The team at my dentist office has an excellent communications strategy:

• If I call and they are unable to answer me, they automatically send me a text message apologizing for being unavailable and let me know that I can text them back, let them know what I am looking for and they will either text back or call me back as appropriate for my need.
• They use tablets to communicate between team members, so as I move between different departments, each person is aware that I am coming and what I need.
• The doctor can request assistance using his tablet while communicating with me, so it seems like another staff member will magically show up with whatever is needed.
• Their text communications are always very personal, so that when my glasses or contacts come in, it doesn’t seem like boilerplate communications. Although it might be.

Their communication strategy has made me a committed customer and a brand ambassador.  While it seems like these are little things, these little things make for a great, memorable experience.  In contrast to my dentist, while the team there is very kind, the experience is not memorable.  I like them but I don’t have a relationship with them and I would not recognize any member of the team if they stood right next to me.

Your Communications Strategy as part of your Business Development Operations

As part of your company’s business development operations, your company’s communications strategy with its stakeholders is a critical component that needs to be developed.  Stakeholders included in the overall strategy should include:

• Clients – keeping your clients aware can help to strengthen relationships, build trust and create additional opportunities to serve
• Employees – employees need to be made aware of what is going on in and around the company to keep them engaged
• Partners – partners can be your company’s best ambassadors.  Their recommendation can be a value-add for their own stakeholders.
• Investors – investors need to have the confidence that the company is proceeding, but may also be able to support ongoing initiatives
• Vendors – your business impacts your vendors and the capacity of work that they need to support
• Your community – your community – whether actual or virtual – will be a source of stakeholders and carry the weight of trust

While there are different objectives with each stakeholder, the common factor is that keeping them in the loop serves to build trust, loyalty, commitment and familiarity with your business and ultimately creates opportunity.  A communications strategy (not just a sell, sell, sell strategy) is one way to make sure that you do this.

What is a Communications Strategy?

Consider this:

• How many emails do you get per day that are trying to sell you something?
• How many “free” webinars and tele-calls and partnership offers, disguised as sales tools grace your inbox, even hourly?
• Contrast that to the number of value-added items you receive.
• Which are better received?

Your stakeholders would be best served by value-ads (things that would be beneficial to that stakeholder), such as those articles, introductions and podcasts that could help them do what they do, better.  Knowing that they can be in regular communication with you without being asked to purchase something helps to build trust, and encourages them to learn more about you.

Alternatively, getting involved with their organizations or them helps to strengthen the growing relationship.  You’ve probably heard those dating or relationship stories where one party spends most of their time talking about and focused on themselves.  In the same story, 99% of the time, you hear that the relationship fizzles.  It will be the same with your stakeholders: if you spend all of your time focused on yourself or your company, they get disinterested, quickly.

A strong communications strategy is balanced; it addresses all of your stakeholders, individually, it gives and receives information about them, it provides value-ads for each of your stakeholders.  It is a combination of a number of different contact methods, from broadcast to personal, and uses a number of different medium, from emails to telephone calls to e-newsletters or print newsletters to meetings to personal cards.

Your communication strategy is one of the tools that will help your business grow, exponentially.  Because it is designed as a strategy, with regular communication and follow-up, you can give yourself goals with respect to how many people you will communicate with over any certain time period, and can measure how effective your campaign is.  Since it focuses on deeper relationships with people an businesses, it will be more effective than advertising, search engine optimization, search engine marketing and a pretty logo.

Be extraordinary.  Build extraordinary relationships.

Aepiphanni Business Consulting: The Business Strategy People is a Strategy Consulting Firm dedicated to serving the needs of small to medium sized business leaders and executives. We specialize in helping leaders create extraordinary businesses.  We welcome clients in the personal and professional services industries, including Creative and Design Services, Software & IT Services, Professional Services and Healthcare Services.  As always, we welcome your comments, thoughts, questions and suggestions.  If you are seeking a business assessment, or have further questions about creating your strategy or developing your vision, please give me, Rick Meekins, a call at 678-265-3908, or email us at [email protected]..