A holistic communication strategy is an absolute milestone for any business. Both young companies and experienced corporations should pay particular attention to how they are perceived by current and potential customers, as well as contractors, investors, or society at large. To achieve this, Polish businesses must invest in PR and marketing activities, but consistently following a previously laid-out plan. How should it be designed and then implemented?
Step 1. Know your customers
Step 1. Know your customers
A holistic communication strategy cannot do without an in-depth analysis of a given business's target audience. For this purpose, so-called Personas (Buyer Persona) and Customer Journeys (Customer Journey) are very often created. What lies behind them?
The former represent the statistical consumer or recipient of the goods of the company commissioning the research. The Persona describes, among other things, the customer's demographics, personality – i.e., openness to change – as well as motivations, decision criteria in the purchasing process, Success Factors, and Perceived Barriers. This stage of developing a communication strategy is all the more important because it gives the marketing and PR team insight into the target audience's behaviors, as well as its specific preferences – including activity on social media and sources of influence on purchasing decisions.
The Customer Journey, in turn, is a detailed description of the path the Persona takes from the moment they hear about a given product or service, through learning about the offer, comparing it with the competition, choosing a service provider or product supplier, making the first purchase, and then developing loyalty to the brand. Importantly, the best market analysts identify at each stage, among other things, the media that influence the Persona's decisions, as well as the questions the customer asks at a given moment. These are extremely important factors influencing further strategy planning.
But how do you identify the Persona and the Customer Journey? This is not done randomly or intuitively. The foundation consists of scientific methods, more specifically quantitative and qualitative methods. In the case of the former, a popular form is survey questionnaires, whose responses are analyzed at subsequent stages and divided into specific groups. After identifying the so-called clusters, we move on to individual interviews or focus groups. The latter have been successfully carried out by the Media Forum team for several years. Thanks to this, our clients are guaranteed reliable data about their target audience.
Step 2. Know yourself
Step 2. Know yourself
Once we know the group interested in the company's offer or one that could be a potential target audience, the next stage is an in-depth analysis of the given business's priorities. This concerns not only the current business profile, but also plans for the coming years, the team's ambitions, and the team's realistic capacity.
Media Forum determines the business profile of a given company through individual interviews not only with the management board itself, but also through source analysis – previous media publications or opinions on forums or in groups. When determining future priorities, it is crucial to learn not only the perspective of the management team, but also that of specialists from individual departments. This approach also helps to better define the team's ambitions and the real chances of implementing the communication strategy.
Step 3. Create prototypes
Once we know the target audience and the business itself, the next step is to create the first outlines of specific communication activities. Their integral part is the content publication strategy, as well as visual identity and consistency between these elements.
In the case of PR and genuinely valuable marketing, all project proposals must respond both to the Persona's needs and preferences at every stage of the Customer Journey, and to the real priorities of the company itself. Without harmony between these three areas, developing any strategy is pointless, and the money spent by the management board goes down the drain.
How to implement an effective communication strategy in 5 steps
When working with its clients, Media Forum designs the so-called Tone of Voice of the content, which matches the characteristics of the target audience, Reasons to Believe (RTBs), i.e., the reasons why this particular style of communication responds to the Persona's real needs, and also delivers the first prototypes – for example, logos for the brand. These are important because they constitute the subject of the next step, which aims at the final verification of the work completed so far.
Step 4. Test
The aforementioned content prototypes (e.g., posts or media publications), and especially brand logos, are the subject of further in-depth research within focus groups. In this way, we not only have the opportunity to observe the target audience's first reactions to Media Forum's proposals, but also to verify our own shortcomings.
That's right – the most reliable and simply honest agencies admit their own mistakes, which most often become the source of the best inspiration for the future. The testing stage is precisely the moment for missteps, deepening knowledge about the Persona, and improving prototypes so that, ultimately, they become an effective tool for responding to customer needs.
The testing stage in practice
Media Forum already has 25 years of experience in implementing holistic communication strategies, and the testing stage is one of the most valuable steps in the entire process. Let us not underestimate potential risk or limit ourselves to our own intuition – only credible data will show us whether a given approach works or not.
Step 5. Implement
Step 5. Implement
The final stage, the step toward implementation, is the crème de la crème of the entire planning process. This is when we return to the key conclusions from previous research and determine how to implement our projects. One of the most effective concepts is expert positioning. This method allows for multi-track publishing activities for personal branding.
In this category, the Media Forum team has already promoted hundreds of experts from various fields, which has resulted in both increased sales and – above all – greater credibility for the given business in the market. This is a key element of the whole puzzle, because without trust, further attempts to boost revenue are pointless.
The implementation stage is also a test of cooperation between the client and the agency, or between the company and the communications and marketing team. That is precisely why it is so important to understand the real strengths of the entire organization from step two. Looking at market competition, I see how often this aspect is overlooked and what effects it leads to.
Without the implementation stage, it is impossible to run an effective social media strategy, advertising campaign, or SEO optimization activities. However, by following the step by step principle, we can achieve a great deal.
Author: Katarzyna Jarczewska – co-owner and managing partner of the Media Forum advertising and PR agency.
Summary
An effective communication strategy requires an in-depth analysis of the target audience, understanding the company's priorities, and testing prototypes before implementation. Media Forum points out that it is crucial to combine quantitative and qualitative research in order to avoid intuitive actions. The testing stage is also a valuable practice, as it helps catch mistakes and refine the message. The company emphasizes the role of expert positioning in building trust and enhancing the brand's credibility in the market.
