All brands, regardless of product or service, communicate with their audiences. How they communicate determines the communication strategy.
A good communication strategy is inextricably linked to marketing goals and product, harmoniously embedded in the marketing strategy, and is the basis of all promotional activities. For information from the Domoteh marketing department.
Communication strategy answers four main questions: what, to whom, how and why we want to say.
There is a fifth question, which is often neglected, and in vain. This question: with what do we want to say it? This is a very important stage in the development of communication, because you can shape the strategy, choose the ToV, develop the messages and… get the channel wrong. In this case, all the work will be done in vain, and sometimes (yes, it happens) can turn out to be negative for the company.
To answer these five questions, you need to collect data and perform analytics.
Stage 1: Market analysis
To arrive at point B, you need to find point A. What is going on in the market right now, how consumers behave, how your company is doing, what your strengths and weaknesses are, who your competitors are and what they are doing. All this data will help to predict the vector of development of your company.
Stage 2: Audience Analysis
Chances are you already have an idea of who your audience is. At this stage you need to check if it has changed, how it behaves at the current moment in time. The better you understand the explicit and hidden needs of your audience, the more likely your communication strategy will hit the target and lead to results.
Important:
“My CA is women 25 to 55” is a poor understanding of your audience. After all, the needs at 25 and 55 are completely different, behaviors are different, and a lot also depends on geography. The more accurately you can segment your audience, the better. But working with all segments at once is difficult. You need to choose 2-3 priority segments and 1-2 additional segments and focus on them. Segments are chosen depending on the marketing objectives.
Step 3: goal setting
The goals of the communication strategy are determined by business goals and include three sets of objectives: marketing, creative and media.
- The marketing objectives are what we say: deliver the UTP, set ourselves apart from the competition, rejuvenate the audience, etc.
- Creative block – as we say: the development of visuals and creative messages (at the stage of writing a strategy is not necessary to work through this block in detail, as it is very dynamic. It is necessary to form a concept).
- Media block – through what we say: articles in the media, social networks, media advertising, banner advertising, bloggers, etc. This list could go on for a very long time, but it is essentially a choice of channels.
Stage 4: Analysis of results
This block is usually disliked. Content in social networks is posted, articles in the media are published, but what results the company gets – no one knows. Let’s take social networks as an example, because working with them is closer to me.
“We posted 300 posts last year and 350 this year. The number of activities has doubled. And we also started shooting vertical videos.”
Seemingly good results, but what value do they bring to the company: activity has increased because the necessary audience is involved, or because jokes and kittens are posted, and the work is “broad.
The results themselves, without reference to business goals, mean nothing, and it is important to take this into account when analyzing results.