I’ve noticed a theme emerging recently when I’ve been talking about comms for small organisations. The question “if you were going to do the bare minimum marketing & comms, what would you do?” keeps cropping up in different guises.
Spoiler alert: I’m not going to tell you exactly what channels you should or shouldn’t be using, but I am going to share a simple framework that I use as a foundation for my work, that can help you work it out for yourself.
And, great news! My view on good comms strategy (especially for small organisations with limited resource) is that you should prioritise what you don’t do, not what you do.
So before you hop on TikTok, have a look at the questions below and see where you’re at…
Whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve been going a while and things are feeling unclear, these steps will help you crystallise what you’re doing and where you want to be…
Step 1. What is our most important strategic objective, and how will communications support this?
Before you dive in, you want to be able to clearly articulate what you want communications to achieve for you. E.g. In 12 months, I want all (families /councillors / funders) to know who we are, what we do, and why that’s important to them.
When you’re a small team, it’s easy to get spread too thin. Ensuring your comms efforts are focussed towards what is most important for you will help prioritise what you do, but more importantly what you don’t do.
Step 2. What is our marcomms reality?
When you’re a small team you need to create comms solutions that are feasible and sustainable. Exercises that can help this include:
- A -> B : Describe you current and past marcomms reality, and how this makes you feel (this is A), and then describe what you’d like it to look like in the future, and how this would make you feel (this is B).
- Comms SWOT: Relating to communications, think about your internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats. Identifying strengths can help you leverage these in your comms strategy, and weaknesses can identify areas where you might need support, training, or a healthy dose of realism.
Step 3. Who am I talking to and why does what I’m saying matter to them?
The fall-back when we’re stretched is to either not communicate at all, or literally just share information. This is better than nothing, but impactful communication considers WHY its message is important to the recipient – what VALUE it creates.
Exercises that will help with this include:
- Insight gathering: this can be as simple as talking to the people you are trying to reach and understanding what challenges your solution helps them overcome, or what ambition it helps them realise, as well as what real / perceived barriers might exist.
- Value proposition: Articulating your value based on the challenges your solution solves / ambition it supports.
- Create a customer story: I find that static personas don’t work well for me, however writing a short story about my ideal customer / audience including the realities of their life, their challenges, and ambitions, really brings it to life. Reading this before creating communications helps me to ground my thinking in who it’s aimed at, and come up with much more authentic and creative comms solutions.
Step 4. Where willI find the most, right people?
Back to the “do we join TikTok debate”? It’s easy to be drawn in by the any-benefit mindset when it comes to social media and digital comms channels, fearing you’ll miss out on the potential benefit that might or might not happen from being (or not being) on a platform.
If you’re trying to do all the channels with minimal resource, I could guarantee you’re not doing any of them that well. This is a big sucker of time and energy.
So think critically. Where are the highest volume of the people I want to reach? Pick 1 or 2 (max 3) and then plan how you’ll use the channels effectively before you dive in.
Step 5. What should I share?
I think you’ll find, that once you’ve done the audience insight work, you’ll feel a whole lot more creative at this stage. Instead of scratching your head, you’ll be coming up with all sorts of ways you can genuinely showcase value to your audience.
Three things I believe are key at this stage are:
- Core messaging framework – building out the key messages you want to get across and the value messages that make this message important to your audience. Having a core messaging frame work ensures that the messages you are sharing are consistent, even though the content will be varied.
- Storytelling – whether you’re communicating to individuals, organisations, funders, you cannot underestimate the power of storytelling. Identifying stories that bring your key messages to life is the best way to make your messages memorable and shareable.
- Customer stage - think about what what stage the person you are talking to will be at. Is this their first encounter with you? (awareness), might they know of you and want to find out more? (interest), might they be ready to engage (action), have they had a positive experience and be willing to share? (advocacy)
Step 6. How often should I post / email?
This should be almost entirely driven by what is feasible (sustainably) internally. Your audience is not going to be sitting waiting for your post or email. Just make sure that you have listened to your audience and schedule communications at a time that makes sense in their day.
It’s better to share high quality content with clear value and purpose less regularly, than lots of content that’s lacking in focus.
Step 7. How can we set ourselves up for success?
Here we should be looking to create systems and processes that make consistent communications simple and dare I say it…fun!?
This could include:
- Starting a WhatsApp group to gather insight, stories, and ideas
- Having regular“creative coffees” where you all bring something new to share to keep the ideas flowing
- Having a content planner, design templates and scheduling tool that makes everything happen as expected.
Step 8. What are the metrics that matter?
Finally, don’t get wrapped up in all the numbers. Based on what you set out to achieve; figure out what metrics help you understand if you are getting closer to where you want to be.
As you get into it, you’ll start to see trends; what content is resonating and what’s not. What time of day is best to post. Stay curious and adjust based on your learnings!
And that’s it. It’s not rocket science, nor should it be. Comms gets a bad rap – it’s that thing that gets done last if at all. But if you set good foundations, comms can be fun, hugely inspiring, and highly impactful.
Clarity is the first step to comms freedom. If you want help with any of this, get in touch via the details below!
