Written by Andrew Holliday | April 22, 2016
Can everyone in your company clearly vocalize your motivating purpose as a business, differentiating benefits, ideal client, the particular aspects that separate you from your competition and overall key talking points?
If the answer is no, you need to build a communication strategy. This document serves as a guide to ensure that everyone is using the same language and stressing the same benefits when discussing the company. A consistent message will shape perception which is at the heart of branding.
Branding is the process of intentionally shaping the perception of a business, product, person or event.
All of our branding projects start with the development of a communication strategy. This document will serve as the manual for everyone in the organization. It’s a guide for writing ad copy, a script for sales calls and overall bible for how the company thinks and does business. Putting together a communication strategy is the best way to build a strong foundation upon which a healthy brand can grow.
Go through and answer the following questions honestly. Have each of your key executives answer each question independently. Once everyone has completed the survey, go through and see where your answers are aligned and where there are discrepancies.
- What is our single motivating purpose as a business?
- What makes us unique or remarkable?
- Who is our ideal client?
- Why should our ideal client choose us over a competitor?
- If we can only tell our ideal client one thing about our business, what is that one thing?
- What do each of our competitors do well? What can we do better than each of our competitors?
[Get the PDF Version of the questions here]
Everything needs to be distilled down to three or less key talking points once the process is complete. Don’t try to include every piece of information from the survey. Only pull the differentiating benefits that make your company unique.
Go all in on your strengths. Communicating two precise points is easier for everyone in your organization, and it will stick with your ideal client. Avoid the temptation to drift into four, five or six generic sounding “benefits” that truly aren’t differentiators. Stick to a simple and focused message.
Pull in some emotion, avoid buzzwords and write as though you’re explaining to a child. These tips will help you sound like a business with personality. You’ll come across like someone I’d want to hang out and do business with instead of a jargon spitting robot.
Action Step:
Complete the self-evaluation questions and build a draft of your communication strategy. For access to a PDF version of the six questions CLICK HERE.
