Why your organization needs to invest in a communications strategy

Written By Olivia Adams

Your organization is on a mission to make a positive difference through the product or service you deliver.

You’ve been working hard to get your positioning right and attract customers — but haven’t had the time or resources to create a communications strategy to guide you as you grow.

While you know communications is important and something you need to eventually prioritize, but it’s been easy to kick the can down the road when there are so many tasks and projects to tackle.

However, a lack of a communications strategy is costly and can hurt your organization’s success. In fact, it’s estimated businesses lose $1.2 trillion annually due to poor communication. 

Working with small- to medium-size organizations undergoing growth, I’ve seen them face challenges like:

  • Scattered and inconsistent communications: Information is shared in a way that feels random, without a clear strategy or follow up.

  • Unclear, muddled messaging messaging: Without a clear strategy, messaging is created in a silo and doesn’t go through review by a communications team.

  • Frustrated employees and customers: When you’re in the trenches of growing your organization, it’s easy to forget your employees and customers are people, too. When communications are muddled or inconsistent, frustration builds quickly, and if left unaddressed, results in employee turnover, reduced productivity, and customer churn. 

  • Reactivity when things go wrong: Most organizations will face a crisis, whether it’s a product bug that causes an issue in software for users or a natural disaster hits your community. Whatever the crisis is, if you haven’t built a runway for proactive communications and trust with your target audience(s), it will be even harder to get accurate information delivered to them when times are hard. 

  • Reduced productivity: Leaders estimate teams lose the equivalent of nearly an entire workday (7.47 hours) each week to poor communication — or approximately $12,506 per employee every year. When done right, communications can be used to empower teams, create clear expectations, and get employees excited about your goals.

  • Loss of brand trust: All of these challenges build up to reduced trust in your brand if left unaddressed. If people feel they can’t look to you as a source of information or timely updates, they will start to lose trust in your organization and take their businesses — or careers — elsewhere. 

This is a short list, and fortunately, you’re exactly where you need to be in order to take a proactive approach to your communications strategy.

Many of the organizations I’ve had the opportunity to work with value communications and are able to get ahead of these challenges before it’s too late. Or even if they are facing challenges, they have the willingness to jump in, learn effective communication strategies, and apply those best practices to their organization. 

Maybe you are a new business and have hired your team of 10 people, but you haven’t figured out a process for communicating regular business updates about goals, changes, and key information that empowers teams to do their work. 

Perhaps you’re starting to grow fast, and you want a clear strategy for communicating with your market and current customers while also keeping your team in the loop. 

You could be going through a significant change — such as getting ready to acquire another business, restructure your organization, or bring on new leadership roles. 

With a clear communications strategy in place, it makes it easier to prepare for change and growth as your business evolves. It allows you to communicate clearly with your internal teams along with your customers and external stakeholders. When you get into a steady rhythm of proactive communications, it builds trust with your target audiences and you start to see strong relationships form and happy employees and customers that turn into true champions of your brand. 

Whether you are in the early stages of your organization or you are preparing for a year of significant growth ahead, there’s never been a better time to invest in communications for your organization.

If you’re wondering if now is the time to get started with a strategic communications partner, let’s connect for a 30-minute consult. I’d love to learn about your organization and your goals.

Olivia Adams