How to tell your story with impact - Part 3
Part 3 – Who before How
Every day we are surrounded by examples of both good and bad communication. When I talk about communication, I am referring to it in the broadest sense. I am thinking about all the touchpoints we have available to us from emails to media releases, speech notes to billboards, tweets to conversations on the side line of your son’s soccer and everything in between.
But what is it that distinguishes the good communicators from the bad?
A common tread between good communicators and trusted brands, and something I have talked about before in previous posts, is their proactive, open and authentic approach to sharing their stories – both in times of celebration and crisis. They are generally organisations, brands, businesses or groups who are front footing things - doing good every day, just like Kleon recommended, as opposed to sitting and waiting or only responding to issues. In doing so, they can establish a more direct relationship with all their stakeholders. They move from being just a brand or a business, to becoming “one of us”, in our communities sharing their journey with us day in, day out. Air New Zealand, Z Energy and good old Toyota are great examples of this in our own backyard.
The good communicators, and the true leaders in this space, are the ones who have established meaningful connections through open communication and great story telling. They have:
- thought about WHO they wanted/needed to talk too
- thought about WHAT they want to say
- thought about HOW they want to say it
And the order on this is very important as it starts with the audience. After all, meaningful business story telling is not just about you. It is about your audience, the benefit to them and how you can entertain them, engage them, enlighten them and empower them. How can you get them and keep them in an “ideal state” as your army of brand ambassadors?
You need to think about Who you are talking to before you decide How you are going to do it. Ask yourself right now - are you currently in Facebook or advertising on radio because your audience truly wants/needs you there or because everyone else is so you think you should be?
These days people are inherently self-fish and time poor so you need to be very clear about what you want to say, who you want to hear/see it and what do you want them to do with the information you are giving them
The WHO will be different for each organisation and they may change over time so as a strategic imperative, you should be doing some sort of stakeholder review on a regular basis in the same way you would track your marketing spend. Some call this a reputation survey or review and it can be as formal or as informal as you like but the insights you can gain from taking time to dig deeper in the WHO will reap rewards in the long term.
Take some time now to think about this:
How many of your stakeholders can you name?
When did you meet with each of them to understand what was important to them?
Have any new groups popped up that you need to add?
Is everyone in your organisation aware of all the groups on this list as they are likely to have interactions with them also
If you don’t have a stakeholder list already, maybe this could be the very first exercise you do with your team to help ensure your communications are more effective and truly solutions focussed. There are several different stakeholder mapping or target audience tools around but if you would like help with this stage of your journey – Let’s Talk as I have run workshops for many clients to help with understand and prioritise their audiences better.
This basic principle of putting your audience at the heart of your planning is a great way to ensure that you to create IMPACT when you are sharing your story. It will help take your communication from being transactional to strategic and this is where the real leadership opportunity begins.