5 Tips To Improve Your Business Communications

June is Effective Communication Month, so we’ve decided to highlight 5 steps to help you and your business communicate more effectively! Communication can make or break a brand, so it’s important to focus on communicating the right ideas the right way. According to HubSpot, “While 99% of consumers say it’s important that a business communicates well with them as a customer, a mere 7% of businesses rate their communication as ‘excellent’." In this blog, we've put together 5 tips to help you develop stronger, more consistent communication with your audiences to take your business to the next level.

1. Create an annual marketing strategy.

Creating an annual marketing strategy is much easier than it sounds and it can help your company stay on track throughout the year! A marketing strategy helps your brand set a clear vision and goals to work toward. It also helps identify your best opportunities and get to know your consumers a little better. Once you lay out your marketing strategy, you can better focus on the resources you need to achieve your goals! Looking for a resource to help you get started? Our free Strategic Marketing Plan cheat sheet breaks down all of the important elements of a marketing strategy.

2. Audit your brand.

It’s important to assess your brand messaging and voice. Brands often tell a story. Have you ever thought about what your brand is telling? Start by taking a look at your communication and see if you notice any consistencies. Next, utilize social listening tools to see how your audience is responding to campaigns and initiatives. Never used social listening before? Don’t worry, here are some options to try!

Once you evaluate your current communication, you can decide what direction you want to move in by developing key messaging guidelines. When developing guidelines, you’ll identify the important takeaways you want consumers to hear and craft the framework for your communication efforts. Key messaging guidelines can help your brand’s communications stay on track and consistent while saving you time!

3. Develop consistent communication.

Consistent communication works hand in hand with tip number two! Once you develop brand messaging guidelines, you can decide how often to communicate and which platforms to use. Communication should echo across platforms keeping the tone, messages, and visuals seamless and consistent. It’s also important to remember that good external communication starts from within. Keeping everyone on the same page on the inside helps to communicate better with customers on the outside!

4. Create a social media strategy & calendar.

Creating a social media strategy or calendar sounds intimidating, but if you break it down into “bite-sized pieces," it can be easy and fun! You can start by making a monthly calendar and setting a posting goal. Then, decide what you’re going to post! A good place to start when planning social media posts in advance is looking at all of the important events, holidays, and birthdays for the month. This helps ease into planning and makes it less overwhelming when deciding what else to post for the month. A clear plan at the beginning of the month makes content creation and posting much easier! Our free Social Media Planner template is a great place to get all of your great ideas down on paper.

5. Ask the professionals!

If all else fails, call for backup! There’s not enough time in the day to tackle everything, and communication is no easy feat. According to Small Business Trends, “A small business owner — along with another employee — will spend an average of 20 hours per week on marketing…” To put things into perspective, that's half of the typical work week (Although we know if you're anything like us, your work week is far from normal.) Let us take some tasks off your plate and share our expertise, allowing you can get back to doing what you do best!

Not sure if an agency is a good fit for you? Partnering with an agency can be great for businesses of all sizes and needs! For those with small marketing teams or no team at all, agencies are a cost-effective way to gain access to a team of experts. For those with larger teams and more resources, agencies can provide an outside perspective, flexibility to work on other projects, and access to current marketing software and trends. If you aren’t sure where you fit in and want more information, always feel free to reach out to us! We’re here to help.