Many brands are racing to accelerate in 2022, seeing the new year as a fresh starting line after the pandemic and gain back momentum. Given the enthusiasm across stakeholders, communications teams have an opportunity to engage with decision makers, and demonstrate their effectiveness for the business.
Twelve months ago, it was difficult to gather meaningful data about how the first half of 2021 was to be. The uncertainty then pretty much amounted to a gamble, with some brands angling for a fast start in 2021, while others took it slow. This misalignment, especially between ecosystem and partner brands, created operational execution challenges. Throw in a new virus variant, and most plans were abandoned by the end of Q1.
Despite the environmental uncertainty, communications teams are in a better position in Q4 2020 than they were 12 months ago. Many countries have plans to go endemic. There is increasing clarity around travel, healthcare, workplace policy. Together, structured policy and increasing activities can help provide the foundation for research, data gathering and making informed assumptions for 2022.
Setting the stage for a performance
Strategic communications teams should consider setting the stage and engaging with stakeholders within their organisations. This is the right time to discover and understand how other teams are viewing 2022, and how their team objectives are laddering up to business goals.
Take the time to understand their data sources, and where it might make sense to identify proxy measurements that support their metrics.
If there is a silo culture in the organisation, there is time to pry the hatches open. Cooperating across teams should become a norm, with enough credit to be shared all around. 2022 is as much about achieving wins together as a way to establish momentum.
While 2022 might be a better year, nothing is showing that it will be a walk in the park.
Identifying the right partners to perform together with
With alignment on business goals, and cross-team (cross-business unit) outcomes, it is time to secure co-ownership. With the organisation pulling in the same direction, communications teams can identify what are the key outcomes that will benefit either the biggest number of teams or will map to the most relevant business goal.
Communications plans can be designed with programmes and campaigns showing the alignment and mapping. Commitment to metrics and proxies should be clear, transparent and demonstrate both efficiency and effectiveness in the use of resources.
An optimal demonstration of co-ownership is for the communications plan to be integrated into a wider organisation or programme master plan alongside a calendar or timeline showing how each co-owner’s team will contribute to the overall effort. The measurements should also be integrated into this plan.
This step also applies to identifying and updating external teams, for example, consultants or contractors, about the 2022 goals, directions and organisation programmes that the communications team is supporting. A lack of structured sharing of information can result in lesser efficiency when deploying resources.
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Check and confirm that you are performing for the right customers
Apart from securing alignment internally, it is critical to ensure that research, discovery and re-evaluation of the customer and their journeys to the brand is completed. This can be done prior to creating the communications plan, or done concurrently, especially if the customer research data is being provided by another team.
The customer might have changed their behaviour, habits or consumption as a reaction to the pandemic or went through accelerated change in a certain direction. It might require discovering and re-learning their priorities and preferences.
They might have changed the channels they used before, and moved on to those that match their expectations on turnaround time and fulfilment.
It might be a worthwhile investment prior to 2022 to relook at the customer and confirm that the organisations understanding of them, their context of interaction, and their journeys are still valid.
Creating the communications plan for 2022
With the above factors in play, the communications plan can be adjusted and optimised based on the objectives and outcomes to achieve.
Consider the following suggestions:
Goals, objectives and measurements should be aligned as simply as possible
All campaigns and activities can be placed against a calendar to help identify where resources can be optimised for efficiency
Think in terms of campaign or project teams, where teams have a consolidated capacity of budget, time and talent
Structure the plan and measurements in a format that is easy to understand and present to non-communications teams
Assume there will be delays, and build in contingencies to manage them
Make the execution component dynamic, and able to take input during operations and therefore able to change according to the situation, without sacrificing goals or outcomes
Ensure all communications teams (internal or external) understand the plan, their role in it, and their responsibilities towards contributing to measurements
One thing to note, there will never be a perfect plan, and feedback from communications and non-communications stakeholders should be directed towards efficiency and effectiveness. This is in contrast to whether stakeholder like or dislike components of the plan. This way, the plan keeps getting built to be better, and not constantly changed to accommodate moment-in-time opinions.
We are Brand Utility is a strategic communication and business consultancy business consultancy. We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel, and technology spaces.
We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion, and market entry – for our clients.
Areas of support include:
Strategic communications: Approach to market, brand concept and map, positioning, messaging, story and narrative, thought leadership
Marketing: Campaign/programme planning, story-based marketing execution, digital marketing, community amplification, content planning and production, go-to-market execution
Lead generation and growth marketing: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce
Integration of marketing with business operations: We plan and execute as a marketing and/or PR lead for your brand
Discover more about our services at our website.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
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