A communications strategy is simply a documented roadmap as to how an organization intends to engage with its stakeholders with a clear goal in mind of what success would look like. In my experience organizations outsource the development of a communications strategy to consultants who are experts in their own rights but in most cases do not understand the organization as well as its founder and team members. This is why I advocate for the full involvement of all team members or a fair representation of teams to participate in developing a communications strategy for an organization, project or campaign.

A communications strategy is very important for the following reasons:

• It gives clarity to your marketing and communications teams or unit. It will surprise you to know that many organizations have people with the title Communications Officer or Marketing Manager but have no clear plans on how to go about their jobs. They do not have real goals. They just spend whatever resources allocated to their unit on anything they think is working for others or is trending. No sense of direction, no goal.
• A communications strategy will save you a lot of money. It helps your organization allocate appropriate financial, human and material resources that can be tracked. Like I mentioned in the previous point, if you do not have a clear strategy you will most likely not be able to account for resources allocated. A communications strategy helps you budget appropriately the number of team members required, what you should outsource, what platforms to spend on adverts, etc.
• A communications strategy provides insight on who your audiences are and where to find them. In our communications strategy development sessions we ensure our clients are able to clearly identify their customers and decide on the best platform(s) to reach them.
• A communications strategy determines content strategy. Once you are clear on who your audiences are and where they are best reached, you will be able to determine the type of content format and type that will interest them. For example, if your audiences are Gen Zs and their favourite platform is TikTok; it is easy to know that the content format to invest heavily on is video.

The process of developing a communications strategy helps organizations focus their energies and resources on what really matters and this can be measured using different metrics.

I hope you have found this helpful? I would like to hear from you (Oghenefego@teoinspiro.com) if you have questions or feedback on my article.