MarComms

Communicating Your Message
Communicating your company message successfully is an ongoing process that requires careful thought and planning from the outset, and the commitment to carry it through in detail.

Appraisal and Appreciation
The first step is to appreciate your current position, and appraise your offering, and establish clearly the base from which you will build your market share. Establishing your current position is the logical place to start, and allows you to:

  • define your objectives,
  • identify your publics,
  • and map your communications routes.

Define Your Objectives
A list of objectives should be identified in advance to guide the direction of the communications effort, and against which to measure progress and success. Objectives need to be set realistically in terms of constraint of resources - especially available budget, and time scale.

Identify Your "Publics" or "Audience"
"Publics" or "Audience" are pr jargon terms that can be defined as those people, internal and external, with whom you wish to communicate your message. Public relations activity - especially in the high tech sector - is very seldom directed at the "general public", but is more usually geared towards subsets: the banking technology community, for example, or call centre technologists. They can be inside and/or outside your organisation - investors for example, or potential and/or existing employees are examples of "publics".

Examples of publics for a typical high tech company might include:

  • Opinion leaders/industry analysts
  • the media - trade, IT, general, print, broadcast, online
  • employees
  • potential employees
  • investor community
  • distributors/channel - ISV/VAR communities, virtual company partners
  • consumer/end users
  • the community
  • trade unions
  • suppliers of services and materials

By defining your audience, you can then:

  • identify all the groups relative to the programme
  • establish priorities and expectations within the scope of the resources available
  • select media and techniques to reach them
  • craft the message effectively to suit the audience.

Communicating with Your "Audience" or "Publics": Selecting Media and Techniques
 Having identified your audience, the best way of communicating with them needs to be identified. These might include:

  • Press releases: distributed to national, IT, trades, TV, radio:
  • Trade shows: general technology shows as well as sector-specific trade shows: inviting local suppliers, press, potential distribution channels and so on;
  • Own publications: newsletters, case studies to be distributed to sales, prospects, Journalists, ISVs, VARs, etc.;
  • Brochures, sales collateral;
  • Web communications, discussion threads, bulletin boards, and other web techniques.

Communicating with your audiences requires a clear focus and a dedicated strategy.  Identifying the key individuals, organisations and publications, devising the strategies to reach them and deploying and following through on those strategies requires an intelligent and hardworking approach.  

An approach of the kind Curzon Associates can offer you.