Charting your marketing communications roadmap might look like a herculean task, and you may end up asking yourself- Do we really need to do this? And here’s the answer- yes, you do!
The right marketing communications plan helps you cut through the clutter and differentiates your brand in a very subtle, yet professional way. Because you don’t send out a series of robotic messages that sound bizarre on different platforms.
With a well-thought-out Marcom strategy, you take an integrated approach and create messaging that resonates with your audience. Here’s how!
Trends
Robust planning requires you to understand all the marketing, tech, and media trends and plan ahead. With tools like Google Trends, Nielsen, eMarketer, SEMrush, and HubSpot, you get to know your audience, uncover their needs, and create communications that matter to them.
Google Trends allows you to even anticipate your customers’ responses to various future campaigns. Trends data reflects search behavior in real-time as well as non-real-time.
“Trends data helps you build an extremely relevant marketing communications plan because you get an in-depth knowledge of what your audience is curious about, what they’re searching for, and in turn, their goals, interests, and motivations”
You can begin with searching for one particular topic on Google trends or a set of related topics. And once you gauge customer responses and the level of enthusiasm around the topic- storytelling begins!
Source
Messaging
Let’s dive into all the elements that are foundational for creating appealing messages. Make sure your customers understand your messages and get the point you’re trying to present. Follow the rules of business writing, keeping it clear, concise, and sharp.
“The best marketing communications evoke emotions. So take a step back here and understand your customer before you start penning down the messages. Comprehend what you’re trying to achieve with each campaign and why!”
Set objectives for each campaign and measure those goals to track progress. Your messaging should build trust in customers as well as all stakeholders. The number of media channels has amplified enormously, now is the time to consider which ones work for you and do away with the ones that don’t.
Analysis
Analyze each campaign to understand how your audience engages with your messaging, the customer behavior for each channel, and why and how people interact on a specific channel. Analysis should be an ongoing process to enhance your marketing communications plan
Quantify your marketing communication goals. Leverage technology as a weapon and gain a competitive advantage. Track your competitors’ keywords, events, news coverage, and social media to outsmart them by creating impeccable experiences for your audience. For this purpose, you may use Google Alerts, Awario, Sprout Social, and Mention.
Bonus Point
You need to build empathy to create a stronger marketing communications plan. Ask yourself does it have the right tone? How does it make your customer feel? Lack of empathy is also a lack of creativity.
Think about the communication barriers and obstacles. What is important to your customers? Are you delivering impact? Because if you’re not putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and trying to feel what they feel, what’s the point?
Thank you for reading!