The GAPc Communications Strategy

Every business needs a communications strategy. Actually, multiple communications strategies. Communications spread knowledge and awareness about a company's products and/or services. They reflect a company's culture back to employees. They foster a common language and understanding for workers and customers. They represent the language the company uses to share experiences and information with its customers.

Today, marketers and communications professionals have myriad channels through which to distribute valuable information about products, services, and company policy and news. Emails, presentations, internal news sites, or professional social channels like Slack or Trello comprise internal communications' shared environment. Beside the social media area, many writers and editors will come into contact with each piece of communications going out.

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Smart marketers and communications managers will agree that a communications campaign boils down to the following four tenets, called here the GAPc strategy. Content creators can use the strategy as a backbone for creating cohesive narratives.

GAPc stands for Goals, Audience, and Plan, and channels

1. Goals -- Ascertaining marketing goals is the first step to a successful communications strategy. It's much more difficult to hit an obscure target. Crystallizing ambitions leads to key performance indicators that help hold marketing campaigns accountable for results.

2. Audience -- Once you've figured out your goals, you need to figure out the correct audience for each. Target audiences can include repeat customers, customer acquisitions, social influencers, word-of-mouth campaigns, or the media.

3. Plan -- So you've got your goals and audience figured out. Now is the time for tactics. How are you going to take that hill? This is where you need to start planning. What is the communication? Which audience does each communication target? What's the schedule for the launch of each campaign or event? What format will the communications and collateral take? Who or which teams are going to do it? This is a really fun part and requires a lot of creativity.

4. Channels -- This is the last step. Once you've laid out your communications tactics, it is time to lay out which channels are relevant to which tactic. You can tackle this step by laying out a matrix comparing each channel with each communication to figure out where you need to focus resources. This is really a part of the Plan phase, but it helps to specify channels for the overall strategy. Figuring out the right channels will help you solve the "who" question, as well.

And that's it. When you've got a viable GAPc strategy, you're ready to tap the talent necessary to carry out each communication. Good luck!