Research by Project.co found that communication has become more challenging for 33% of people over the past 12 months. And it’s understandable to see why — over the last few years, we’ve collectively gone through a major shift in the way we communicate with everyone from colleagues and clients to end-users.
Even without the pandemic, communication preferences and how we receive and process information changes constantly. And that’s why it’s crucial to use a framework when developing a solid communication strategy. Without structure, your strategy lacks direction, which means it’s kind of pointless.
At Kaleidoscope, we use the below five framework elements as a tool to plan comms campaigns, ultimately delivering impact and making a change for good.
Set objectives
Marketers who are goal setters are 377% more successful, so there you have it, goal setting gets you places! Without clear objectives and goals, your team isn’t on the same page — no one knows the campaign’s overall aim, so the strategy becomes lacklustre and directionless.
So start by thinking about the objectives you want to achieve as an organisational team. We don’t just mean simply focusing on the outputs, but what do you hope to have achieved at the end of this campaign?
Focus on behavioural changes
As a result of your campaign or project, what do you want people to be doing? What are you trying to influence? You want to focus on the positive behaviours you’re hoping to achieve from this campaign, and you’ll want to be specific.
Let’s say it’s a social change programme about green transport initiatives — you want to drill down into the smaller details of the behavioural outcomes, such as wanting to get more people to take the bus each morning or recycle their plastic bottles.
Clearly identify your audience
Everyone harps on about the importance of understanding the audience you’re trying to reach, but it’s essential because if you don’t, who are you communicating with? Your objectives will never be met, and your campaign will never be propelled forward with this crucial step.
Analyse data to find audience segments and dive deeper into audience segmentation — build an understanding of who they are, what they do, how they work, and what you know about their existing choices. For example, if your campaign is a green transport initiative, how are they currently getting around the city? Are they driving?
Understand audience motivation
Understanding why someone does something helps you climb inside their mind and deconstruct the barriers they have to usage or purchase. Be single-minded in your approach to this step; focus on just one or two motivators to ensure your campaign is streamlined. For example, let’s go back to the green transport initiative — if you find they’re driving to work in the morning, why are they driving? Maybe it’s convenient, or they have a lack of knowledge when it comes to other transport options.
It’s important to start colouring in any gaps you might have about your audience and the reason for the choices they make. This is the only way you’ll unpick how you can influence them positively with your campaign.
Figure out what action you should take
Always leave this until last because you truly don’t know the best way to communicate your campaign to your audience until you’ve done all the above. At the start of your research, you might have thought a poster might have done the job, but really, it turns out, to reach them best, you need an outdoor campaign to raise awareness of the issue or to create a new digital tool.
This is where you determine the appropriate set of actions. It’s crucial to understand that communications don’t exist in isolation — they need to work robustly alongside other tactics.
That’s why at Kaleidoscope, we work open-mindedly — we make sure all our team members follow each part of the framework to answer the questions in full to achieve true clarity before taking action.
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