Communication Strategy

Designing communication strategy is all about connecting what you WANT to say with what your audience WANTS to hear.

The early communication model designed by Shanon Weaver described communication as being what happened when a message was sent from a sender to a receiver.  Simple.  The model was expanded to incorporate the fact that there is interference and data loss between them.  The idea was that if you could overcome the interference and data loss your message got through and your message was understood.

The astute communicator knows that it is every bit as important to find out what people WANT to hear as it is to communicate what you WANT to say.  This is a product of virtually unlimited choices in the market place.  People can’t listen to every message so they pick the ones that they like or want to.  Simply put their are too many senders and messages bouncing through our intellisphere (head space) for us to make sense of them all.

So, modern communication strategy must incorporate elements of understanding the sender and the receiver.

Too many communication’s companies only do one or two of the important elements of a good communication strategy. By omitting key steps they miss opportunities to provide true value to their customers.  And that’s a shame because you have a lot to share. It’s not hard to see why they do it.  You want to say what you want to say and they want to help you.  It’s the path of least resistance for them, but does it give you the best results?

My process for developing a communication strategy is all about you, your message and what your audience really wants. 

1. We talk about what you want to say.
2. We clarify your key messages. This usually involves mind mapping, the business card tool, and fast listening.
3. We develop strategies to test what your potential audience WANTS to hear. Adwords, Twitter, and Facebook provide marvelous tools that can provide us with more information about our audience in a week than Proctor and Gamble could accrue on a particular market over a decade twenty years ago.
4. We tailor your message to fulfill your desire AND their desire.
5. We TEST the message
6. We REFINE the message.

It can be quite helpful to enlist an objective third party to help with your communication strategy. An objective third party HAS NOT spent as much time thinking about your ideas as you have.  And that’s a good thing. Their objective perspective can help you create the clear messaging you need.

It’s Worth Taking the Time to Plan Your Communication Out…

If you’re spending money on advertising or internal communications it is well worth your investment to make sure what you’re saying is really getting across to your audience.  Too often people try to design a new website, use Twitter or Facebook or Adwords or a bus shelter ad without having a concrete strategy that ties them together.  Naturally they are doomed to failure and their ROI for the marketing budget is, once again, sub par.

There may be a reason that Ginger can’t understand what you’re saying…  Communication Strategists unearth the reason and provide solutions.

The Tools I Use to Listen to YOU:

I have an honors degree in communications and I PROMISE that I could bore you to tears concerning the various theories of communication.  Since the goal is not to bore you I thought I would simply share a few tools that I use to listen to you so we can create a communication strategy that really works.

These tools nearly always create “Aha!” moments for my clients.  They tend to feel energized and re focused by the time we finish.

Fast Listening

This is more of a process than a tool and it is built around my unique ability to listen fast.  I don’t exactly know how to describe it other than to say when I employ fast listening I try to hear you as fast as I can. Every thought I hear triggers  4 possible thoughts you may be getting at.  As you talk I narrow down which one you are likely meaning.  This process happens over and over very quickly.  As I listen and ask questions I can usually get down to hearing what you’re actually saying very quickly, or, fast.

Mind Mapping

I use mind mapping as a tool to spot new connections, clarify ideas, create new ideas, and, well… map my mind and my clients minds in a visual way we can all understand. (Hence the name.)

Mind Map to Clarify Communication Strategy

Business Card Tool

Most people run into problems with their communications for one of two reasons:

1. They are trying to say too much in too little time.
2. They are trying to sound impressive instead of just saying what they’re thinking.

The business card tool helps sort this out.  The premise is that you should be able to write your main idea out on the back of a card.  It sounds easy, but for most people it is actually very difficult. (Because of the above two reasons.)  I can help you clarify your ideas so they will fit in one crisp sentence.  Believe me.  From there the communication process is much much easier.

I hate to admit it, but I got this idea from my brother who is a communication guru par excelance.

The Tools I use to listen to YOU:

Fast Listening

Business Card Tool

Mind Mapping