Does research substantiate the business need?
• How does the need support the company’s vision, mission and employee value proposition?

The answers to these questions will help inform your communication strategy.

EXAMPLE: The business need isn’t to add a Consumer Directed Health Plan; that is the solution. The actual business need in this case is to save employees and the company money, and to help employees make smart health care decisions.

2. Conduct a stakeholder analysis

Consider all the stakeholders you need to get buy-in from, including your primary and secondary audiences. Explore audience characteristics such as prior knowledge of your topic, education, location, demographics, psychographics, preferences, attitudes, opinions and motivations.

How well has your audience received prior messages from you? Think about who delivered the previous messages and how they were received. For example, how well are messages from the CEO received vs. managers?

Make sure you determine each audience’s preferred communication channels. Don’t assume…do the research such as conducting focus groups or surveys. You’ll likely need a multi-pronged approach – reaching different audiences with differing tactics. Consider the different needs within an audience group. For example, you would use different tactics to reach desk-based, remote and plant-based employees.

Depending on the project:

• Stakeholders could include executives, location leaders, board of directors/committee, etc.
• Primary audiences could include managers, human resources, and employees and their spouses
• Secondary audiences could include customers, recruits and the press

3. Set meaningful, measurable goals and objectives

Align the measurable communication goals and objectives with the business need. To measure success, you need to distinguish between goals, objectives, the approach and tactics.

The SMART formula can help you determine whether your objectives are sound. Use this guideline to help you evaluate the strength of your objectives:

Specific: Describes a desired outcome
Measurable: Meaningful and quantifiable as an output or outcome
Achievable: Agreeable and attainable
Relevant: Contributes to business goals in a meaningful way
Time-bound: Realistic timing, includes a completion date, if appropriate

Output-based objectives measure communication volume or usage. Examples of volume include articles distributed, ads produced, meetings held and blog posts published. Examples of usage include website visits, social media engagement and downloads of materials.

Outcome-based objectives measure what the audience will gain by way of awareness, understanding, recall, different perceptions, and quantifiable change in attitudes, opinions and behaviors.

• It’s about “moving the needle” toward achieving your business goal.
• Did the communication strategy influence your audience to buy something (either a product or an idea), do something different or change their perception?

Here’s an example:

• Business goal: Help manage health care costs for employees and the company
• Communication objectives:
  • Move 15% of employees to a new medical plan during annual enrollment (Outcome-based)
  • Have 40% of employees attend employee meetings in October (Output-based)
  • Achieve $400,000 in projected savings based on enrollments in the new medical plan (Outcome-based)
• The approach: Multiple-channel communication campaign
• Tactics: Video, digital guide, home mailer, email, TV screen slide

4. Implement the solution

Now that you know what you need to accomplish and how you’ll measure that, you need to have a plan to get there. You’ll want to:

• Use your audience analysis to develop key messages for each group identified. Use personas or testimonials as appropriate
• Align your approach, tactics and communication channels with the business need, audiences and objectives. Make sure the creative direction and tactics used match with what you’re trying to accomplish
• Think about the obstacles you might encounter and how you can overcome them

5. Measure and evaluate

Now you’re equipped to really determine the return on your communication efforts. You’ll want to measure your progress against the targets you set for your goals and objectives. Gather and present the data to demonstrate that strategic communication planning and execution is vital to the organization. Report to your supervisor, leaders, the company and your clients how communication helped meet the business need and made a difference!

Let’s use the objectives in the example above under step 3 and show how to measure them:

Putting it into practice

To recap, use these steps to create a strategy with measurable results:

Let’s collaborate to create a strategy customized to meet your business goals, support your specific communication objectives and prove the return on your communication efforts. Get in touch.

Source

How-To Guide for IABC Awards (The Midas Touch) , International Association of Business Communicators.