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Overview: Communication Strategy

Communications appears complex. But a good communication strategy shouldn't be.

4-steps, 4 tables

I generally boil it all down to four simple, interrelated tables, defining:

  • Who you’re trying to reach: your audiences, including their needs and information preferences, and what your goals are for them
  • Why they should pay attention to you: starting with your Unique Value Proposition, craft a Global Elevator Pitch, and from that derive Editorial Messaging for each audience, reflecting their needs (above)
  • How you will get those messages to those audiences: an integrated, mutually supportive communications portfolio
  • When you will monitor and optimise those activities: key metrics, analyses and optimisation processes.

Process

A Word document entitled "communication strategy" gathering dust on a shelf is no use to anybody. The only way your strategy will have an impact is if:

  • you engage your colleagues during its development - after all, they have some of the answers you'll need;
  • and your ensure they understand the strategy once it's finalised - after all, their cooperation will be critical to its success.

There are many ways to go about this. My favourite option is to spend a few hours a week interviewing diverse members of your comms team and holding one or two workshops with them and others. That way we'll develop buy-in together along the way, and I'll be able to mentor your staff so that they can better implement the strategy.

But if that's not possible right now, I boiled my process down into an online course: 4-Step Communication Strategy Framework: demystify communications strategy

Relevant resources

4-Step Communication Strategy Framework: demystify communications strategy
mathewlowry.gumroad.com
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The 4-Step Communications Strategy Framework demystifies communication strategy.

12/07/2024
How minds change: win my place at the launch workshop
mathewlowry.medium.com
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Win my place at David McRaney ’s upcoming workshop by helping me write a chapter in an upcoming book on Personal Knowledge Graphs.

13/06/2022
Proof of concept: AI-supported knowledge management
mathewlowry.myhub.ai
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A neural network to help web content authors efficiently and completely characterise their content using the site taxonomy. Accuracy improves with use.

Proof of concept: Excel-managed dynamic knowledge browser
mathewlowry.myhub.ai
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An interactive knowledge visualisation providing a graphical overview of interrelated online concepts, edited dynamically with an Excel file. Featuring an accessible version driven by the same content.

Building six departments for four companies
mathewlowry.myhub.ai

A brief summary of my experience in building company structures and supporting processes, role definitions, etc.

Creative, Local, Young: what do Europe's young superheroes need?
www.facebook.com
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A workshop proposal for EuroPCom 2018 with @albawhitewolf, Mike Galsworthy (@Scientists4EU) and the original Captain Europe, reposted to Facebook by popular demand.

Integrating IT, internal and external communications for META Ventures
mathewlowry.myhub.ai
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META Ventures provides venture capital fund management, entrepreneurial training and innovation consultancy to cities, regions and national governments in several countries, as well as EU Institutions.

Institutional communications: strategy & tactics
mathewlowry.myhub.ai

I’ve just spent a few days running the Discovery phase of a new project to further develop the communication strategy of an EU Institution, with a particular focus on retooling its online, social media and publications tactics. Apart from focusing on developing a new information architecture, I’m running the overall project. This means not only en…

Tested & approved: communication strategy development process
mathewlowry.myhub.ai

I’m now at to the point where I can spend a few days interviewing key people in an organisation to develop a complete communication strategy.

06/02/2016
Blogging & CRM strategy development for Drop’pin
ec.europa.eu
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The EC set up Drop’pin to help young people find training, apprenticeship and intern opportunities across Europe. I did some content marketing (blogging, enewsletter, social media support) and developed a global CRM strategy.

Online Communities: Slides & Key Take-Aways from EuroPCom15
mathewlowry.myhub.ai
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ontent from my EuroPCom session on online communities, plus some takeaways and extra links.

Communication strategy, Science for Environment
mathewlowry.myhub.ai
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Came up with a winning communication strategy to promote worthy-but-heavy pdf reports from the European Commission.

EPALE online community of practice
epale.ec.europa.eu
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I won the epale online community of practice project and steered its inception phase. Years later, it is still one of the EC's most successful online communities, notably by its ambitious multilingualism strategy and high userbase, despite lacking any financial rewards for participation.

So, farewell thematic portals on EUROPA
mathewlowry.myhub.ai

Constructive discussions generally require good discussion documents. One of the Commission's major contributions to any European online space should therefore be a EUROPA that supports the conversations

User survey results, SmartCities Stakeholder Platform
eu-smartcities.eu
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When you want to create a community, asking uses what they need is the best way to start. We launched the 1-page website, with user survey, newsletter signup and social, inside two weeks of winning the project. Everything we developed the following year (2010) was based on the results.

Piloting a thematic online architecture for the EU (2003-07)
mathew.blogactiv.eu
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Project manager and architect of a successful pilot to reorganise EUROPA along thematic lines, so people could figure out What the EC did, Why and How, in areas of interest to them, without studying its labyrinthine internal structure.

An integrated communication strategy (2002-07) for DG INFSO
mathewlowry.myhub.ai
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The comm strategy for DG Information Society revoled around a segmentation of the target audience based on their level of interest in - and hence understanding of and motivation to visit/read/learn/share - the work of the DG.

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