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How to build a corporate communication strategy: a step-by-step process

By Raf Weverbergh LinkedIn Twitter / Kristien Vermoesen LinkedIn Twitter

Creating a true corporate communication strategy is still a challenge. Even in large companies, we regularly see communication departments without a documented corporate communication strategy.

That is surprising because CEOs invariably say that they expect their chief communications and public affairs officers to be true “strategic” partners.

As explained in a survey among CEOs by Egon Zehnder:

CEOs expect their chief communication officers to bring more than just a high level of specialist expertise to the table – they also expect management and strategic competencies, above all. Almost without exception the CEOs questioned say that they want their CCO to be a kind of sparring partner .

If strategic competencies are so important for CEOs, why don’t their strategic partners have a strategy?

In our work, we see that the problem stems from the corporate communication strategy process – or rather the lack of a good process.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you are asked to come up with a corporate communication strategy. You make the rounds of several departments and management layers to get their input.

You schedule meetings with top management, HR and some business unit leaders. They all deliver you the shopping list of their “strategic” priorities. Next, they ask you to fit all this information into a strategy, but what they mean is a calendar which neatly includes all their priorities.

By the time you’re finished, you have a full workload for the year, but not a strategy. You created a calendar.

Here’s how you can build a true corporate communication strategy, by making a few smart changes in your process.

What strategy is – and what it isn’t

First, it helps to have a clear vision of what a strategy should do.

According to Richard Rumelt, the author of  ‘Good Strategy, Bad Strategy and why it matters’ , a good strategy “honestly acknowledges the challenges being faced and provides an approach to overcoming them.”

A good strategy, says Rumelt, consists of three parts.

“Where are we today?” (the diagnosis)

It all starts with a cold, hard look at yourself. Where are you today? What goes well? What goes wrong? What opportunities are you missing?

The most important work in this stage is simplifying   the many obstacles and opportunities into a consistent story about where you are.

You don’t want a simple list of challenges. You want a  story  that is easy to understand and at the same time covers the underlying complexities. Creating a strategy is always a storytelling challenge.

Says Rumelt:

A diagnosis (…) defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis  simplifies  the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical.

“How can we get to where we want to be?” (approach)

Second, Rumelt advises defining an  approach  to overcome your challenges (and reap the benefits of any opportunities):

an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis.

“What should we do to get there?” (actions)

Finally, a strategy includes the  actions  you will take to address your challenge.

From this simple description of strategy, we immediately see the difference with the “calendar” approach described above. It’s fine to ask for input from different departments, but the risk is that they will scatter the attention of the corporate communication department instead of focusing on it.

A scattershot approach to challenges is the biggest enemy of strategy, says Rumelt:

Most complex organizations spread rather than concentrate resources, acting to placate and pay off internal and external interests. (…) Thus, we are surprised when a complex organization, such as Apple or the U.S. Army, actually focuses its actions. Not because of secrecy, but because  good strategy itself is unexpected . (…)

And then he adds this gem:

Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does.

The place of corporate communication strategy

It also helps to have a clear grasp of where corporate communication strategy ranks in the order of things. Business literature distinguishes different types of business strategies:

• Enterprise strategy: defines what the organization wants to be on a societal level – what do we want to achieve for stakeholders? It’s the most aspirational level of the strategy, also known as Simon Sinek’s “why” or the purpose
• Corporate strategy: defines in what disciplines and segments we want to compete – where do we want to play? (A mostly financial level, dealing with acquisitions, divestments,…)
• Business strategy: what kind of business units do we have and how do they compete in the marketplace (a level that is mostly about marketing)
• Functional strategy: how can the business functions help realise the enterprise, corporate and business strategies? This is the level where HR, corporate communication, finance, legal,… come into play
• Operational strategy: how will we do all of the above? This is the level of planning and execution

The answer to our question is that corporate communication strategy should make it possible to achieve enterprise, corporate and business strategies.

At the same time, the role of corporate communication is to give input to the enterprise, corporate and business levels about what is going on in the outside world and how that affects the organization.

If the corporate communication department can achieve those things – if it can help support the enterprise and business strategy through communication and it can offer insights to refine those strategies – then it will be well on its way to becoming the “sparring partner” that the CEO is looking for.

Corporate communication strategy: a theoretical framework

Now the question is, how can we build such a corporate communication strategy that plugs into and supports the larger business strategy?

Joep Cornelissen offers a good framework, building on  Mary Jo Hatch  and  Majken Schultz’s  model for corporate brands.

Summarized, this is how Hatch and Schultz see the corporate communication strategy:

Everything starts with the  vision , as formulated by the board and the C-level of the organization. It’s the purpose (the why) but also the how and the what of the strategy.

Unfortunately, this vision in itself will never define your corporate brand.

Because there are always “gaps” between what you want to achieve (your vision), how your team interprets and executes it (the  culture ) and how your stakeholders experience it (your  image ).

Example : Imagine a large bank.

The CEO and board might agree that they want to shift the bank’s strategy towards sustainability. But your local branch manager might still sell you funds that score very poorly on ESG metrics – and tell you that he doesn’t believe in “those woke funds from HQ”. What you experience is

• a  vision-culture  gap (the branch manager not believing in “woke funds”, and the vision established by the top management),
• a  culture-image  gap (the bank’s customer experiences confusion because there is a gap between what the employees of the bank deliver and what the bank states in its vision on sustainability)
• an  image-vision  gap (the customer and external stakeholders no longer trust the bank to deliver on sustainability promises)

Hatch-Schultz is a great mental model for understanding what a strategy needs to address.

But it’s not a process to build the corporate communication strategy. Which is why we need a more practical approach.

A corporate communication strategy process in seven steps

1. preparing the corporate communication strategy: input and research.

It’s not the role of the corporate communication department to single-handedly decide on the corporate communication strategy. You will co-create the strategy with C-level, board-level, and possibly other internal stakeholders (business unit directors).

Before you can do this, you need to help them by doing some research.

First of all, check with your management whether the vision of the organization is still up to date.

We use “vision” in the largest possible sense, including the “why” (purpose), the “what” (positioning, corporate strategy) and the “how” (values, culture, identity).

If small nuances have changed, update the vision immediately. If you need a big overhaul of the purpose, then this might become part of your strategy for the next year.

Next, check the existing culture and image.

Useful tools to understand where your corporate brand includes:

• Reputation tracker
• Media clippings (eg: a media reputation index)
• Brand tracker
• Issues & Stakeholder mapping
• Crises that the organization went through recently
• Social media interactions and reviews
• Regulatory reports
• Complaints, litigation
• Employee Surveys on engagement, culture, …

The output of this first phase is a document or a presentation. It allows your colleagues to have all the relevant information on the current situation at the company – the good, the bad and the ugly. This is necessary before you can go to the next part of the corporate communication strategy process: the workshop.

Ask your colleagues to read the document, or take them through the presentation. This way, the decision-makers have the same information as they go into the workshop.

2. Workshop

In this workshop, members of management (Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer and other relevant members of management) work with members of the corporate communication team to give input on the strategy.

We found that the best way to organize this workshop is to use the ‘strategic communication frame’ as developed by Betteke van Ruler and Frank Körver .

The communication frame is a variation on the ‘Business Model Canvas’.

The left side half of the canvas describes  where  you are & want to go:

• Where you are today (“internal situation”, “external situation”)
• What you want to achieve (“vision” split up into “vision” and “ambition”)

The right-hand side of the canvas focuses on  how  you will get where you want to be:

• Who can help you
• Resources and budget you need
• What your colleagues can expect from you (“accountability”)
• What steps, actions and tactics you will use to get there (“approach”)

In most workshops, we make an additional distinction between what the company wants to achieve and what the communication department wants to (or can) achieve.

Stuff that is too far outside the purview of communication or marketing has no place in the frame.

Use common sense to avoid a frame that becomes too crowded or detailed. Remember, a strategy is a “simplified story” of the complexity of the real world. During the workshop, you can already aggregate some things on a higher level, or cluster them. This will help you write your memo in the next step of the process.

Tips for filling in the canvas:

• You can use an online whiteboard like Plectica or Miro to fill it in, or you can use post-its on a wall (or both)
• Make sure you have a dedicated note-taker (or even two), whose job it is to make  exhaustive  notes including quotes (you will regret lost information when writing the memo)
• Don’t worry too much about the right-hand side of the frame yet (resources, KPIs, approach) – that will come later. Focus mostly on where you are today, what feels important and where you want to go.

The workshop will result in two documents:

• A rough, filled-in version of the strategic communication frame
• A  strategic memo  based on the notes

3. The strategic memo: the basis for the corporate communication strategy

The memo is the basis for your strategy. It is the most important document that you will create in this process.

It follows the structure of the communication frame, but it is  much, much more detailed  than the post-its on the wall or the short sentences that you have on your online whiteboard.

What’s important about this document:

The memo is not a “meeting notes” document. The structure is  not chronological  but follows the framework. If you put some things in the wrong frame box during the workshop, put them in the correct chapter now.

It’s  detailed . Imagine a new CEO starting in a few months. You want a single, comprehensive memo of about 6 to 10 pages that brings them fully up to speed on every aspect that is relevant to the communication strategy. If they read the memo, they should understand why your strategy is what it is and what the underlying business challenges are that your communication programme is helping to solve.

The inputs can range from regulatory issues to employee engagement issues, to strategic initiatives on new products, to investment and divestment plans that will impact the brand.

The memo should already  label  issues and opportunities in communication or marketing terms.

So input like this:

CEO: We’re seeing huge pressure on pricing from Chinese manufacturers. They just copy our stuff at lower quality and flood the market. That makes it harder for us to raise our prices to match inflation. We just can’t raise our prices, we don’t have enough demand. You know, we’ve had those recalls, clients just don’t accept it when we raise prices – and we don’t get a lot of interesting RFPs right now.

Becomes something like:

Pricing power : price pressure caused by overseas competition erodes margins.

Brand attributes : quality issues and recalls have tarnished the brand.

Awareness and brand preference : we don’t get invited to interesting RFPs.

Remember that we said to take detailed notes? Without extremely detailed notes, you will not be able to write a comprehensive memo.

To keep your readers focused, don’t hesitate to use  juicy quotes.  Painful areas, compelling visions, recognisable stories or insightful interventions about the real issues will make your strategic document a lively snapshot of where you are with your organisation.

Put these inputs in  descending order  of importance for every part of the frame. In the above example, brand awareness must probably be tackled before the brand attributes, so put it first in your memo. What good is having the right brand attributes if no one knows you?

After you complete the memo, have it validated by all the participants of the workshop.

4. The communication strategy frame

Now that you have the validated memo, everyone inside your company agrees on what is going on in the world and the company, where you want to go and how you will tackle your challenges. Now you can go back to the frame.

You can now update the frame based on your memo:

• Correct any mistakes that you made, eg: if you put input in the wrong box, move it to the correct box
• Put the inputs in the correct order – the most important things come first
• Write down for yourself which key issues/ patterns you start seeing and label them. Fi: “awareness”, “attributes”,… Mostly 3/4 of big issues emerge.

That will look a little like this:

As you can see, we haven’t bothered too much with KPIs, resources and budget yet. That’s for the next phase.

Now, use colour coding to connect inputs. If you labeled your issues correctly, patterns will become immediately clear.

Like in the example below, we highlight everything connected to “awareness” (do people know we exist). We added the 3 key issues and labelled them (bottom of the slide).

In the next one, we highlighted everything related to “brand attributes” (do people who know us, know us for the right reasons):

5. The corporate communication strategy goals

At this point, strategic priorities should become crystal clear. In the above example the priorities are:

• “People don’t know us” (awareness)
• “People know us for the wrong reasons” (brand attributes)
• “Employees and recruits lack emotional connection to the company” (sentiment)
• “Customers do not prefer us as a supplier” (preference, brand equity)

You should now be in a position to say where you will focus your efforts, and these efforts will be connected to the business strategy.

• Increase awareness
• Emphasise the right brand attributes
• Improve the sentiment around the brand towards internal and external stakeholders

In a sense, by now the hard work is done. You know what you want to achieve, and it’s closely connected to where the company wants to go.

This is where the communication department takes over to dive into the strategic approach: what will you do, how much of it you can do, how will you do it and how will you measure it.

The next steps in the process are where your creativity and knowledge will make a difference for the company.

6. Corporate communication strategy: the “five hows” of KPI setting

This brings us to the next phase: setting those KPIs (in the frame: “accountability”)

For instance, if you aim to “increase awareness”

• do you even know where brand awareness is today?
• using which tactics ( PR ? advertising?)
• using which channels? (LinkedIn, TikTok?)
• how much output is needed?
• what will that cost?
• who will support you in your efforts?
• do you have a baseline metric to compare? do you need one?

You might have heard of the “5 whys” that are used to find the root cause of a problem. In the case of KPIs, replace this with “ 5 hows “:

• By reaching more people
• By communicating more
• Increasing the number of communication campaigns
• Increasing the number of channels
• By measuring them for things like reach
• Through dashboards, surveys, brand trackers

You will not have one KPI, but a pyramid of KPIs and metrics that should all help to achieve your goal :

As a rule of thumb, make sure you define KPIs on at least three levels:

• Output : what will we implement? which actions will we take?
• Outcomes : what should be the effect of these actions? How will the audience respond? Think of things like reach, media clippings,…
• Impact : what will be the impact on the organisational or business KPIs (eg awareness)

You get the idea. You will probably not manage to stuff all these detailed KPIs into the communication frame. That’s not a problem. The framework has served its purpose. The nitty gritty details of KPIs don’t need to be in it.

7. The communication plan

Finally, now that you have your KPIs, you need to put all of your planned output into a communication plan. This is a high-level plan for the campaigns and actions that you will run in the next year (or 2 years if you prefer).

That will look a bit like this:

Read more on how to create a communication plan 

Now, you can bundle the strategic communication frame, the more detailed KPIs and the communication plan into one presentation and get sign-off on it from your management.

If you enjoyed this guide for corporate communication strategy…

If you enjoyed this blog post, please consider  sharing  it with your network or  linking  back to it. Thank you in advance!

Sources & further reading on corporate communication strategy:

• Egon Zehnder, “Communication from the CEO’s perspective – an underestimated challenge?”
• Richard Rumelt, “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy and Why it Matters”
• Joep Cornelissen, “Corporate Communication: A Guide to Theory and Practice”, 5th Edition
• Mary Jo Hatch and Majken Schultz, “Are the Strategic Stars Aligned for Your Corporate Brand?”, Harvard Business Review, 2001/02
• Benita Steyn, (2000) “Model for developing corporate communication strategy”, Communicare, 19(2)
• Benita Steyn, (2004) “From strategy to corporate communication strategy: A conceptualisation”, Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 8 Issue: 2, pp.168-183
• Betteke Van Ruler, Frank Körver, “The Communication Strategy Handbook: Toolkit for Creating a Winning Strategy”, Peter Lang, 2019, 174 pages

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Building an Effective Corporate Communication Strategy

Emily Barr September 21, 2020 Alignment & Direction , Board Management , Leaders

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Communication issues in businesses are not an uncommon problem. For US businesses alone, Inadequate communication to and between employees can cost up to $4 billion annually . The cost of poor communication may be high, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t effective strategies you can implement into your corporation to reduce its risk. By beginning each project with a clear understanding of what your Corporate Communication Strategy is, you can integrate effective time management into your businesses processes seamlessly.   

What Is A Corporate Communication Strategy?  

A Corporate Communication Strategy is the framework used by organizations to plan out communication with employees, customers, suppliers, and investors. When leveraged properly, a Corporate Communication Strategy can be the key to better understanding your  company and  enhancing its reputation with the people whose attitudes and actions influence your success the most.   

Building a Corporate Communication Strategy  

When it comes to constructing your own Corporate Communication Strategy, there is no in-depth one-size-fits-all solution. While you can probably find countless quick-fixes on the internet,  creating  an effective strategy is not a simple process. If you want your CCS to best suit your organization, and address and solve the communication issues unique to your business, you will need to invest research and time into the process.  

A Step-by-Step Guide to Developing Your Core Strategy  

Regardless of your industry, there are several aspects that remain universal in core corporate communication strategies. Generally speaking, it comes in three phases: pre-drafting information and research, formulating the strategy, and then examining examples of other communication strategies for further inspiration. This process can be broken down as follows to help you construct your core Corporate Communication Strategy:  

1. Identify and Prioritize Your Executives’ Key Goals

Aim to first understand what each of your business executives sees for the future of the company, and what areas they are truly invested in. In order to collect this information, one of the most useful methods is to conduct individual interviews with as many of your top-level management employees as possible. In the interviews, ask them to clearly outline their top priorities for the upcoming year, and ensure everyone  agrees  on what message they want to put out for the company.  

2. Conduct In-Depth Employee Surveys

Your employee insight doesn’t stop at high-level management. Employees are at the forefront of your  business and  are the both the backbone and driving forces for your  organization . Understanding how your own employees perceive your company and brand is critical to understanding  how others perceive it as well. This is how brand ambassadors come to be – while you construct your Corporate Communication Strategy, you need to ensure their voices are heard. How they respond will help you uncover the best way to go about communicating with your team as a whole. Leverage employee surveys to get them involved in the process and gain valuable feedback and insight into what’s working, and what isn’t.  

3. Research Your Stakeholders’ Input

Stakeholders are one of the most vital parts of your organization, so if you notice that they are communicating something that isn’t confident for the success of your business, you need to adjust your communications strategy to address and fix that perception as quickly as possible. Communicating with stakeholders, shareholders, and investors in a way that is most effective for their own interests in critical for sustaining success and alignment with long-term plans.   

4. Review Your Customers’ Comments

The insight your customers have to offer when it comes to their perception of how your organization is delivering on its promises should not be overlooked. Leverage the countless online, and often free, measurement tools to not only take advantage of social researching methods, but also to learn how to start conversations that will get consumers and potential clients talking about your brand in a positive light.  

4. Include Your Suppliers in Your Research

Suppliers and partners that work closely with your brand can also be great resources for gathering useful information about your strategic corporate communication strategy. Ideally, your suppliers and partners should firmly believe that affiliating themselves with your business is beneficial for their business as well. If this is the case, take note of what it is they say they enjoy most about working with your company. Utilize that feedback not only to add structure to your partner relationships, but also to help strengthen your corporate communication strategy.  

Best Practices for An Effective Corporate Communication Strategy  

Conducting the needed research and interviewing processes is critical to cultivating a successful and effective Corporate Communication Strategy for your business. By gaining valuable insight into how your employees, executives, suppliers,  and  stakeholders perceive your company, and what it is they prefer when it comes to communication, you will understand what it is your CCS needs to set out to accomplish. Once you have a clear understanding of where you should be aiming, and also how your new strategy will fit into the broader framework of your organization, you need to begin setting up an essential roadmap for its implementation.  

However, before you can begin assessing the key diagnosis and guiding policies for your Corporate Communication Strategy, you first need to understand how it is your company will arrive at those ideal concepts. Consider the following tips while drafting your strategy:  

Look at other corporate communication strategies from successful businesses.

Especially if you are new to the field of communications strategies, taking examples from successful businesses can be extremely beneficial. By looking at communication strategies that have worked extremely well for others, you can get inspired yourself, or even use their strategy as a starting template or jumping off point for your own planning. It is important to keep in mind that communication issues, and hence the strategies put in place to address those issues, will be unique to specific companies. Using a carbon copy of another company’s successful strategy will not necessarily work for your own, and additional research will need to be done to ensure its success for your business.   

Identify your key metrics so you can track the best outcome for your strategy.

Your Corporate Communication Strategy will need to be analyzed for success throughout its use, so it is important to first father the basic key metrics that will be able to show you if it is working the way it should. In addition, statistics gathered from your corporate communications can also show you if your employees are actually using the communication tools being provided. If they are, you will be able to identify how they are using the tools, meaning you can pick apart your strategy and identify the aspects and areas that may need more strategic attention.   

Set intuitive and realistic goals and timelines.

By setting goals for your company that make sense for your objectives and are also realistic in scope and expectation, you will be able to properly estimate the level of difficulty and projected time investment that will be required to integrate and establish your new Corporate Communication Strategy. With a clear picture of what will be required, you can plot out more efficient and worthwhile steps towards updating your strategy, leaning on the metrics you have gathered to identify the areas that will make the quickest impact through strategic change.  

Keep in mind that any and all timelines set should be effective. A good way to accomplish this is to ask yourself questions that allow you to identify the information or data that is too excessive or unnecessary for business. Some examples of questions are:

• What do I want our Corporate Communication Strategy to do for business?  
• Which areas are working efficiently and why, and what areas need immediate improvement?  
• How quickly do I want to be able to reach my business goals for the company?  
• Which communication tools, platforms, and existing strategies are available, given the organization’s size, needs, and goals for what employees should be accomplishing?  

Regardless of your answers to these questions, they should aim to provide clarity into what your Corporate Communication Strategy is setting out to accomplish for your business.   

Use collaboration tools.

Juggling several projects within a team can become complicated way too quickly. Often, organizations find strictly email communications between a large amount of team members to be ineffective in  project completion. This is why it can be extremely beneficial to introduce collaboration tools that are useful and effective for project and team management.  SpriggHR’s   SpriggBoard  is a great example of a streamlined collaboration tool you can implement into your strategy.  While primarily utilized by Boards,  it centralizes and manages all team tasks in one location, safely and securely organizing documents that need to be circulated throughout the team. Meeting agendas can be prepared and distributed, and Critical Paths and Action Plans for events can be shared instantly. By integrating real-time communication, it also eliminates the need for repetitive external email communications between your team members, reducing the time lost to sifting through email threads and allowing your team to focus on project development.  

Actively participate in your teams.

While this practice is easier for smaller organizations where all team members know one another personally, larger companies can stand to benefit from this strategy as well. Part of your Corporate Communication Strategy should include your responsibility to communicate effectively with everyone in your company, and the best way to achieve the success rates you are aiming for is to be a part of the team yourself. Employees are much less likely to follow a leader locked away in an ivory tower, and by avoiding your employees and not engaging in rapport with them, your chances of effective communication dwindle rapidly. Aim to understand how your colleagues communicate with  one another and  make attempts to adapt to that preferred style of communication so you can reach them better. It is possible to maintain your authority amongst your employees and still communicate with your company at the same time.   

Align your Corporate Communication Strategy to company goals and metrics.

When approaching your Corporate Communication Strategy, you need to ensure its implementation aligns well with your existing business goals. Target your communications to foundational employees, leveraging target audiences, managers, and key communicators. This will allow you to facilitate more thorough and engaging employee communications within your company. Similarly, implementing metrics and analytics into your corporate communication strategy that align with your organizational foundations is critical to evaluating the success of your strategy altogether. Methods such as employee surveys are useful, and should be included somewhere in your strategy, but your research should not rely only on them.  

Aim for a company culture of communication.

If you want to improve corporate communications within your business, you first need to set out to create a culture of communication throughout the entirety of your company. This involves committing to transparency a t the Executive level  and  introduce systems and practices that will support continuous and open dialogue between employees and their management teams. Consistent dialogue and conversation can be transformative for your company  culture and  can produce tremendous financial results for business. When a workforce communicates effectively with one another, they produce better output, and improve the company overall.  

In Summary  

Constructing a Corporate Communication Strategy that is right for your business does not have to be an impossible process. While it does require an investment of research, time, and thorough planning,  once you have a complete understanding of where you strategy sits now, you can focus on how to scale your new strategy in the right ways to yield to greatest benefits from your communication efforts.   

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Business COMMINICATION

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”

– Plato, Greek Philosopher

When I was a teenager, my father would often impart to me some wisdom, “communication is one of the most important tools to success”. I would typically look at him dumbfounded. I didn’t take any communication classes, so how could it be so important? Only until I began stumbling through the beginning of my career, saying the wrong things, not listening , and typically acting like a bull in a China shop did I start to understand my father’s wisdom.

Strategic leaders spend most of their time communicating, which is essential to discovering new facts and perspectives, creating new ideas and opportunities, aligning people, building relationships, planning the right course of action, and making sound decisions . More than ever, with the onslaught of communication mediums and the sheer volume,  communication skills are at a premium. Every day a strategic leader faces potentially hundreds of emails, and dozens of informal and formal meetings and conversations. At McKinsey, in a survey we conducted on communication complexity , people estimated their organization’s productivity could be improved by 25% if there was effective communication in their organizations.

Improving communication skills across a few dimensions is critical, including choosing the right communication medium, and improving written, verbal communication, and presentation skills. Let’s go over the details and best practices .

The right communication medium

Utilizing the right communication medium for the situation can dramatically improve communication. Over the past few decades,  companies evolved into overdependence on email as the primary form of communication. Just think about the low percentage of emails that are important or actionable. So, what is the right communication medium for the job?

First, it is important to understand all of the communication mediums. It is useful to separate them by one-on-one, small groups, and corporate communication, and then in-person, and virtual synchronous and asynchronous communication. Synchronous means “real-time”, while asynchronous is intermittent, with time gaps between communications.  Below are all of the different communication mediums within an organization . It is a bit crazy how many options there are. Unfortunately, too often the wrong medium is used for the situation.

For one-on-one and small group communication, in-person and virtual synchronous mediums should be used for collaborating, such as problem solving , aligning, design making, planning, and providing feedback. While asynchronous mediums should be used more for informing, such as updating, sharing information, coordinating, and approving. Too often asynchronous mediums are used for collaborating which typically impedes the rich dialogue that is often needed for strong collaboration.

Most of the corporate communication mediums are for informing. The demarcation of which medium to use in corporate communication comes down to the importance of the message. When sharing new strategic direction, milestones, crucial news, and celebrating, it is more appropriate to use in-person and virtual synchronous mediums. While less important information such as sharing programs, policies, results, recognition, and reinforcing strategic messages should utilize virtual asynchronous mediums. That being said, there have emerged a few virtual asynchronous mediums such as online prediction markets , polls, and surveys that can facilitate a semi-collaborative organizational dialogue.

Typically the success of strategic leaders is predicated on spending more time using in-person and virtual synchronous communication mediums than virtual asynchronous mediums such as email. The best communication advice often simply comes down to “have a conversation, rather than send an email”.

Written communication

Be clear and concise with written communication. A useful tool for being clear and concise is The Minto Pyramid Principle.

The Minto Pyramid Principle is the go-to written communication tool for strategic leaders and top strategy consulting firms. The pyramid principle is simply organizing and communicating your thoughts like a pyramid. With the top layer being your main thesis or recommendations, the second layer being the supporting facts, arguments or points. And, sometimes, typically in long presentations and reports, there may be a third layer.

Most people communicate in storytelling or linear fashion. They start their written communication from some point in the past and write a sequential story with the punch line at the end. Unfortunately, in business, sequential storytelling can quickly lose an audience’s interest. The Minto Pyramid Principle puts the punchline first, and then you reinforce your punch line with structured thinking.

Typically for people to get their heads around the Minto Pyramid Principle, they flip their communication style upside down, starting first with the conclusion and then backing the conclusion up with facts and arguments. You can use simple mental queues such as, “Let me start with the main takeaway…” or “The top 3 insights from this analysis are…” If you want to learn more, read Barbara Minto’s book The Minto Pyramid Principle.

Verbal communication

Verbal communication is a two-way street, necessitating a balance of listening and talking. As I’ve written throughout this site, understand other people’s perspectives by asking the right questions , and empathetically listening. When it comes to talking, there are some best practices.

First, structure your thoughts and arguments. The Minto Pyramid Principle needs to become second nature in both your written and verbal communication. Start out with the main point and then reinforce your main point with structured arguments. You’ll be amazed at how well people respond to clear, concise, and structured arguments.

Second, be confident in your delivery. 90% of verbal communication is non-verbal. So, have a confident posture, look people in the eye, project your voice, and use your hands to reinforce your words.

Third, every once in a while, when you are talking, stop, take a pause, and let others join the discussion. One of the easiest ways to kill a conversation is to keep on talking. People don’t have the patience or ability to focus when someone hogs the airtime.

Fourth, get to know your fillers, those sounds and words that you fill the space between your arguments with, such as “umm,” “like,” “I mean,” “you know?” and “ok.” Have someone you trust to observe you and tell you your fillers, and then become aware of them, and work on reducing their use. Fillers are typically a blind spot in most people.

Presentation skills

Early in my career, one of my most dreadful moments was watching myself on video present as part of a presentation skills training.  It was painful watching myself struggle through the presentation, yet I became self-aware of what I needed to improve, which was invaluable to my growth .

Today, I am in the minority, as I enjoy presenting to small and large groups of people. I love creating energy in a room by offering new ideas, clarity about the path forward, or novel insights.

Giving a solid presentation starts with creating a persuasive presentation or speech. The key is to develop your own presentation or speech, so that you are comfortable with the content, arguments, and supporting facts. People who deliver a presentation they didn’t develop often stumble through the delivery. If you have confidence in the content, you’ll be more confident in the delivery.

Don’t memorize the content. Memorized presentations or speeches can be hard to watch since the person is typically more focused on making sure they get the sequencing of the words right versus the central messages of the presentation. Focus on the big messages, and use the content as a guide to trigger the next group of arguments. Also, breathe and pause after some of the big arguments. Periodically ask the group if they have any questions. Try to make a presentation more dialogue versus a one-way street. And, watch your physical mannerisms, including fidgeting with your hands or a pencil, pacing back and forth, touching your face, looking down or at the screen most of the time, etc.

Be comfortable in your own skin

The last piece of advice is to be comfortable in your own skin. The largest gap between poor communicators and great communicators is their confidence in themselves and what they have to communicate. One of my McKinsey colleagues responded to a question about why he was always so calm and comfortable, with “It took me a long time to realize that I’m pretty smart and I know what I’m doing. And, once I accepted this, my enjoyment went up 10X while my stress when down 10X.”

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60% of organizations suffer from poor corporate communication, resulting in low productivity and a lack of employee engagement. Sometimes, even the senior team struggles to list their organization’s strategic priorities. When probed, only 28% could articulate three.

Let’s look at what a corporate communication strategy is, what it should include, and what you should expect it to achieve for your organization.  Also, how to choose the right type of strategy for your needs and how to measure success.

What is a corporate communications strategy?

A corporate communication strategy details your organization's planned efforts to communicate with internal and external audiences in a structured way, according to your set business objectives.

A strong, accessible, and relevant corporate communications strategy is about more than traditional media relations and brand awareness.  And it’s not the sole responsibility and interest of one department - the entire company must understand and support it. It’s how a whole organization defines and achieves its objectives, builds a positive reputation, and establishes relationships with all its stakeholders, including employees. 

Why is an internal corporate communication strategy important?

Created correctly, an internal communications strategy is the most efficient route to increasing employee engagement and trust. It helps employees to understand your mission and values, and how the work that they do aligns with your business objectives.

You can boost productivity by keeping employees informed and by designing inclusive activities that will foster greater commitment. Always keep information consistent and communicate in a clear, concise way, avoiding business jargon.

Types of corporate communication strategy

An external communications strategy defines messaging and objectives for activities targeted at media, customers, and stakeholders. The channels used could include social media, press releases, and journalist briefings.

Internal corporate communications strategy, the focus of this blog, helps your staff to understand their contribution to business objectives and keeps them up to date on everything that is happening across the organization. HQ to frontline and back. Planned activities could include discussion groups, internal email updates, and surveys, newsletters,  all of which are important to establishing relationships and staying connected.

Main elements of a corporate communications strategy

A good structure, relevant to your organization, sector and business objectives, is the starting point for your strategy.

• Strategy objectives. A great strategy must always be flexible enough to change, but the core purpose should be clear and remain consistent.  Think about what you want to achieve and how you will get there.
• Situational analysis . To get to where you want to be, you first need to understand where you already are.  The more analysis and consultation you can perform at this point, the better informed your strategy will be. It gives your strategy a head start by identifying challenges before they arise. MadAve Marketing Management recommends interviewing stakeholders and running consultations with key audiences. You can also perform marketing analyses such as SWOT and PESTLE, or conduct an audit of your current capabilities.
• Target audiences and personas. You will already know most of your target audiences but your analysis should refine these further, allowing you to construct typical personas that can be used to plan your content and communications activity. As you compile typical personas, pay attention to details such as location, personality type, demographics, occupation, and where they receive information.
• Messaging. This is where you distill the essential information about your organization’s products or services into messages that form the basis of your content strategy. They should explain why your company is different from the competition, address and overcome any challenges, and offer a unique perspective on the issues facing your sector.
• Channels. Use the information variable from your audience persona to accurately plan the best outlet for your information. Most organizations use a multi-channel approach, using social media platforms, traditional media, and where appropriate, broadcast media.
• Content strategy and campaign schedules. A consistent schedule of content plus targeted campaigns is the best way to ensure ongoing coverage whilst highlighting special events via dedicated campaigns. Use a communications matrix to plot when and how messaging will be used to target specific audiences and issues. This also helps you to plan resources effectively and report on activity to the board and C-suite.
• Measurement. Glasscock recommends measurement as the final element of any successful strategy.  It’s vital to evaluate your progress towards the set objectives so that you can report success or change your approach if things aren’t working.  

The planning process, and the insights and ideas that you uncover during it, are often more important than the final strategy document itself.

A successful corporate communication framework achieves much more than communications objectives

Executed in the right way, it can hit many other targets and improvements across your organization. Many important research efforts have strengthened the belief that good corporate communication brings tangible business benefits:

• Productivity - McKinsey reports that an organization with connected employees will be 20-25% more productive.
• Retention - LinkedIn examined 32 millions accounts and found a ‘retention curve’.  Alongside internal job moves and good management, one of the top 3 factors in retention was the empowerment of employees through information. 
• Performance - Think Tank and CMSWire found that organizations who invested in a solid corporate communication strategy were 3.5 times more likely to outperform their competition. 
• Messaging control - Unlike external coverage, you have complete control over your internal communications and can ensure that the content is 100% accurate every time.

We live in a world where information and communication are immediate and accessible to all, that is precisely why every company and organization needs a coherent strategy in place. It should be a living document that provides clarity and purpose but can also support change and withstand turbulence.

Try to bring your communications strategy up to date by focusing less on faceless corporate messaging, and more on the activities and thoughts of staff and co-workers who we might not have heard from in the past. 

Decide what success looks like, then monitor and evaluate constantly. If things aren’t going in the right direction, be brave enough to change course and try something new.

Download for Free: Corporate communication strategy template

We’ve prepared  a content strategy template for corporate communication, available here .  It gives you a jumpstart when you begin to develop your internal social network strategy, ensuring that you consider all of the elements that will make it a success.

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Decoding corporate communications: Functions, goals and skills

Written by by Hibathu Naseer

Published on  March 9, 2023

Reading time  6 minutes

Corporate communications cover many verticals and each of them needs a separate strategy and skill set .

In a world of information overload, corporate communications is your way to expand your reach and build your brand. You need to be able to convey your message clearly and consistently across a variety of stakeholders.

It can be difficult to correlate corporate communication efforts to business impact. This article will help you position the importance of this multifaceted discipline to others. We also included examples from brands to inspire your strategy.

What is corporate communications?

Corporate communications refers to the strategies businesses and organizations use to communicate with various audiences both internally and externally. These audiences commonly include customers, prospects, employees and investors.

An effective communications strategy helps brands deliver on a compelling narrative that captures and deepens customer loyalty.

What is the function of corporate communication?

The functions of corporate communication vary according to the different audiences being targeted and the goals you need to achieve.

In most cases, companies hire specialists for each corporate communication function, such as internal communications, public relations and executive communications. However, there is often an overlap of functions across different teams. For instance, the content creation team may also handle internal communication initiatives.

In this section, we’ll look at the different corporate communication functions based on their goal and include creative examples from real brands.

Internal communications

Internal communication consists of the measures an organization takes to communicate with its workforce to maintain employee relations and streamline their work.

As companies switch to hybrid work models, effective internal communication is essential now more than ever.

There are two main aspects of internal communication: employee engagement and internal marketing. The former is to enrich employee relations, increase their productivity and retain them, while the latter is to build more awareness about the company’s offerings among employees.

Internal marketing is a strategy to help employees make an emotional connection to the products or services the company sells. Techniques such as regular email updates, company-wide newsletters and bulletin boards can be effective.

Some companies, like QAD Inc., host annual sales kickoff events to bring together employees, share best practices, product updates and get everyone re-aligned with company goals. They also give out awards to the top-performing employees and partners.

Press Release | QAD Recognizes Partner Excellence with 2023 Partner Awards https://t.co/J5R7eH6Wzn pic.twitter.com/0OM1uemn8n — QAD (@QAD_Community) March 1, 2023

External communications or public relations

To manage and regulate the public perception of your brand, companies need to execute external communications strategies, also known as public relations (PR).

The main functions of PR are:

• Manage a company’s identity in terms of vision and mission.
• Generate awareness on new products and company milestones.
• Communicate the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.

PR needs have undergone a massive shift in the past few years, thanks to emerging technologies and changing media landscape. Today’s public relations professionals are fusing traditional skills to work with modern tools and channels to create consistent narratives that reach varied audiences.

Here’s an example of an innovative PR campaign that went viral—Rocketlane announced their Series A funding round with a custom rap song.

We hear you're all loving the song. Here's a version that's Twitter-friendly. Keep the love coming! 🎉 #StoryofRocketlane #SaaS #Funding pic.twitter.com/EnHeKGWoKk — Rocketlane (@RocketlaneHQ) January 19, 2022

Executive communication

Both internal and external channels need to be leveraged for executive communication . Internally, the leadership team engages in direct communication with other teams, while externally, executives’ strong social media presence can serve as a thought leadership platform.

Executive members of an organization typically communicate externally through social media, media appearances and talks at conferences. This aims to promote brand awareness and increase sales. In fact, 32% of consumers say CEO transparency on social would inspire them to purchase from that brand.

Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, actively engages with her audience on Twitter by sharing company milestones and also helpful Canva tips.

A beautiful African proverb says it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly does to build a company too. Proud to cross 100 million people designing in Canva and incredibly grateful for our team and global community who brought our wild dream to life. pic.twitter.com/N3M1Rt4RL8 — Melanie Perkins (@MelanieCanva) October 12, 2022

In many companies, there’s a communication gap between the C-suite or leadership team and other employees. A study by Gallup found that only 13% of employees strongly agree that their leadership communicates effectively with the organization. Breaking down silos with communication from leadership can help earn the trust of employees, provide stability in the workplace and a better understanding of the company’s goals.

Brand and marketing communications

Any interaction with customers and target audiences falls under the umbrella of brand and marketing communication.

There’s a wide range of channels to conduct branding and marketing activities including social media , traditional advertising media, emails and review websites. Unlike other functions of corporate communication, marketing and branding can be directly related to the company’s revenue.

Here are the main goals that marketing communications can help you achieve, especially through social media:

• Increase brand awareness : Create content that emphasizes your brand image and values.
• Gain leads and sales : Drive traffic to your website from social media and leverage social commerce to help you get more customers.
• Community building : Nurture long-term growth by engaging with your audience directly.

Delta used brand and marketing communication to launch Faces of Travel, a free 100-image library that represented diverse travelers around the world. The goal of the campaign was to inspire creators to present a more inclusive picture of global travel, supporting increased brand awareness while building community.

Creating expensive ads is not the only way to market your brand. Leverage mediums that reach your target audiences , like social media where you can reach larger audiences, interact with them and measure the impact of your activities.

Allbirds, a vegan footwear brand, attracts conscious shoppers by spreading awareness on how harmful regular sneakers are for the planet via social media:

Allbirds—on a mission to make shoes that are less terrible for the planet. pic.twitter.com/DdeJKTNFtw — Allbirds (@Allbirds) February 21, 2023

Crisis communications

With the prevalence of social media, all businesses are susceptible to controversies that were once reserved for big brands.

Crisis communication is how you respond to an event that potentially hurts your brand’s reputation or ability to do business. This includes product failures, criticisms, employee errors, site outages, broken links and responses to global events.

It’s essential to have a strategy in place so that you can take quick action and bring the crisis under control.

Monitoring social media frequently for a potential crisis can be a tedious task. And there’s a risk that once your team notices the issue, it might have already snowballed. A social media engagement tool like Sprout Social can identify early warning signs of a potential crisis through social listening . You can then quickly take steps to resolve the problem.

Skills required for corporate communications professionals

Corporate communications has evolved over the years, requiring more diverse skill sets to execute sophisticated omnichannel campaigns. Professionals need to have a deep understanding of the company’s business goals, culture, target audience, industry and the context in which it operates.

Here are some of the skills required:

• Hard skills : Proficiency in creating and editing written content, understanding company values and drafting guidelines, ability to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs), managing digital communication channels, familiarity with crisis communication strategies and protocols.
• Soft skills : Relationship-building skills, leading multiple teams, problem-solving and critical thinking, strong verbal communication skills and the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously.

Develop a communications strategy and roadmap

A strong communication strategy should help you deliver a cohesive brand presence, expand reach across channels and gather audience insights.

This will help you streamline your goals and activities, minimize gaps in communication and bring everyone on the same page.

Your communication strategy should outline four major things:

• Audience: who you’re communicating to
• Distribution channels: how you will reach them

A detailed communication plan will act as a course of action and also help you get buy-in from executives.

Make sure that your communications plan is continually optimized. It should be as dynamic as the discipline itself—use data and feedback to make decisions and align your strategy with compelling narratives.

Corporate communications: the megaphone for a company’s voice in this crowded world

An effective corporate communications plan can do more than just build a positive public image—it’s an essential part of business success.

It can be a challenge to manage your brand reputation across multiple channels. With Sprout Social’s sentiment analysis and social listening features, you can keep tabs on brand health and sentiment, as well as get deep audience insights. Giving your team more time to focus on making data-driven decisions and optimizations that will impact business goals.

Ready to level up your corporate communications strategy? We’ve created a customizable corporate communication template to help you develop an actionable plan. This template can help you create a roadmap that positions your brand as an industry leader to the audiences that matter most.

Download your free corporate communications template now to maximize the effectiveness of your internal and external communications.

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Why Isn’t Your Strategy Sticking?

• Andrea Belk Olson

How to identify the hidden obstacles that may thwart implementation — and address them before they take root.

It’s insufficient to just share the goals and objectives of your strategy and hope implementation will succeed. In this article, the author explains how to shift from an operational to a contextual mindset so that you can better identify the hidden obstacles that may be thwarting your strategy’s implementation so you can address them before they take root.

In 1992, Robert Kaplan and David Norton identified four barriers to effective strategy implementation : lack of understanding, lack of communication, disconnected incentives, and disconnected budgets. Over the decades, other experts have expanded on this list, identifying additional barriers including unaligned goals, insufficient resources, and inadequate performance tracking. Yet successful strategy implementation is still an ongoing struggle today. Are leaders simply not communicating well enough? Or does the intrinsic problem lie elsewhere?

• Andrea Belk Olson is a differentiation strategist , speaker, author, and customer-centricity expert. She is the CEO of Pragmadik, a behavioral science driven change agency, and has served as an outside consultant for EY and McKinsey. She is the author of 3 books, a 4-time ADDY® award winner, and contributing author for Entrepreneur Magazine , Rotman Management Magazine, Chief Executive Magazine , and Customer Experience Magazine .

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Economic conditions outlook, March 2024

Executives’ latest views on the global economy and their countries’ economies lean much more positive than they did at the end of 2023.

In the latest McKinsey Global Survey on economic conditions, 1 The online survey was in the field from March 4 to March 8, 2024, and garnered responses from 957 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP. the outlook on domestic conditions in most regions has become more hopeful, despite ongoing shared concerns about geopolitical instability and conflicts. In a year brimming with national elections, 2 Katharina Buchholz, “2024: The super election year,” Statista, January 19, 2024. respondents increasingly see transitions of political leadership as a primary hazard to the global economy, particularly in Asia–Pacific, Europe, and North America.

Furthermore, respondents now view policy and regulatory changes as a top threat to their companies’ performance, and they offer more muted optimism than in December about their companies’ prospects.

Optimism builds over global and domestic conditions

Respondents share much brighter assessments of the global economy and conditions in their countries than they did at the end of 2023, and views of the global economy are the most positive they’ve been since March 2022 (Exhibit 1). In the December survey, respondents were equally likely to say the global economy had improved and worsened. Today, respondents are twice as likely to report improving rather than deteriorating conditions. Looking ahead to the next six months, respondents are also more optimistic than they were last quarter. Forty-six percent expect the global economy to improve—nearly double the share expecting worsening conditions—while 37 percent expected improvement in the previous survey.

Likewise, respondents offer hopeful views when asked about the most likely near-term scenario for the global economy, suggesting confidence in central banks. They are more likely to expect a soft landing overall—with either slowing or accelerating growth compared with 2023—than a recession (Exhibit 2). The largest share of respondents expect a soft landing, with slowing growth relative to 2023.

Respondents’ views on their own economies have also become more upbeat. Nearly half of respondents say economic conditions at home are better now than they were six months ago, up from 41 percent in December, while just 22 percent say conditions have gotten worse. Respondents in Europe—who offered the most negative assessments of any respondents in September and December—are now nearly twice as likely as in December to say conditions have improved in the past six months, though it is unclear what has prompted that change and whether it is a durable finding.

McKinsey’s original survey research

More than half of respondents expect their economies to improve over the next six months. It’s the first time in two years that a majority of respondents have said that. In most regions, larger shares of respondents express optimism about economic conditions at home now than in December (Exhibit 3).

Geopolitical instability remains top of mind as concerns over political transitions rise

Geopolitical instability and conflict continues to be the most cited risk to global growth, selected by two-thirds of respondents for the second quarter in a row (Exhibit 4). Yet in this first quarterly survey of 2024—a year in which more than 60 countries will hold national elections 3 Katharina Buchholz, “2024: The super election year,” Statista, January 19, 2024. —transitions of political leadership have jumped from the fifth-most-cited to the second-most-cited threat to the world economy. The share of respondents in Europe reporting political transitions as a top threat is 2.4 times the share in December, while the shares in North America and Asia–Pacific have nearly doubled. 4 Prior to the latest survey, respondents in Mexico were included in Latin America in analyses but are now included in North America. We see a smaller uptick in concern about supply chain disruptions, which is cited as a threat by the largest share of respondents since December 2022.

Looking at risks to growth in respondents’ countries, geopolitical instability and conflict remains the top perceived threat, cited by a larger share than in any quarter since March 2022. Uneasiness about domestic political conflicts and transitions of political leadership, now the second- and third-most-cited risks, have overtaken concerns about inflation, which was the second-most-cited risk in December. Among respondents in North America, transitions of political leadership are cited nearly twice as often as in December (Exhibit 5). In Greater China, multiple risks now appear to carry equal weight, whereas in December, inflation was the top concern.

Policy and regulatory changes top the list of cited threats to companies’ growth

As respondents’ concerns about inflation as a domestic threat wane, the survey results suggest that companies are holding off on price increases. For the first time since we began asking about companies’ prices in September 2022, less than half of private-sector respondents in the latest survey—45 percent—say their companies increased the price of their goods or services over the past six months, down from 56 percent in December.

For five quarters, respondents’ most cited risk to their companies’ performance in the next 12 months was weak customer demand. Now, they most often point to policy and regulatory changes as a threat. In December 2023, policy and regulatory changes weren’t even one of the top five perceived risks. This increased wariness of policy changes cuts across most regions, though we see the largest increase in Europe.

Even though weak demand is no longer the most cited risk for companies, optimism over expected demand has tapered  since December. Fifty-one percent of respondents expect an increase in customer demand over the next six months, down from 57 percent in December. Yet expectations about profits remain upbeat: about six in ten respondents expect increasing profits in the months ahead, in line with expectations in much of 2023.

The survey content and analysis were developed by Jeffrey Condon , a senior knowledge expert in McKinsey’s Atlanta office; Krzysztof Kwiatkowski , a capabilities and insights expert in the Boston office; and Sven Smit , chair of insights and ecosystems, chair of the McKinsey Global Institute, and a senior partner in the Amsterdam office.

They wish to thank Jan Mischke for his contributions to this work.

This article was edited by Heather Hanselman, a senior editor in the Atlanta office.

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After McKinsey Musings, Texas Bank Aims to Escape Fate of Rivals

By Todd Gillespie

A cadre of McKinsey & Co . consultants strode into a meeting with Houston’s most prominent local bank to dwell on the problem bedeviling thousands of regional banks: How to stay relevant.

“The thing that I laugh at, though, is they had a chart,” said Steve Stephens , the CEO of Amegy Bank , recalling the presentation to the board of its parent company in late 2022. McKinsey’s message was that banks such as Amegy could find a lucrative business niche, like the so-called specialty regional banks that it spotlighted in slides, he said.

“Well, that was First Republic, Silicon ...

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