What Is Communication Strategy and 5 Steps to Create It (+Template)

This was originally retrieved from haiilo.com by Eugenia Koptelova

In her article written by Eugenia Koptelova she discusses what makes a good communication strategy. 

  • What makes a good communication strategy?
  • What are some of the biggest communication barriers, and how to overcome them?

What makes a good communication strategy?

Communication strategy is a plan to deliver a message to your audience. This includes three crucial factors, the audience, the message, and the channels. 

Audience: who you are talking to

Message: the idea, theme or thought you are trying to convey.

Channels: the method of delivery

The difference Between Internal and External Communication Strategy

Typically, communication is categorized into two main areas internal and external. 

Internal communication - is information and ideas exchanged within the organization itself. For example in Internal communication, messages can be exchanged via personal contact, telephone, e-mail, intranet, or various communication platforms, like Microsoft teams, zoom or skype.

External communication - is the exchange of information within the organization itself and outside the organization. The main goal of external communications is to inform the outside world of an important message about the work and quality of the organization. 



Why Every Organization Should Have a Clear Communication Strategy 


How we communicate directly impacts business success. With remote work becoming the reality of daily life, organizations have adopted more digital means of communication, better leverage asynchronous communication, and communication is at the core. 

External communication's goal is to position an organization in way that is attractive to the buyer and stakeholders. 

Internal communication can have many goals and can be much more complex, a few of these could include:

Improve employee engagement

Align team members with strategic business goals

Drive successful change management and digital transformation projects. 

Keep employees safe and secure

Facilitate knowledge sharing

Reduce employee turnover 

Here are some power statistics to underline the importance of good internal communication.

  • 85% of employees say they're most motivated when management offers regular updates on company news. 
  • 60% of companies don't have a long term strategy for their internal communications.
  • 74% of employees have the feeling they are missing out on company news. 
  • 87% of people use a mobile phone to communicate at work at least once per week. 
  • Employee productivity increases 20 to 25% in organization where employees are connected. 
  • 28% of leaders report poor communication as the primary cause of failing to deliver a project within its original time frame. 
  • 23% of executive say their companies are excellent at aligning employee's goals with corporate purposes. 
  • 29% of employees say that poor internal business communication is the reason project to fail. 

Another survey with executives, manager, and junior staff members found that communication breakdowns in the workplace have multiple downsides. When asked about the consequences of poor communication:

  • 52% of respondents said they feel higher stress levels
  • 44% said they failed to complete their projects
  • 31% siad  they missed their performance goals
  • 20% siad that they experience obstacles in innovation
  • 18% said that they lost new sales opportunities. 


5 Steps to Create and Manage a Successful Internal communication Strategy

1. Understand your audience

Identifying and understanding your audience is one of the most important prerequisites, this will help determine the message, tone of voice, and communication channels used.

Most workplaces today deal with multigenerational workforces, many are also multicultural, and employees can work anywhere in the world. 

The nature of your employee's work may significantly impact the way you communicate with them. Corporate workers may be easier to reach, where most frontline workers depend o mobile means of communication. 

Understanding various audiences is the first and most important step when creating a communication strategy.

2. Make communication relevant to everyone

Many employees have the feeling that they are missing important company information, this is happening because o the extensive information overload employees face today. 

It's the organization's responsibility to make information relevant to the audience. They need to be able to reach the right employees at the right time with the right message.

Unfortunately, many organizations still don't have a way to properly segment their audiences and target the right people with the right message. As a consequence, employees ignore these messages and often miss critical information. 

3. Make information easily accessible while avoiding information overload

Today people expect information to find them - in both their private and professional lives. 36% of managers say they're suffering from poor health due to the excessive amount of information they have to process at work. 

Furthermore, 65.2% of UK employees say that their work is negatively impacted by the high amount of data they have to process to work, and 91% of the US workers admit that they sometimes delete or discard work-related information without fully reading it!

Having a central place with all the company information is not enough. Organization are now required to deliver the right information at the right time!



 4. Ask for frequent feedback.

To make your communication strategy work you need to involve your employees and encourage their share of voice. Their feedback is the best tool for delivering continuous advancements and keeping high engagement levels. 

More than ever before, HR professionals, leaders, and managers are distributing frequent surveys and collecting their people's thoughts, opinions, concerns, and recommendations for improvement. 

It is crucial however, to act on feedback. The worst thing  you can do is ask for feedback and never act on it. This way, you will never be able to build trust in the workplace. 

There are employee engagement solutions offer powerful employee insights and provide actionable recommendations for improvements. 

5. Be data driven

We have already learned that the business impact of a proper communication strategy can be significant. Yet, many communications professionals still can't measure and track the success of their campaigns and initiatives.

Every advancement in your organization's communication strategy should have its goal and purpose. Whether it is to improve employee engagement, increase employee safety, improve productivity, boost employee experience, or reduce turnover, you should tie those initiatives to the ultimate KPIs you are trying to achieve. 

Communication strategy Template

Who is your audience, and what are their characteristics? 

Think about who do you want to target with your message to achieve the biggest possible impact.

  • [Persona 1]
    • Characteristics such as age, gender, culture, nature of work, and favorite communication channels. 
  • [Persona 2]
    • Characteristics such as age, gender, culture, nature of work, and favorite communication channels. 
  • [Persona 3]
    • Characteristics such as age, gender, culture, nature of work, and favorite communication channels. 

What are the purpose and the desired outcomes?

What are you trying to achieve? What is the ultimate goal of this communications campaign/initiative?

  • [Objective 1]
    • Description objective 1
  • [Objective 2]
    • Description objective 2
  • [Objective 3]
    • Description objective 3

How should the message be delivered?

What channels will you be using? Is it social media, is it your company's intratent, email, newsletter, or some other communications channels?

  • [Channel 1 ]
    • Description channel 1
  • [Channel 2 ]
    • Description channel 2
  • [Channel 3 ]
    • Description channel 3

How will you measure the results?

Which metric will you use to measure the results? Is the reach, open rate, response rate, readership, engagement, or something else?

  • [KPI 1]
    • Description KPI 1
  • [KPI 2]
    • Description KPI 2
  • [KPI 3]
    • Description KPI 3

My Questions?

How can we have a self forming team that is asynchronous? 

The agile manifesto notes that "the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversion." How can I apply this principle in a asynchronous and over seas operation? 

Other resources for future blog posts:

How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk

How to give a killer presentation

Mindful presenter

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