Plan cohesive multichannel communications

BootCamp RESOURCE - Session 4 PLAN Cohesive Multichannel Communications How do you communicate in a way that is strategic and cohesive across a wide range of channels without losing your brand voice, objectives and key messages? In this fourth session, we learn tips from Jennifer Murray at Just Enterprise and Nicky Hesketh from SKS Scotland on how to plan and develop cohesive communications across your website, newsletter and social media.

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Designing a communications and marketing plan that resonates with your customers starts with understanding their decision-making process to tailor your messaging and tactics effectively across channels. Consider the stages a customer is likely to go through during the buying process to reach them at the right time and place, with the right information: • Needs recognition – The buyer recognises the need for a product or service but it’s early days and they are searching for the right brand.

• Information search – The buyer researches the options available, likely using Google search, or asking around for recommendations.

• Comparison – The buyer has drawn a list of options and they’re now considering them side by side to see what’s the best option for them.

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Throughout the purchase journey there are plenty of different touchpoints to be seen and interact with potential buyers. Think about your customers, how they behave online, where and when they express themselves and engage with brands. You can map out and research the channels they use regularly and build your plan accordingly. It’s best to focus your efforts with what’s most relevant for each campaign and you can always test tactics by measuring your analytics and adjusting your efforts as you go.

• Awareness channels: PR (radio, TV, print), word of mouth, online advertising, email, PPC. • Consideration channels: Social media ads, reviews, blog articles, media, direct mail.

• Purchase channels: Ecommerce, in-store, website (wherever they are buying).

• Purchase – The buyer has decided which product or service to purchase and from which brand, and their customer experience starts.

• Retention channels: Community forums, social media networks, knowledge base content and FAQs, follow up emails.

• Evaluation – The buyer evaluates how he or she feels about the buying process, the product or service acquired and the brand. Would they recommend you to someone else at this stage?

• Advocacy channels: Promotions, blog articles, social media, customer newsletters, surveys.

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BootCamp RESOURCE - Session 4

Leverage onlin e to

Repurpose content

Once you have a good idea of how you should focus your communications and marketing efforts across channels to engage with potential buyers and existing customers, build a plan that keeps you focused with content creation. As it can be time intensive to create regular content, it’s a good idea to reuse and recycle it.

• Develop key messaging guidelines that express your brand and unique selling points, how do you articulate them across touch points?

• Create a copy master and a folder of images for each initiative or campaign that you can easily pick from and resize for different uses. Clearly label images and consider building templates.

• Set up one master copy document that can be spliced up and used for a press release, a blog article, social media posts and a newsletter with slight adjustments in lengths and tone of voice.

• Don’t launch all your content at the same time everywhere, and only promote it once, consider your audience when planning how often to post and when to email them. One email and 3 to 5 posts on social media a week is a good starting point, and even with a big launch, you can always reshare content slightly differently.

• Look at your Google Analytics and social media page insights to understand how your audience engage with you currently (you can set up tracking links for campaigns for instance) and refine your efforts on an ongoing basis.

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There is a wealth of online tools available to help you plan, develop and distribute content across channels in a way that is organised and helps you save time. Some of the following tools are worth considering on a free or paid basis: • Project-management: Trello and Asana can help you plan out projects step by step, attach documents and assign tasks to team members.

• Design: Canva and Pixlr are good alternatives to Photoshop and InDesign to resize images and use templates to create engaging visuals.

• Buffer, Hootsuite and Sprout Social can help you manage social media content by planning your calendar over time, adding drafts and images and reviewing analytics from each post.

• Google Drive, Dropbox and WeTransfer allow you to create shareable documents and folders with privacy settings depending on the user.

• Unsplash is a library of copyright-free images you can use by simply crediting the photographer in your content or by donating.

• Animoto, Animaker and Biteable can help you create animations and videos with content that you already have or from a wide library of free and paid for video and animation assets.

Contact the speakers: jennifer.murray@ceis.org.uk nickyhesketh@sksscotland.co.uk

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