14 Ways to Align Your Message Across Business Platforms
I recently mentioned to a former co-worker that I've been getting some great advice from a former business-line partner, an outstanding digital marketer who now has his own firm. He expressed surprise because he knew we had gone at it tooth and nail to the point that we had each expressed frustration about the other person to co-workers.
He and I agreed a few years back that the problems between us were due to poorly-defined roles between Marketing and Corporate Communications and that those issues probably got in the way of doing some really great work.
There's no bad time to optimize your messaging strategy
Like many of you, I'm updating my 2022 goals and priorities, taking into account new and prospective clients, platforms, and marketing strategies. If your organization has siloed your Marketing and Communications areas and/or you only rarely have strategic conversations with other business areas about message alignment, bring them together and ask a few questions.
This process will create the foundation to optimize alignment within your integrated communications plan that includes great content; outcome and performance metrics; and the right platforms for your target audiences. When it comes down to it, eyeballs don’t necessarily move the needle (and the numbers can’t always be trusted). It’s about engagement and brand alignment. Great stories DO move the needle.
A few questions to help drive this process
What metrics matter to you?
Outcome: What do you want to achieve?
Performance: What will we do over the rest of the year or look to do heading into next year (e.g., launch X service or product by Y)?
Process: How can we help you hit those performance metrics?
How can we help improve the customer (or prospective customer) experience?
Alignment: How will visitors or readers know they belong with us?
Service: What do we offer that will help prospective and existing customers the most?
Empowerment: How can we help our visitors be the hero of their story?
What’s the theme of our story? Start with understanding the problem you solve for customers or clients and what differentiates you from your competitors. Go beyond key benefits. You need to understand their needs and how you can strengthen the connection with the reader/viewer/customer. Then look for ways to optimize alignment across business areas.
What are the 10 most common questions that customers ask us? How can we make it easier for them to find answers? It might also be helpful to ask for copies of customer correspondence – both praise and complaints.
What are our points of difference? The answers tend to center on ownership and process. In my experience, “turf wars” often result in partners forgetting about finding the optimal outcome for the customer.
What is your most strongly held belief about our business and how we’re communicating our strengths internally and externally? Make a case that that’s NOT the case.
What is our Shared Objective (the ONE thing we’re holding onto to get to the future)?
What’s going to change about our business over the next year? The next three years? What’s NOT going to change? Jeff Bezos of Amazon gets asked the first two questions more often, but he says the "what's not going to change" question helps you keep your eyes on the fundamentals.
What's the benefit of inaction? In many cases, good ideas get tossed because "this isn't the process" or "that's not something we do." If we ask ourselves the question the other way around (i.e., what do we gain from not doing it), we might arrive at a different outcome.
Are we hunting antelope or field mice? Put another way, are we focusing on communicating things that really don’t matter that much to our customers or that take way more energy than they’re worth)?
If we look ahead 12-24 months, what will be our biggest wins (the things that move the sales or profit needle)? What can Communications do to make those wins even bigger?
If we look ahead 12-24 months, what is our biggest risk? Are there things that Communications can do to mitigate that risk?
What are the two or three product features or services that have (or will have) the biggest impact on our business?
Why do those things “matter” to customers? Walk it back from the feature and keep asking that question (“Why does that matter?”) until we end up with the core essence of the product and then make sure you align that messaging across business areas.
And one final question...
If you don’t always get along with your business partner, you might also consider asking, “If two complete strangers were put in our seats, what would they do?” This could help take the personalities and baggage out of the mix and lead to some great work that will help us optimize alignment of your brand messaging!
What other questions might help strengthen the relationship between you and your business partners?
