CLARITY
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
PO Box 522 Bethel, VT 05032 (802) 234-6785
Columns
DON’T say it until you’ve planned it When you talk to a friend, a relative, a business colleague you’ve worked with for years, you don’t plan your conversations. You don’t have key points to convey and then carefully work out how to deliver them. You just talk. So it’s no surprise that when it comes to a business or organization, we do the same thing. We’re opening a new store, so we’ll tell the newspaper about it and run an ad. Maybe we’ll also make up some brochures to have in the store. Just talk, right? But hold on just a second. I’m not talking to my cousin, my best friend since high school, or the owner of the corner store where I’ve shopped since I was a 10 year-old blowing my allowance on candy. Those folks know what they can expect from me, because over time we’ve developed a relationship that has built my reputation, so they have an established image of me. But trying to make a living based on a much broader group of people — trying to get dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people to spend part of their treasure on your product or service — is far more complicated. If we want your business to survive, and eventually to thrive, we have to not only convince people that money spent with you provides them value, but also that you’re a better business than your competitors. In other words, you have to build a reputation by consistently delivering your image. That takes careful planning, and there’s a series of steps to make sure your planning takes into account the most important factors for success. The first step is to define your mission and vision. Okay, you might say, my company pumps out septic tanks, or sells precision-made ballbearings. Or I run a diner that simply serves food. Or I run a non-profit food bank that simply doles out groceries to people in need. The mission is obvious, and what does a vision have to do with anything? But the truth is, people expect more from the merchants where they spend their money, and a vision helps to create that all-important image. So for the septic cleaning service, for example, your mission could be: “To provide expert installation, diagnostic, cleaning and repair services for septic systems in the [name of local market] area at a price that reflects our investment in top-notch equipment and technicians, and our customers’ need for reasonably-priced, long-term service.” And for a vision? How about: “We envision [name of local market] with clean surface and ground water, free of home waste-disposal problems, and homeowners informed about how to achieve worry-free septic systems through regular maintenance and best-practices in their homes.” And what about the “plain-old” diner? How about a mission, “To serve the next-best thing to homemade food in a friendly, family-like atmosphere at prices that make customers happy to get the bill.” Vision: “To contribute to a tight-knit [name of local market] by bringing people together as friends over tables full of good food.” jamal.kheiry@clarity-stratcomms.com
www.clarity-stratcomms.com
CLARITY STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
Starting with a solid mission and vision as a foundation, your communications plan will be able to convey a consistent image throughout. For an example of this type of planning at work, look at one of the largest economic sectors in Vermont: healthcare. Browse any hospital’s website and you’ll find its mission and/or vision. Then look at everything else it says; you’ll notice that it all contributes to the fulfillment of its mission and vision. Gifford Medical Center, for example, puts its mission on its main page (giffordmed.org), and all its messaging springs from that. Business objective: Now it’s time to come up with your business objective — the whole reason you’re contemplating a communications plan in the first place. Is it to turn a profit during your first year as a new consultant? Derive additional profits from your expanded services or new product line? To eliminate a morale problem among employees that is affecting sales? Whatever it is, try to make it quantifiable and linked to a time-frame, so that at the end of the period, you can say “Yes, I achieved this,” or “No, I’m not there yet.” Communications objective: This stems directly from the business objective. Using our above examples, your communications objectives might be to persuade 50 people to call you during the first six months about retaining your services, and retain 10 as clients. Or to convince all of your existing clients/customers to try your new services or products at least once during the first three months after their launch. Or to get your five most influential employees to buy in to a new commissions structure that will be phased in over six months. Define your target audience: Who do you want to reach with this campaign? Existing customers? New ones? Your employees? How about the neighborhoods nearest to your building? And government officials who inspect your facilities or ensure compliance with regulations? Any of these could be your primary audience, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. But don’t forget secondary audiences — the ones who influence your primary audiences. Say, for example, you’re implementing a new healthcare plan for your employees. In addition to the primary audience — your employees — you also have to make sure their spouses/partners have all the relevant information. And, as a tertiary audience — those who “influence the influencers” — you might also want to target doctors at the area’s main healthcare facility. Craft your messages: Now we come to the core of a communications campaign — what you say. You have a mission, a vision, a business objective, a communications objective, and you know what audiences you want to hit. Now, you distill all this information into one, two, or three key messages that really mean something to the target audiences. In many cases, this means positively affecting people’s bottom line — providing the most or best product or service for the best price. In the case of the diner, for example, the messages that come from its mission and vision could be something like: 1) Jane’s food is made-to-order and priced reasonably, because we want to see you here every day! 2) At Jane’s, if we don’t know you on a first-name basis, we invite you to become part of our friendly group of customers. For the more technical case of the septic company, key messages could be something like: 1) Sal’s Septic has highly-knowledgeable staff to provide you with the best installation, service, and maintenance available, at a reasonable price. 2) Sal’s Septic handles waste according to stringent environmental standards, and offers its customers the best advice available on minimizing their environmental impact and keeping their home waste-handling systems in peak condition. 3) Sal’s Septic is committed to retaining its customers’ long-term business, and will work hard to ensure your satisfaction with our expertise. jamal.kheiry@clarity-stratcomms.com www.clarity-stratcomms.com
CLARITY STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
These messages come directly from the mission and vision of the companies, and strive to make an impact on the target audiences in terms they understand and care about, and they offer more than simply products or services; they make promises. They steer people toward understanding the image they want to convey. And, over time and with consistent communications, this will result in a reputation that’s in line with what they want. Selecting communications channels: Now that you have messages in-hand, you have to choose from the hundreds of ways to convey them to your audiences. If you know that the majority of your target audiences read the local paper, then you might gravitate toward press releases and advertisements. Do they attend trade shows? If so, you should be there too, with publications to give them — a brochure, perhaps. An annual sustainability report, maybe. How about testimonials from happy customers/clients? Would you reach them by delivering presentations to schools or at community events? Selecting communication channels can be one of the most bewildering aspects of a communications plan. The next several columns in this space will be devoted to some of the most effective means of reaching people. Next month will focus on the most popular — and potentially risky — communications channel: the news media.
jamal.kheiry@clarity-stratcomms.com www.clarity-stratcomms.com