Why is Strategic Communication Important?

Strategic Communication is the combination of management strategy and effective communication, and it is impossible to follow through on a good corporate strategy without being able to communicate it. Employees will only get on board with changes to operations if they are effectively communicated with, and customers need to hear messaging that is consistent with your strategy if it is to work.

No changes in strategy can be implemented without first being communicated. Brand messaging needs to be intentional and a part of a communication strategy to be consistent. Otherwise, brand messaging will differ and possibly even contradict. This is because it often originates from many different employees. This topic is hugely important, and often there are specific roles within a company dedicated to creating communication plans. It is also an undergraduate major at many colleges, including Concordia University, Nebraska.  

Strategic communication is often closely tied to marketing and social media. These generally encompass the strategic communication that a company intends to have with its customers or the general public. This could include anyone who comes into contact with their brand. Marketing communication broadly encompasses promotional events, print media, promotional merchandise, and digital marketing. This can often include social media marketing as well. Many smaller companies make the mistake of participating in marketing and social media efforts without first making a strategic plan.  

However, it is important to have an understanding of your brand’s target audience and your key messages for your social media and marketing efforts. This helps determine what platforms will be most effective, how to best communicate your message, and what consistent messages should be conveyed through the choice of specific graphics and content. Jobs associated with strategic communication are often marketing or social media management roles. This is because to effectively fulfill their duties they must be able to form a strategic communication plan. These jobs are important for spreading the word about products and services, as well as conveying any changes in product offerings to a companies target market, as well as for building brand consistency.  

Strategic communication is also closely tied to the organizational culture of the company. The politics of a company can easily get out of hand, and communication between co-workers is important for the efficient functioning of a company. Creating a consistently positive organizational culture in a company is helpful to create a better environment for good internal communication. This can mean creating communication goals for certain roles within a company.  

There should also be norms set up with employees for which forms of communication are appropriate in certain situations. For example, if and when is it okay to contact your boss through the company’s private messaging system or text rather than an official email. Last, strategic planning often includes a vision for how the language and attitude of the company should function. Being united in the sort of language a certain company uses can help the company function more closely as a team and be more efficient in their communication. Roles associated with this sort of work in strategic communication can be consultants that executives at a company chose to hire, human resources employees or even company executives themselves.  

Strategic communication can often be boiled down to the simple suggestions that encourage correct communication. Employee engagement and internal communication can often be boiled down to the ideas of clarity, truthfulness, consistency and timeliness. These little interpersonal communication suggestions make a huge difference in the long term.  

What many business executives can learn from communications experts is simply to encourage employee feedback, and act on the things they say. All of these suggestions are considerably easier said than done, and it is a strategic communication professional’s goal to implement effective communication as well as make sure that a company is actually doing the things they claim to do.  

According to Forbes, forming an external strategic communications plan has five components which are the purpose of your plan, the target audience, how the message will be communicated, when the communication will take place and who exactly will be delivering the message. These different aspects should be considered each time a new marketing campaign takes place. However, a common overarching general one should be made as well. This should be the basic message that the company wants to share and who they want to share it with. Having this established earlier on, will allow a strategic communication plan for each marketing campaign going forward to be made much more easily.  

Effective communication is not just about establishing the original communication objectives. Once a company has developed a communication strategy, the ability to implement it and adjust it will be the true tests of its effectiveness. Sticking with the goals and plans laid out is important, but a company also needs to deliver in the promises they make to their customers in their messaging.  

In addition, adaptability of a communication plan is important. If consumers aren’t resonating with your messages well then it is important to recognize this and adjust them. If new platform opportunities arise it could be important to begin to incorporate them as well. For example, many companies have begun to market using the app Tik Tok due to its growth in popularity.  

One way to ensure that you are adjusting your communications plans when necessary is to continuously receive employee feedback. Asking all of your employees once in a while if they think that the companies messaging is as effective as it can be could be incredibly helpful to evaluating your plan’s effectiveness. Doing this yearly could make sure that your company is keeping up with changes that may occur in customer mindset or platforms available.