A corporate communications plan is how well a corporation communicates with its employees, customers, board members, and media. The plan involves communicating the corporation’s goals, outcomes, requirements, and achievements internally and externally to relevant parties.
Communication is the first thing that expresses your thought process to others. You may think of corporate communication as a petty issue, but it can greatly affect your brand, corporate relationships, and company culture.
Every business, big or small, needs to have a corporate communications plan in order to attain success. The reason for this is that it allows appropriate communication inside and outside the company. It also defines whether a company is well-managed or not.
Having a corporate communications plan aligns your goals, requirements, and future plans. Having things planned is always a safer option than moving forward without proper planning and a road map outlining where you want to go. For starters, there are two main kinds of corporate communication.
Internal Corporate Communication
Internal corporate communication is the kind of communication that takes place between the board of directors, executive members, stakeholders, and employees. Internal communication can take many forms, such as emails, internal messaging, skype and zoom calls, board meetings, formal and informal gatherings, and annual events.
External Corporate Communication
External corporate communication is how a company communicates to its customers, counterparts, investors, and media. Companies carry out external communication through marketing, advertisements, campaigns, messages, and promotions.
Why it is Important to have a Corporate Communications Plan
There are many important reasons to have a proper corporate communications plan. The first is that it allows the company to be more specific about how they operate and what they want to achieve. Some of the main reasons are:
- It promotes employee engagement. Regular employee engagement programs promote a healthier environment and better working conditions for employees.
- It allows the opportunity to speak right at the right time. Without proper planning, you might not be able to deliver your message accurately.
- It prepares you to address a tough situation or unforeseen events.
- It ensures a speedy recovery from damages and setbacks incurred due to corporate downgrades.
- It helps the employees, board members, and executive members build trust and faith in you because you’re ensuring transparency through corporate communication.
- It produces effective marketing and brand management in order for your company to grow and succeed.
- It helps you receive feedback that you can use to improve the company’s operations, products, and services.
- It helps recognize your flaws so you can work on better development.
Things to Consider when making a Corporate Communications Plan
When making an effective corporate communications plan for your company, there are a few things that you need to consider. To get the best possible outcome from your corporate communications, you should include the following things in your communication plan:
Audience
First, narrow down the audience you want to communicate with. Before making a communication plan, you need to know who you’re addressing. This is important because it helps you set the tone and structure you need for your message to get across.
You certainly won’t talk to your employees the same way you talk to board members and vice versa. Similarly, your tone with customers differs from how you communicate with the media. So, the first thing you need to do is know your audience.
Objectives
Knowing your objectives means understanding why you’re making a communications plan. Every company, whether it’s big or small, possesses some objectives and goals that they want to achieve and strive for. You must always know your business objectives and whether your communication is effective enough to help you achieve them.
Frequency
You need to make a plan dictating the frequency at which you will communicate internally and externally. Board meetings and employee meetings should be held on a regular basis to share relevant and necessary details with members.
Communication with the customers and media can take place according to a schedule. Consistent interaction will build trust and help you stay on the top of the audience’s mind.
Message
Know what message you want to deliver and how. Arranging a meeting and then struggling to find the right words will bring embarrassment and confusion to your table. Be prepared for the message you want to convey and set the tone accordingly.
Medium
Decide what medium you want to choose for your communication. As stated earlier, each audience and communication type requires a different medium. Selecting the right medium to convey your message appropriately is very important.
It would appear unprofessional if you introduce a new stakeholder to the board of directors via a text message. On the other hand, your employees meeting monthly targets isn’t necessarily newspaper-worthy material. Hence, your medium of communication matters a lot.
Feedback
Feedback is essential to know if you’re moving in the right direction or not. Once you see that using a certain method doesn’t help get your message across, it’s time to switch to something new. If you cannot deliver your objectives and goals through your communication, you need extensive changes.
For this, get regular feedback from your employees, board members, staff members, customers, and even the public. Feedback always helps you learn and work better. Provide questionnaires or surveys on this matter to acquire the information you need.
Conclusion
Seeing the above-mentioned points, you must understand why a corporate communications plan is a roadmap for your corporate success. Without a proper corporate communications plan, you won’t get anywhere in business, growth, and marketing.
Having a proper corporate communications plan enables you to directly address your goals and objectives through proper internal and external communication. Considering all the important factors will help you create an effective corporate communications plan, an important element in a roadmap to success.
