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Strategic Communications: A Definition

Strategic Communications is the selected use of communication tools and techniques in a bespoke way. Strategic communications build trust among key stakeholders as well as long-term value for the business of an organisation.

In order to be successful, an organisation must be able to make an honest and insightful analysis of the situation coupled with an integrated strategic communications approach with clear objectives and metrics to measure progress.

Senior consultant Bert Regeer has built a rich experience in this area. The following are his insights on Strategic Communications.

Strategic Communications: Unlocking the full potential of communications for an organisation

In quite a few annual plans of communications departments you will be able to read phrases such as “supporting the business in achieving its growth ambitions” or “helping the organisation to realise its aspired portfolio”.

In itself, these types of descriptions could be spot-on. Although you would hope the PR team does not translate such an overall task into re-actively communicating what the business decides or undertakes.

You would hope the team is out there in front of the business analysing the stakeholder “force-field” and subsequently implementing a strategic game plan with innovative techniques creating trusted relationships and business opportunities.

The potential impact of communications has grown over the years–and still is–in line with the development of new technologies and growing demands of external stakeholders due to changing societal expectations.

As the historic triangle of trust between government, industry and society at large is already for quite a while broken, the communications profession has the ability to produce trusted relationships in a modern way, while addressing at the same stakeholder demands on transparency and relevance for society that goes far beyond employment, tax and CSR.

In applying the full value of communications for your organisation, there is some disappointing news to share upfront: there is no straightforward recipe on the web or a standard rule book on the shelve that guides you for every situation to the winning approach.

Nor is there a silver bullet.

Every situation will need a bespoke approach selecting some specific ingredients and approaches coupled with a good advice on tone and intensity. Bringing sound judgment to the table has always been a key capability of communications leaders. This remains, now and in the future.

In the absence of a simple navigator that guides an organisation from A to B, there are a couple of generics for organisations to consider in building an integrated and strategic communications plan for business value:

Strategic Communications: Define Your B

Be very clear and honest what you want to achieve by analysing the current situation (A) and expressing where you want to go to (B), hence focus on your ‘A’ and ‘B’. In order to complete this phase, it is recommended that a solid force-field analysis is carried out including a stakeholder power map.

This looks like a simple exercise filling out some standards templates. That is however not the case. I came across various situation over the years that four fingers pointed at a specific issue or stakeholder group that was seen as blocking a situation, whilst in reality the thumb made it clear that unhelpful internal behaviours or the complete absence of any social relevance was causing an overload of distrust.

Strategic Communications: The Narrative

In quite some situations you want to radically change the conversations and subsequent behaviours of institutional stakeholders or customer around your organisation. That is quite a task. Your ally in this effort is The Narrative.

So, dream-up your new narrative with key messages and supporting evidence in a clean message house or framework. I have seen a lot of these frameworks. Most of the time well designed, but it’s is all about the content… There are too many examples around that lack any external impact as internal clearing rounds knocked out all crisp, quotable, creative content that resonates externally.

There are too many examples around that lack any external impact as internal clearing rounds knocked out all crisp, quotable, creative content that resonates externally.

Strategic Communications: Alliance Management

Organisations do think they have to undertake most tasks by themselves. Alliance Management is a big chunk of strategic communications. But how to find the best partner? Or how to build a coalition that makes sense externally and is impactful?

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Download Tantalus Tactics: Strategic Communications to learn how to lay the groundwork for stakeholder engagement.

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Strategic Communications: Campaigns

Finally, there is the campaign thinking. Select a handful themes and orchestrate a mix of channels that fit the message. Then you will need to play with all channels and tools in a way that you will stay in the driving seat of the external conversation in order to get your message across and achieve your objective.

About Strategic Communications expert Bert Regeer

As one of Tantalus’ most senior management consultants, Bert Regeer has more than 25 years of hands-on and leadership experience. He is the former Vice-President Communications for Royal Dutch Shell, leading strategy development and reputation plan implementation with a clear focus to build business value.

Bert has extensive experience in change management, including business needs, organizational design, leadership culture, staff competencies, efficient work processes, team behaviors as well as managing the transition.

He’s also a trusted advisor of senior management in a range of companies.

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