Many organizations experience problems in managing business communications. However, managing the way you communicate with your customers is critical, as the competition is high and ‘your’ competitors know how to manage their business very well.
Marketing companies believe that they must manage consumer perception of their capabilities and offerings. In other words, they know how to sell their products or services. Most have no idea how to achieve that. Communication and Marketing is not just building out a campaign. It’s making a significant change in how Marketing strategizes and changes its culture. That takes time but also needs some important steps in order to manage your business better.
Let me share a few steps to consider as you begin to develop your communications and marketing strategy. I concentrate on seven areas when creating a communications and marketing plan:
- Have a clear understanding of who your target audience is.
It’s important to clearly identify your audience both demographic and interests or behavior, to help identify the best communication ways to reach them. For example, you can ask yourself who are these customers, what are their motivations and how do they like to be communicated to. All these questions need to be answered first before creating a good communications and marketing plan.
- Define your business or brand.
When defining your business, put as much clarity as possible into how the business or brand is described, so that you can build a specific business experience to match it. For example list out your skills and what you want your customers to think of when your business or brand comes to mind. These skills will form the basis of your business or brand definition. Another important thing you can do is to define your business based on your ability to fulfill customers’ demands. Please keep in mind that your business has to be different than other similar available options offered from your competitors.
- Pick your methods of communication.
Not everyone needs to be on Facebook or Twitter. You have to ask yourself which types of communication do your customers use and how you can reach your goal through these channels. It is better to select the most effective methods of communication than trying to use all of them.
- Have a consistent and familiar look.
When we mean ‘look’ we don’t mean only the logo of your business or brand. You have to make sure that your business looks the same on your different communication channels. Each channel has a different layout but make sure bio or profile picture are consistent. If possible, your social accounts should be consistent with your company website as well.
Everything should look as if it came from the same ‘company’. For example a person reading a brochure should see an immediate visual connection when visiting the website.
- Create clear and consistent content in all of your channels.
Communications such as messaging and offers must be clear and not with confusing words or phrases. They also have to be interesting to the receiver and consistent. Creating a consistent business identity requires consistent communication habits.
Every piece of content you develop such as a blog post or a video should be also able to be used in as many places as possible. For example you should be able to take your video and use it in your blog post.
- Ensure your messaging is integrated and use the same keywords throughout your content.
Make sure each part of your communication process is set up to attract customers to your target, whether your target is a website for purchases or a social network platform like Facebook for engagement.
The message you create can be complete if you: 1.give customers the opportunity to interact with the business/brand. That means that all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, social media, channels and activities all work together as a force. It is a process designed to ensure that all messaging strategies are consistent across all channels and centered on the customer. For example, if you have a printed guide containing a Facebook link, this can help customer connect easily with your business and share its contents.
2.help them find your company/business/brand through the right keywords used in Search section. These keywords should be connected to all of your content, leading people to your company’s website or blog.
- Make sure to share your content marketing strategy with other teams/departments in your company.
How you communicate your strategy depends on the culture and strategy of your business. However, it could be beneficial to share your content with other members of the team especially if you are working under the same campaign. The sharing process will help all members to check whether everyone is working toward the same content goal, the content is consistent, minimize duplicate efforts, and if all your communication channels have the same look and feel.
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