The importance of strategic communication for brands
Strategic communication is important for brands in order to attract, influence and build relationships with customers. With increased access to the internet in our society, effective communication can be one of the most powerful tools a brand has at their disposal. In this blog post I will discuss what strategic communications is and why it is so important for brands today.
What is strategic communication?
Strategic communication is sharing the value of your brand in a way that resonates with your target audience and stays true to who you are as a brand and your goals. Moreover it follows a plan and is guided by clear goals.
To implement strategic communication you first need to understand your brand and its goals. Once the goals are identified, there needs to be a plan on how to achieve them through communication. There also needs to be a clear understanding of who your target audience is, where they spend their time and what they want from your product or service. This will help in crafting messages and will determine how they will be communicated. Strategic communication also relies heavily on feedback from your audiences and on consistency that fosters trust.
Importance of strategic communication
Enhances effective branding
One of the main goals of branding is to influence positive perceptions about your brand. Communication is a powerful branding tool since it’s the most effective way to actually influence perceptions. Strategic communication allows you to set the intention of how you want to be perceived and then create messages that consistently communicate that. This ensures that your desired perception is registered in your customers mind, and they are therefore more inclined to engage with you, buy from you and form relationships with your brand.
Increase consumers’ willingness to purchase products and services.
In his book ‘Start With Why’, Simon Sinek emphasizes that people don’t buy what you do or sell, they buy why you do it. It is the heart and soul of your brand that draws and influences like-minded people to do business with you.
Your ‘Why’ allows customers to trust your intentions for being in business. Additionally sharing what you stand for, your values and beliefs helps to establish commonality with your customers. People have a natural tendency to gravitate towards and grant influence to those with whom they share similar interests, values and beliefs.
Improved customer insight
Strategic communication allows you to know your audience and their needs more clearly. First through coming up with detailed customer profiles and then through engagement and soliciting feedback from them. This enables you to better target them with the right messages that will influence them to action, and that will foster lasting relationships.
Effective and efficient messaging
When brands have a specific message they want to communicate, it is important that the audience gets the same message. Strategic communication ensures there are no miscommunications with customers or potential customers through intentional messages that resonate and speak directly to them.
Additionally it is possible to check the effectiveness of your messaging, first by comparing your results and your goals, and through soliciting feedback to check if the intended perceptions are being formed in customers’ minds.
Identify new opportunities
Since strategic communication focuses hugely on the customer it’s easy to spot gaps, deficiencies and new opportunities. This could manifest in new products, sometimes entirely different from the products currently being offered by your brand.
When your focus is on making the lives of your customers better, the possibilities and potential for growth are limitless.
Build stronger relationships
Communication keeps relationships alive. Engagement through intentional messages that offer value and resonate with your audience lets them know you understand them and care for their success.
Additionally through feedback you can improve your offerings and your messages which further fosters relationship because your audience feels heard.
Enhance Consistency
Through an in-depth understanding of your brand and your target audience, you can come up with clear and harmonized messages to navigate all customer interactions and communication. This enhances consistency and helps to prevent contradictory and confusing messages, which can hurt the reputation of your brand. This is especially helpful during times of crisis or controversy.
Conclusion
The importance of strategic communication in the modern world cannot be overstated. If you are interested in developing your brand’s reputation or would like help with how to communicate effectively on different social media platforms, let us know!
Our team will work closely with you to develop a strategy that emphasizes what makes your company unique while simultaneously highlighting any potential pitfalls along the way. We’ll make sure that everything we do maintains consistency across all channels so there is no confusion about who you are as an organization.