Is your communications strategy working? 10 business benefits of an independent review

How well is your comms strategy or activity performing? Are you confident that the actions you are taking are aligned optimally to your objectives? Could you be doing more? What should you be measuring? Should you be spending more or less? It can be hard to know for sure, particularly for small and medium-sized companies or organisations.

With the nature of communications being multi-focused, creative, dynamic and responsive to issues in an ever changing environment, keeping track of what is working well and what less well can be a real challenge. In addition, aligning the asks of comms from all of your internal stakeholders can be difficult and managing comms can often feel like being a referee for everyone’s priorities on where activity or budget should be focused.

That’s why an independent check-in of your comms strategy through an impartial review or facilitated workshop with you and your team or stakeholders could provide valuable answers to tackling these issues, and give you the opportunity to explore new ideas.

An independent review process provides third party perspective on the context, actions and impacts of your comms and allows you to review and discuss strategy in a neutral setting.

As with taking time out for a medical health check, or discussion of your finances with an IFA, the review can offer valuable information, insight and inspiration to take you forward.

Here are 10 business benefits to consider:

1. Perspective: working within a business and living and breathing comms for it every day means that you are ultra close to the programmes, which can make it difficult to be fully objective - a review or workshop provides the opportunity to take a bird’s eye view of the overall strategy, and to reflect and challenge.

2. Neutrality: if you work with an agency to deliver your comms, there is a closeness to the relationship which may make feedback and challenge from both sides tricky – an independently facilitated review will enable both sides to combine thinking openly.

3. Answers: the objective framework of a review or workshop will ask the questions that elicit the answers to the what, why and so what of your comms approach, providing the information for you to take your optimal strategy forward.

4. Validation: you may be completely on track against existing objectives with an optimally performing programme. The review process will provide evidence for you and your internal stakeholders.

5. Clarity: you may have overwhelming or potentially conflicting asks from within the business for the comms strategy. The review will enable you to air these issues and agree priorities or a route to rationalising demands.

6. Engagement: you could choose to bring in your internal stakeholders to a facilitated workshop to engage them fully in the company’s comms – after all, comms exists to support their objectives, and so building understanding and consensus through reflecting on strategy will build rapport and trust in the future programme.

7. Action: dedicating time to an externally facilitated review process will overcome the fact that there is simply not adequate time for you to reflect on the strategy normally due to the fact you are so busy delivering – committing to the process will get this done while you still deliver day to day.

8. Fresh thinking: the energy unlocked by an independent review or workshop session will power you and your team to consider new ideas and innovations.

9. Benchmarking: a review will provide analysis of your programme in your market context, and will be a way for you to track your comms thinking, objectives, actions and impacts, building a robust repeatable route for managing its efficiency and effectiveness.

10. Re-energise: the simple process of taking time out to reflect will be a way to refresh the dynamic of your comms strategy, and the interaction with the stakeholders who work with you on it – creating a way for everyone to ask questions and discuss, will build team rapport and excitement about the programme – a total win-win.

Interested to find out more about how I can help with strategic thinking, reviews and workshops?  For a free chat please get in touch.