Creating clear communication messages starts with understanding what actually needs to be said. By identifying and prioritising the right information before choosing your audience or channels, you can reduce information overload, improve clarity and create more purposeful communications and marketing.
Once you know your WHY, the next step in The Adaptive Approach is determining WHAT you actually need to communicate.
Understand what your organisation actually needs to say, so you can say it with clarity. Most organisations communicate what they want to say, rather than what actually needs to be said. And sometimes, the right decision is that something doesn’t need to be communicated at all.
What do people actually need to know?
The best place to start is separating the need-to-know, nice-to-know and useful-to-know content. Think beyond an individual email or post and try to think about some of the reoccurring methods if you do not have a top-level framework for your content distribution and channels.
If not, you can separate and group it like the below examples:
- Operational — policies, procedures, safety information, service changes and deadlines.
- Strategic — organisational priorities, direction, progress and achievements.
- Marketing — products, services, value, expertise, proof points, customer stories and promotions.
Some content will be in short-form and may need to point back to a long-form piece.
Remember, it is the clarity that will give you the cut through.
How do you know what needs to be said?
Whether you’re a one-person communications and marketing team or part of a well-staffed team (if those exist), you’ll probably be asked to communicate a varying amount of information.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the things that might be part of your remit and what the WHAT would and wouldn’t be:
- A new, updated or refreshed policy
- Not the whole policy – that would be placed in an easy to access space for all staff to access
- The WHAT might be – what has changed, why it matters, when it takes effect, what staff need to do and of course, where to find the policy to read it.
- New product or service
- Not announcing that you have one
- The WHAT might be – the problem it will solve, who it is for, what makes it useful or different how it works and what you want people to do (The CTA)
- The organisation’s strategy
- Definitely not, the whole 40 to 50+ page strategy
- The WHAT could be – where are we going, what are our priorities and what success looks like. This is a great example of reoccurring comms with adaptive WHAT’s.
- An achievement or milestone
- Not that “hey we won a shiny award”
- Instead, the WHAT could be – what we achieved, why it matters, who contributed and what this demonstrates.
So, If you were tasked to tell staff about a new policy you may break it down by determining the:
- Change – what’s different?
- Reason – Why has it changed?
- Impact – What does this mean for staff or which staff it may affect?
- Action – Do staff need to do something? Read it, understand it etc.
- Timing – When will the new policy apply?
- Source – Where can staff find the full policy?
And now it is that simple. You have determined the WHAT and you didn’t jump from, there is a new policy, push out an all-staff email.
You have clear messaging about WHAT you actually need to say.
Then you can move on to WHO really needs to know? Is it managers or staff who perform specific tasks?
Working out your WHAT will also help you understand whether the information may need short-form or long-form content. WHO needs to receive it and WHERE they need to find it will help determine that further.
And that takes us to the next step in The Adaptive Approach: WHO really needs to know? Because “everyone” is not an audience.
This article is part of The Adaptive Approach insight series.