Factors influencing your communication process

In the communication process, the sender's role is to encode their message so the receiver can interpret their message. The receiver's role is to decode and interpret the sender's messages to understand the message. 

Outcomes:

1. a sender could be misunderstood

2. a receiver can misread the message

3. receiver understood the message and chose to disagree.

Underlying elements involved in communications:

• Participant refers to all people involved in a communication process.

• A sender (or source) is a person who forms the message and attempts to communicate it through verbal and non-verbal behaviour.

• A receiver is a person who receives the message and interprets it.

• Messages consist of both intentional and non-intentional components.

• Context refers to the setting in which the communication takes place. It can include the physical environment and factors such as the people present and their relationships.

• Physical and psychological settings make up the context of the communication in the communication process.

• Channels are the means and pathways by which messages are sent and can include sound, written symbols, non-verbal messages, scent, or the distance between two participants.

• Rules are guidelines (explicit or implicit) about appropriate and inappropriate.

Select the right metric for your communications campagin

To select the right metric I’ve applied a Return on Objective (ROO) approach to links business outcome to communications activity.

• Start with the desired outcome and work backwards identify the metric to track.

• Try to relate objectives to financial outcomes if you can.

• Measure success on four different levels: 1. Financial outcome, 2. Communication objective, 3. Audience attitude, 4. Communication activity.

Steps

1. Define the outcome metrics.

   • Sales, Customer loyalty, Efficiency (speed, cost of production), Employee productivity, Growth in a specific market.

2. Define the behavioural metrics pre-agreed during communications objective.

   • Engagement indicators, Referrals, Word of Mouth, Return visits, Downloads, Level of participation.

3. Metrics to capture attitudes you want to achieve through communications.

   • Participation, Affinity, Likelihood to recommend, Willingness to participate, Tone of comments.

4. Communications channel volume or transactional metrics.

   • Readership, Followers, Sentiment, Number of posts, Attendance.

Communication execution tips

The role of communications in messaging development and execution.

Create message	Enable others to communicate	Participate in existing conversations
Communication goal: create outcome-focused messages.	Communication goal: Coach person leading the communication.	Communication goal: Facilitate continuous information sharing and exchanging through existing networks.
Tips for execution: Start with the business outcomes. Centre message around key outcomes. Engage the audience with messages that trigger an emotional connection.	Tips for execution:  Coach managers and leaders on how to conduct dialogue sessions. Give step by step guide to help managers plan dialogue activities. Teach managers how to be quality listeners and engage employees in the dialogue.	Tips for execution: Monitor what stakeholders are saying about your company. Establish guidelines for responding to criticism online. Provide safe forums for stakeholders to provide feedback and criticism. Teach employees to be spokespersons.

One-page action plan

This one-pager is designed to gain buy-in before executing the communications plan. Remember to check if there’s a cost related to an activity, this could influence communication and content strategy.

Business objectives What business objectives are you supporting with this communication activity?
Target audience For that business objective who is the audience you need to consider and influence? Primary audience objective, Influencer 1 objective, Influencer 2 objective.
Communication objective For your selected business objective what do you want your target audience to DO, THINK, REMEMBER, TELL?  Primary audience objective, Influencer 1 objective, Influencer 2 objective.
Activity	Channel	Owner and timeline	Metric
What activity?	What is the best channel for your objective?	Who is responsible for this activity? What is the target end date for this activity?	How will we measure the success of the activity and link it to the objective? In what timeframe?

Choose the channel based on what you’re trying to achieve

The channel you decide to use will depend on where you work. Consider the culture and size of the organisation and team.

Channel type	Example	Good for	Comms role	Pros	Cons
Central (one to many)	Press release, email, memo, intranet post.	Inform a large group about an issue or initiative.	Create a clear message with the business partner.	Scalable and reach multiple people.	Hard to measure impact. The opportunity to clarify is limited.
Leader presentation (one to many)	Media interview, press conference, town hall, CEO video, blog.	Motivate and energise, important announcements.	Create a presentation and coach on delivery.	A good way to address issues. Highly credible source.	One-way communication. The audience often is intimidated to ask questions.
Manager cascade (one to few)	Communication in team meetings, email.	Inform the team about a specific or sensitive matter.	Create an information pack and send out talking points, FAQs.	Trusted source. Drives behavioural change.	The message often fails to get through. Unfamiliar (unconvincing) message or no buy-in.
Manager dialogue (interactive)	Group discussion, manager 1:1.	Problem-solving, gaining feedback, translating strategy into action.	Create discussion points, and provide conversation tools and coaching.	Helps resolve issues. Drives behavioural changes.	Time intensive. Manager's communication skill is highly variable.
Social media and mobile (one to many)	Corporate blogs, intranet, Twitter, SMS, Yammer, Slack, Workplace.	Time-sensitive information, humanise the company.	Develop social strategy, create, share and manage content. Track responses.	Ease of access to information. Track sentiment.	Risk of sounding phony if not executed correctly with the right balance.
Enabling advocates (many to many)	Employees, customers, suppliers.	Spread (viral) message, reputational management, reaching a sceptical audience.	Map roles of each advocate to a message they deliver and provide coaching.	Trusted source, high resonance and 'stickiness'.	Limited pool of advocates. Time sensitive.

Audience listening guide

• Identify which listening method to use to gain a deeper understanding of your audience.

• Get a better understanding of what your audience is thinking to help you focus on the content and style of communication for the messaging.

• Combine multiple methods depending on the level of existing audience understanding.

Method	Resource intensity	Best used for	Pros	Cons
Using existing relationships for knowledge	Low – time to contact people and gain their understanding of the situation.	Getting inside scoop on a particular challenge. Shortcut to the potential problem for further investigation.	Honest feedback. Credible source. Quickly get a sense of the situation.	No formal data. Scope limited to existing relationships.
Seek existing insight	Medium – identifying existing information. Some effort is needed to find and interpret information to apply.	Shared challenges across multiple functions.	Reliable and accessible information. Easy to create buy-in based on internal data.	Information may only show one perspective.
Quantitative survey or data collection	Low – quick poll of the sample group with simple descriptive data.	High-level understanding of the challenges of a large group. Focus on the problem areas.	Access to large amounts of data. Objective insight. Evidence for a business case.	Identify symptoms, not causes. Need time and expertise to create.
Focus groups	Medium- Time to select 12-15 participants and runs sessions.	Understanding the reasons behind a particular behaviour. Brainstorm potential solutions. Gut checking multiple potential options.	In-depth understanding of the audience. Flexibility to go deeper when something interesting comes up.	Moderator biases. Time and effort. No formal data.
Social media monitoring	Medium – informal monitoring of known sites. High – comprehensive monitoring with analysis by third-party.	Understanding unprompted stakeholder perspective on critical issues. Identifying key influencers.	Easy access to stakeholder point of view. Proof showing stakeholder views.	Volume of information can be overwhelming. Noise potential distraction.
Observations, ethnography, shadowing individuals	High – shadowing the target audience is time intensive.	Understanding how a target audience behaves and thinks. Uncover hidden assumptions, consumption patterns and motivations.	Real picture of audience behaviour. A holistic picture of behaviours and context.	Time intensive. Requires skills or practice or a vendor.

Communication goal selection tool

This tool helps you implement measurable objectives.

• Start with your defined audience. 

• Decide the call to action for each audience using objectives think, feel or do based on the messaging, the objective for each audience might be different.

• The objective of the communication will determine the communication strategy channel and message.

Objective	Purpose	Example
Know	Create awareness around the initiative.	Inform people about company financial results.
Know	Build consensus around new projects.	Build the company brand as a thought leader with key people.
Feel	Build an emotional connection between person and company.	Build employee pride in the company's corporate responsibility.
Do	Drive a specific audience behaviour.	Build employee pride in the company's corporate responsibility.
Share	Empower employees to talk to their own network.	People defend the company's position on an issue.

Identify your audience

Ask: Whose behaviour do you need to change, including activities in their existing networks.
Aim: Create an exhaustive review of relevant audiences.

Start with the target objective in mind.

Try to understand who and what is involved in the target audience’s decision for a full picture of whose behaviour you need to change, including other audience members to focus on. 

Do: 

• Speak to your audience and understand where they go to for information and who typically influences their behaviour or ideas.

• Identify already established networks that you can use, and influence, e.g. manager peer networking groups.

Don’t: 

• Assume that going direct to the target audience is the only best way.

• Neglect relevant audience influencers.

Uncover the desired outcome

Your client tells you they need an email campaign to boost participation in a volunteer event.

Aim: Email campaign to boost participation in a volunteer event.
Current State: Employee participation in volunteering is low, at 5%.
Ideal State: Increase participation in volunteering to 20%.
Result: You create the email campaign, and participation levels haven't changed.

Try

Reframing the problem into a specific target objective. This step changes the role of the communicator from reactive order-taker to partner.

Steps

1. Clarify the objective. Do: Proactively discuss the problem with the current state and the ideal state you're trying to achieve. Don't: Take orders without understanding why or make assumptions.

2. Root cause problem. Do: Brainstorm reasons why the ideal state isn't currently happening. There may be an unobvious reason. Don't: Assume awareness and understanding of the objective will solve the problem.

Example of the problem redefined

Why? Employees not engaged, they don't see why participating in volunteering is important.
Why? Employees not recognised or rewarded for participating.
Why? The manager sends signals that volunteering is not a fair use of time.

3. Reframe communication objective. Do: Agree on target behaviour that communication can influence. Don't: Leave without consensus and understanding of the real target objective to solve.

Example of the target objective.

Original: Email campaign to boost participation in a volunteer event.
New: Partner with managers to demonstrate the importance of volunteering.