Here are some C-words (and their explanations) that will get you out rather than in trouble.
Creative: communications should always excite and motivate the people, no matter who they are.
They should entertain and inform in a voice audiences can identify with and understand – whether it is chatty, corporate or a happy medium inbetween.
Channels: there is an enormous spectrum of media platforms for us to use.
They are all relevant, depending upon what needs to be achieved.
Channels include:-
- hard and soft marketing collateral such as brochures,advertising & direct mail
- WWW and social media population
- press releases, features, ghosted articles, speeches
- magazines, newsletters and white papers
- video, scripts and speeches and business plans, reports, presentations.
Context: the strategy/thinking (aka consultancy) behind our communications decides how, when and where we communicate with our various audiences.
An integrated, seamless approach is essential to ensure everyone shares the same voice and sings from the same hymn sheet.
The real secret to all strategy is to be proactive.
Decide what you want to do and then do it.
Content: the captivating ideas, words and images that we need to populate brochures, websites, press releases, social media and business presentations.
All the time focusing on what makes us special, why we stand out from the crowd and how people get engage with us.
Our content should be fresh, informative, relevant – even fun.
Channelling: the key to taking full advantage of social or sharing media is to re-purpose core content across all the channels relevant to you.
Consistency: our tone of voice drives the personality of our brand and propositions.
It needs to be consistent so people recognise and trust its relevance and authority.
Consistency embraces frequency as well so we don’t end up saying too much and are seen as mundane.
Or too little and become invisible.
Creative collaboration: partnership or teamwork is crucial to ensuring communications gets the results we want.
From identifying, defining and articulating key messages and benefits to creating and developing the content, a collaborative approach gets us there faster than everyone operating in isolation.
Have you got any C-words you’d like to add to the mix? Let me know your thoughts? Comment is absolutely free and it’s always healthy to exchange ideas and views.