Developing a 3-D Business Communication Strategy

Photo by Silvio Kundt on Unsplash

Is your organization’s current business communication strategy working the way you want? Are you reaching the right people?

When it comes to effective business communication, you need to start with pinpointing exactly who your audience is and what matters most to the people in it. Your audience is very important to your business since these are the people whom you want to receive your organization’s messages. With a successful business communication strategy, members of your audience will understand your messages and some will move forward and take action.

Once you define your audience, it’s time for you to take the next step – communicating with your audience. This next step involves determining the best way(s) to make a positive impact through your communications; creating and implementing a sound strategy becomes essential. A successful business communication strategy really comes down to two basic things: (1) What to say, and (2) How to say it. Thanks to the Internet, organizations currently have even more business communication channels than in the past. Currently, many business decision-makers are technologically savvy and go online regularly for their business communication.

An excellent way to reach more of the people in your online audience is through developing a “3-D” business communication strategy. We call it “3-D” because this communications strategy incorporates 3 components:

  • Blogs
  • e-newsletters
  • Social media

Business communication through blogging

A robust blog can easily be your organization’s most valuable communication and marketing tool. It’s certainly going to be the hub of your online business communications strategy. Blogging allows you to introduce your company and its services, to tell its story, and to share its personality. These are suggestions for helping your blog and blog posts shine:

  • Always include links back original sources, especially when directly quoting from other articles
  • Strive to create content that is current, high-quality, interesting, and industry-relevant
  • Update your blog on a regular basis
  • Inject your own personality when relevant and appropriate
  • Avoid writing overly self-promotional or sales-y posts; successful business communication helps drive sales through educating and informing
  • Make your blog a “two-way street” by inviting readers’ comments and including social media sharing buttons

Business communication through e-newsletters

Have you thought about creating and emailing a newsletter for your organization? Including e-newsletters within your 3-D business communication strategy makes a lot of sense for most organizations, regardless of their size, industry, or budgetary requirements. For one thing, e-newsletters are efficient and cost-effective vehicles for spreading your company’s messages and blog content. As well, they are a great way to connected and stay connected with your audience. These are a few things to keep in mind when using e-newsletters for business communication:

  • Include links that connect your e-newsletter directly to your blog
  • Establish thought leadership by including an industry-related article or two within your newsletter
  • Advertise your organization’s special events, such as webinars, in your newsletter
  • Aim for consistency by sticking to a regular schedule for emailing your organization’s e-newsletters

Business communication through social media

Businesses are increasingly learning that social media holds a nearly infinite amount of potential for their communications. This last – but certainly not least – component of a 3-D business communication strategy, social media, could be considered the most powerful of the three components due to its ability to help individuals and organizations potentially reach thousands upon thousands of others.

When including social media as part of your communications, you’ll want to create and publish content in a similar way as the other two components of your 3-D communication strategy. Most importantly, you must define your audience and make it your top priority in order to achieve optimal results from your business communication. Knowing and understanding the platforms and the types of posts your audience prefers, along with maintaining consistency with your postings, are all crucial for gaining the trust and loyalty of your audience’s members.

Sharing your blog posts through your organization’s social media platforms is a great way to increase their exposure. It’s important to do so in moderation, however, so as not to “spam” your audience. Sharing quality content by mixing your posts with other industry-related articles through social media helps build your audience – and your positive reputation – as well.
Bringing them all together for a 3-D business communication strategy

As I mentioned earlier, your organization’s blog is going to be the core of your business communication plan. As you begin tying your e-newsletter and social media posts to your blog, you’ll find your business communication reaching more of your audience. The more eyeballs from member of your target audience, the more impact – and positive results – from boosting your business’ content.

Jamie

Related Resources:

http://publicrelationssydney.com.au/best-communication-strategies-business-2/
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-newsletters-business-61725.html
http://www.benchmarkemail.com/blogs/detail/social-media-the-most-influential-tool-for-business-communication

About Jamie Teasdale

Jamie Teasdale founded Propel Businessworks, a small business development company, in 2009. Since then, she has been lending insight and creativity to businesses all over the U.S., giving them the tools they need to plan, promote, and prosper.