By Elise Mitchell/ Mitchell Communications Group, Inc. / Fayetteville
The complexity of today’s business environment requires solid messaging strategies. If companies are not dealing with financial issues, they likely find themselves challenged by a changing regulatory and political environment, a scaled back workforce with a waning morale, fewer facilities and resources yet increasing competition for consumer attention and preference. In addition, customer expectations are higher and the demand for transparency is stronger. Never has it been more important for companies to get their messages across.
Leaders are leaning on public relations professionals both inside and outside their companies to help them develop effective strategies and messages for a wide variety of difficult situations that resonate with a lengthening list of stakeholders, not just shareholders.
With an expanding opportunity to shape and actually enhance organizational reputation, we must ensure our messages do indeed resonate. It’s tempting to rely on traditional approaches to messaging that worked well in the past when the more linear model of sender-receiver communication ruled the day. But in the new “CommUniverse™,” communication often occurs without the involvement of the organization itself.
Compounding the complexity is the exploding number of digital channels that have given rise to countless new communities and further enabled 24/7 conversations – and many times confusion – about companies.
Effective messaging is not as easy as it used to be, particularly when the chips are down and the stakes are high. Many times messages are designed to respond to a situation and simply stop, falling far short of communicating what organizations need and stakeholders want from conversations.
Establishing a process for developing a more strategic approach to messaging can help public relations professionals prepare their organizations to respond in a manner that will not only resonate with stakeholders but more importantly accomplish the organization’s larger goals.
When it’s well done, strategic messaging can be a powerful tool in today’s complex “CommUniverse™ ” that not only helps the organization respond to situational needs but leverages the opportunity to accomplish larger organizational goals.
Elise S. Mitchell, APR, Fellow PRSA, is President and CEO, Mitchell Communications Group, Inc., an integrated communications and organizational development firm. www.mitchcommgroup.com.
