Communication Strategy That Works

We talk a lot about 'goals' especially at this time of the year, but often we are not clear on why we have chosen them, or how we will arrive at the outcome we want. Here are a few reasons why it's important.

Setting a clear, actionable goal is the first step towards achieving success. It signals to yourself and others what you want to achieve, and mobilizes your resources towards making it happen. Without a goal, you might be working towards something that isn't quite what you really want, or you might not be working at all. You might think you're making progress when in reality you're nowhere near your goal.

When you set a goal, you're committing to working towards a result. This can be as simple as 'I will complete this project by the deadline

So I am sharing with you why I think it's important to set strategic goals regardless of what time of year it is and how you can go about it in a simple way.

Episodes mentioned in this podcast; Ep. 04 How to measure your comms impact

Let's dive in!

What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business (also here: https://bit.ly/SevenSteps2Success )

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The world we live in is changing at an unprecedented rate: Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things are transforming our economy and society; renewable energy is gaining momentum; and millions of people are calling for a better way of doing business.

All of this means that businesses have a number of communications challenges. This episode highlights the unique opportunities and challenges faced by communicators in terms of skills and how communications professionals can help businesses with their internal and external comms in 2022 and beyond.

What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business (also here: https://bit.ly/SevenSteps2Success )

Follow me on LinkedIn

This one is a corker. I enjoyed talking to Helen Reynolds so much!

Helen is a social media trainer, and her company comms creatives help a lot of professional communicators and freelancers navigate the world of social media, have more personality, and have more impact with their social media.

Helen and I first met on a training session many years ago, and she has since built a successful online training business Comms Creatives. She is also well known for her comms cartoons which make us all laugh.

Helen and I have a really engaging and conversational discussion covering some important topics such as;

- How do you promote yourself on social media?

- Why and when to use social media - what's your purpose?

- Authenticity and tone of voice - how hard is this? Is it easy to get wrong/right?

- Balance and content - we hear a lot of opinion around this, how much is too much etc

- what's hot and what's not right now? What should people look for in 2022?

And as always, I throw in some personal reflections and insight.

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I have enjoyed making this one.

Let's dive in.

You can also read the transcript attached to this episode.

Check out Helen's social media courses at Comms Creatives

What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business (also here: https://bit.ly/SevenSteps2Success )

Follow me on LinkedIn

PS – Did you know? Communication Strategy That Works is in the top 90 UK Small Business Podcasts you must listen to in 2021, by Feedspot.

A new year is often a time for a fresh start. It's a great time to audit how effective your business communication is.

Most businesses will undertake financial audits and expenses claims audits, but how often do you audit how you communicate with customers and other stakeholders?

Some businesses I've worked with are really good at this.

However, I am always amazed at the number of businesses that don't do this. This could be a big factor in why some of those messages are not getting through to customers.

Effective communication leads to better marketing and more traction, which ultimately helps with more sales, right? So measuring how it's going and starting with a desktop audit it a good idea if you've not done it before.

So this episode is a re-run, a refresh and a New Year reminder to audit your communication. It covers four reasons why I think you should undertake a communication audit of your business now and gives you some tips on getting started.

Let's dive in!

Episode mentioned is: Episode 4.

Before you go;

You can download my FREE activity tracker if you're thinking of doing an audit, this is a good first step.

PS – Did you know? Communication Strategy That Works is in the top 90 UK Small Business Podcasts you must listen to in 2021, by Feedspot.

I am a big fan of testing and learning. I started my career in a credit card company in corporate comms and marketing, and they 'invented' the balance transfer (yeah, it was that long ago!). One of the many things I learned from the amazing people I worked with there and taken forward into my career from that is the 'test and learn' philosophy. This approach is probably why I love working with growing businesses and startups so much.

A blended channel mix and trying new things should be part of every great comms plan. So I will give you three content types to try on 2022 if you haven't tried them already.

Let's dive in!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Invideo.com ; https://invideo.io/blog/video-marketing-statistics/

YouTube stats Think With Google https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-ca/advertising-channels/video/self-directed-learning-youtube/

Video stats HubSpot: https://research.hubspot.com/content-trends-global-preferences

Content Marketing Institute content to try in 2022: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2021/11/fresh-content-types-marketer-consider/

What to do next:

Get my FREE 5 Lessons on how to use Audio as part of your B2B strategy https://bit.ly/B2BAudioLessons

OR grab my FREE 7 steps to success roadmap for strategic communication

Follow/DM me on LinkedIn : https://bit.ly/FollowMeLinkedIn

PS – Did you know? Communication Strategy That Works is in the top 90 UK Small Business Podcasts you must listen to in 2021, by Feedspot.

Social media will always be a staple of your comms plan, but it's easy to get wrong. And hard work to get right, it seems.

This episode is a teaser for a great 'Deep Dive' episode I have coming up with the wonderful Helen Reynolds from the Comms Creatives in January so look out for that one.

Let's dive in!

Links in this episode:

Sue, You're shouting at tea: https://twitter.com/yorkshiretea/status/1232293516862218240?lang=en

What to do next:

Get my FREE 5 Lessons on how to use Audio as part of your B2B strategy https://bit.ly/B2BAudioLessons

Follow/DM me on LinkedIn : https://bit.ly/FollowMeLinkedIn

PS – Did you know? Communication Strategy That Works is in the top 90 UK Small Business Podcasts you must listen to in 2021, by Feedspot.

Afer the success of the 'summer hacks' series, I thought I would do another one to give you some quick hacks to help you at this busy end of year period.

This is episode one of three and focuses on reviewing and assessing your success from 2021 in order to plan 2022. Reviewing and measuring your impact means you can hire an effective team, you can focus your budget and effort where it's needed, and you will start to see better results.

The great thing about this episode is it can be used for your personal life goals as well as work. What do you need to do to hit your goals in 2022?

let's dive in!

Download my free resource to help you start recording your activity to effectively plan for 2022 nd beyond!:

My Activity Tracker: https://bit.ly/TrackActivity

Get in touch

Follow/DM me on LinkedIn : https://bit.ly/FollowMeLinkedIn

PS – Did you know? Communication Strategy That Works is in the top 90 UK Small Business Podcasts you must listen to in 2021, by Feedspot.

Continuing celebrations for the podcast's one year birthday, I reflect on what's been popular and successful for marketers in B2B in terms of content and where your focus should be in 2022.

I cover,

Understanding your audience's preferences or 'audience-led content' what to focus on and how to engage your audience effectively, how to prioritise and when to say; no, it's not working let's move on.

Let's dive in!

This episode content was first featured in It's a B2B Content Thing on LinkedIn live WATCH IT HERE: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/652904803

What to do next?

Treat yourself to my strategic planning resource bundle of templates and guides to help you plan 2022 HERE: https://bit.ly/CTW_Resources

I am thrilled to have Jenni Field on the podcast, especially as it's the podcast's birthday month! I usually talk about external communication. But, today I wanted to open up the conversation around internal communication as a strategic function within your businesses. And Jenni Field has worked in communications for almost 20 years, and she now specialises in helping teams and leaders use communication to take people and organisations from chaos to calm. She helps business leaders understand how to get teams to work better and work more efficiently with a focus on internal communications.

We cover a lot in this 'Deep Dive' episode! you'll learn;

• when is the best time to think about internal communication support as part of your team
• where it sits in a growing business
• how to recognise 'chaos' in your business
• what soft skills to look for in a great internal communicator
• what's changing/has changed in internal communications post-pandemic

Let's dive in!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Jenni's book: https://redefiningcomms.com/influential-internal-communication-book-jenni-field/

The Field Model podcast episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/chaos-to-calm-the-field-model-s1-e7/id1588233391?i=1000541284904

Redefining Communications

Podcast: https://redefiningcomms.com/podcast-redefining-communications-with-jenni-field/

Get my strategic download bundle of templates HERE: https://bit.ly/CTW_Resources

Oh my, we are on episode 50! I can't believe it. How do I celebrate this epic milestone? I can't possibly give you 50 things - that's a challenge even for me, and you have my back catalogue to work through for that already...:) So I thought I would summarise the heart of this show, which is about creating the right approach for your B2B comms.

So today, I share 5, not 50, things to create a B2B comms impact.

You see, a good comms plan involves a number of elements working together as part of a strategy. You don't want to set off and say, 'we're going to hold an event' without thinking about who that is for and what you want the end result to be for your business. When I put a strategy together I follow a process. I look at your purpose, what success looks like, who your customers are, how to get in front of them, what to say to them, and what tactics to use.

Let's dive in!

Further listening - my entire back catalogue of 50 episodes!

But in particular, this one: Ep 02. Are you a goal digger? https://henbe.co.uk/2020/12/01/ep-02-are-you-a-goal-digger-why-you-need-to-set-communication-goals/

Join my learning community and unlock my resource pack of 4 amazing resources https://bit.ly/CTW_Resources

Get in touch

Follow/DM me on LinkedIn : https://bit.ly/FollowMeLinkedIn

PS – Did you know? Communication Strategy That Works is in the top 90 UK Small Business Podcasts you must listen to in 2021, by Feedspot.