Four steps to building an empowering communications strategy

Creating communications that motivate and empower your people is invaluable and provides a range of benefits.  

Some of the key advantages include

• higher employee motivation and retention; 
• better collaboration and more aligned teams;
• faster decision-making; and
• greater clarity and consistency of messages.

In this blog, we’ll briefly explore how to plan, create and deliver a powerful communications strategy that resonates with your people, following our tried and tested ACDC approach:

Analysis

Data collection

Begin by collecting data to aid understanding of how your audience feel around current communications – this could be through surveys, focus groups as well as any data and knowledge you already have. The more information you can gather, the better you can tailor your communications to meet the needs of your audience.

Analysis

Then you can use your data to identify the key priorities for your communications plan. Look at what your audience identify as their top challenges when it comes to communications. What is already working well? And perhaps not working so well.

The data analysis may well point to segmenting your communications and targeting certain cohorts, such as by age, type of role or position. For example, new recruits are likely to need more education about the type of pension scheme or employee benefits on offer, whereas older individuals may want information on how to best access their benefits in retirement. You should take this into consideration when you create your plan in the next stage. 

Consultancy

This is where planning comes in. Once you’ve built a better understanding of your audience, you’ll gain a much clearer picture of where value can be added through your communications strategy. The next step is to set out a plan of content across 12-18 months to maximise engagement, including setting objectives (such as driving engagement or raising awareness) and setting clear key performance indicators (such as reach or engagement). 

Your plan should deliver the right message, using the right channels, at the right time for maximum impact and return on investment (ROI). At this stage, you should also identify any potential challenges that may occur. 

Every communication should also have a specific and measurable objective to help understand the success or areas for future improvement. 

Delivery

The next step is the delivery of your plan. The content, channels and design of your communications are all extremely important and should be considered carefully. 

Whether you're aiming to meet regulatory standards or simply uphold best practices, ensure your communications are accessible and inclusive to as many people as possible. Use clear, easy-to-understand, and informative language, paired with best practices and thoughtful, innovative design.

You should also use different formats to engage a range of learning styles and preferences. For example, rather than just delivering written contents such as blogs, you should also introduce more visual content such as videos and infographics. This will enable you to meet any accessibility requirements your people might have.

Check

The final stage, and one often overlooked in this ACDC approach, is measuring the results to ensure your communications resonates with your audience and produces outcomes you set out to achieve.

You could do this by measuring analytics, for example open and click rates on digital content and through returned forms for paper communications. 

Monitoring how the communications, campaigns and broader strategy are performing against the set objectives is paramount, and this should be an ongoing process, rather than just a one-off exercise.

This all feeds into an evolving, flexible strategy that can be adjusted as needed to ensure you’re getting the ROI and are providing your people with the engaging communications they need.