Top 5 FAQ's to Consider When Developing a Corporate Communication Strategy

 Hello,
Internal and external corporate communication need to be carefully planned for it to be effective. A mistake in the message being delivered, or the methods for delivering it, can result in important people not getting the information or misinterpretation. Your company should consider some main questions that each communication strategy needs to answer prior to developing your plan.


Here are few frequently asked questions according to Arnold Anderson a communication professional which are to be considered and to be asked to yourself on a regular bases while designing a communication strategy and which are universal.


What Is Your Message?


Your message is the focus of your communication strategy. Everything else that you develop in your strategy depends on the message you are trying to convey. For example, if you want to alert your customers to a new order-entry system on your website, then the audience you choose and the method of message delivery will depend on the content of your message.


Who Is Your Target Audience?


The target audience is the group that you are trying to reach with your message. Identifying the target audience is important because it dictates how you will develop your message and the form in which your message will take. A message sent to your younger customers about a pending new product release will be much different than a message sent to internal recipients about changes to the company's production schedule.


What Information Does Your Audience Need?


Giving your audience too much information will confuse it and not giving enough information will weaken your message. Communication content for an external audience can be developed using marketing demographics that give information about your audience. For example, if the demographic for your target audience indicates a high level of technical skill in your recipients, then you will want to include technical information to make your message more appealing. For internal audiences, it is important to only give the necessary information to avoid rumours and confusion.


How Will the Message Be Delivered?


The purpose of a communication strategy is to reach as much of your target audience as possible. As with the process of developing information, you can use marketing demographic information to determine the best mediums for delivering your message. For example, if your marketing research shows that your target audience gets information from the radio more often than from the Internet, then your communication strategy will focus on using the radio to deliver the message.


How Will you Gauge the Success of Your Communication Strategy?


Develop performance measurements for your communication strategy to try and determine its success. The way to improve future communication plans is to learn from the success and failures of previous programs. If you release a message to your staff regarding changes to the vacation request process and many of the staff members still use the old system, then you need to determine why the information was not received and how to create a more effective plan in the future.