Do All Businesses Need a Communications Strategy?

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Communication is key in businesses of all sizes. From communicating with customers to conveying messages internally, communication plays a major role in the success of every business.
 
But do all businesses need a communications strategy? Sure the global organisation that has subs in all corners of the globe could definitely benefit from a well thought out communications strategy, but what about smaller organisations?
 
Keep reading to find out more about the power of communications and how you can improve your business’s fortunes by placing greater emphasis on it.

What are communications?

In a nutshell, in business, communications is the sharing of information between people within an enterprise. Communication can refer to both internal and external approaches.
 
Internal communication is particularly important to link together all the different aspects of a business and ensure that everyone is working towards one common goal.
 
External communication is where a business communicates about its products and services to prospective customers and key stakeholders. This could be in the form of a press release, social media feed and so much more.

How businesses can improve their communications

Use VoIP

Telecoms costs can spiral out of control, especially if you are regularly communicating with people who are based abroad. Installing a VoIP system is a fantastic way of reducing the cost and increasing the reliability of telecoms.
 
Use a client communication tool

If you work closely with clients, communication is key to both allow you to do your job but also for clients to monitor progress. Email is a useful tool for communicating but we can do better.
 
Tools like Jira allow you to create to do lists that can be shared with clients. You’ll both be able to access a dashboard that displays work progress, deadlines, completion dates and so much more.
 
By taking a more organised approach to the way in which you keep clients in the loop, you’ll not only stand out from your competitors but you’ll also be able to keep on top of things far more easily and there will be no more need to scroll through endless email threads.
 
Meet clients face to face

Whilst we are living in a digitally dominated age, nothing beats meeting a client face to face.
 
Ditch the email and mobile phone and go and meet your clients face to face every once in a while to provide an update and find out more about how you can improve your offering. You’ll find that an hour out of your day for a meeting is far more productive than a lengthy email thread followed by a phone call.
 
If you still aren’t convinced of the importance of meeting clients face to face, you will be by the time you finish reading this comprehensive post from Marketing Land.
 
Hold regular team meetings

Ensuring that everyone within your business has a clear set of tasks and fully understands the collaborative goals is invaluable.
 
Holding weekly meetings is a fantastic way of bringing different functions of the business together and keeping everyone aware of what is going on. For example, if the marketing team are planning on doing a promotion, the sales team need to be aware that they could experience an increased number of calls and the inventory manager needs to keep on top of stock levels.
 
Running team meetings is an art form, without the correct approach it can easily turn into an hour long discussion that has no end product. Take a look at these top tips for running effective team meetings to ensure that your meetings are as productive as possible.
 
It’s up to you how frequently you hold the meetings, we’d suggest weekly but you can hold them slightly less frequently if you prefer.
 
Measure results

As with anything, it is vital that you measure the results of any communication to determine whether or not it was a success. The information that you gather from measuring results will provide valuable insight into how you can modify your approach to get the most out of future communication efforts.
 
To summarise, there are various ways in which you business can improve its approach to communication. Global organisations will need to take a more in-depth and integrated approach, but for smaller business, just making straightforward adjustments like utilise client communication software can have an extremely positive impact on their business’s ability to achieve its goals.