The 3 Most Important Questions to Ask Before Developing a Competitive Communications Strategy

To person A, communications strategy means marketing.

Person B will say Sales methodology.

Person X is not entirely certain, but disagrees with everyone A-through-Y.

We live in a customer-facing, glass-house world. This is only necessary because no one has time to waste on disentangling the truth. Technology is aligning marketing, sales, and services around that truth: the exchange between customer demand and how the business will deliver.

As this transformation progresses, SMBs are recognizing a need for one, simple way for customers and businesses to collaborate. And yes, it’s collaborate, more than buy and sell.

The trouble with consolidating these varying communications needs into that single system comes from… well… communications errors. Each division has different goals, definitions, and expectations. Everyone is accustomed to having his/her/its own way, and everyone digs in and questions: why should I change?

As a communications specialist, we use a division-agnostic approach to communications, which holds the business’ key stakeholders in mind. We ask our customers these 3 simple questions:

1. What does “communications” mean to you?

2. What does “communications” mean to your business?

3. What does “communications” mean to your customers?

These three questions cover the structural demands of your communications strategy – how your customers expect to reach you, and under what conditions – how your workforce expects to communicate with itself – and how you will send and receive messages from both of those key stakeholders.

What kind of data do you need to send and receive? Do you – as was the case with an innovative financial services client – need to communicate face-to-face? Do you need a way to measure interactions? Transfer data?

From these 3 simple questions, an entire strategy can be constructed. The strategy needs to serve the vital needs of each stakeholder. At the same time, the system needs to be as simple as possible – in order to reduce maintenance costs and the possibility of error, as well as facilitate future upgrades if/when the need arises.

Come back next week to take your communications strategy to the next level with CenterpointIT’s 5 Pillars.