Five Tips to Better Communication Campaigns

Jaci Clement
Jaci Clement, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Nov 22, 2008 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
  1. Know Your Target Audience. The better you know who your customer is, the more effective and cost efficient you can be with your communication strategy. Your target audience dictates what communication tools to use, how often, what your message should say and what tone you need to convey. Your target audience also determines which media outlets you should use to promote your business. So the big question is: Who is your target audience? Maybe it's the empty nesters living within a 15-mile radius of your storefront; maybe it's Gen Xers who have had their iPhones for less than a year. Defining your customer base needs to be your first priority in order to get an initiative off the ground. Hint: If you've been defining your target audience broadly, such as, "Anyone with a pulse," you may want to look to bring in an expert who can help you ID your potential customers. In the long run, it could save you quite a bit of money.

  3. Reach Your Audience In A Variety of Ways. One thing's for sure: The public has grown so accustomed to being inundated with messages in a variety of formats, it's now important to try to grab their attention every way you can. Multimedia tools enable you to reach out a number of ways, including email, instant messaging, posting videos online and displaying photographs on web sites and social utility pages. The better you know your customer, the better you can tailor your message and use technology to reach them.

  5. Still doing a monthly newsletter? Ask yourself: what's your return on that investment? If your phone doesn't start ringing off the hook (or your inbox overflowing with emails) whenever your newsletter lands in your customers' mailboxes, let that be your first serious indication that your newsletter may no longer be doing its job. Considering the time and expense involved in creating a print product, it may be well worth your time to recreate a communication strategy that incorporates a mix of Internet-based tools with direct mail campaigns. You may find your monthly newsletter can easily be done quarterly or, possibly, only when you have something unusually special to get across to the customer. Also keep in mind that your old monthly newsletter may have been conceived before you knew your target audience.

  7. Use Social Utilities. The Internet's social utility sites are no longer just for staying in touch with friends; it's also a place to find like-minded individuals to sign up for common causes. In addition raising awareness, social utility sites like Facebook and Karma411 can help you raise money. How much you should rely on social utilities should be determined on what you know about your target audience.

  9. Benchmark Your Competitors. Invest some time in researching how your competitors' communications campaigns, including what tools they use and how often they use them. Not only can you compare strategies, you can compare messaging, imagining, pricing and more. The better you know what's vying for your customers' attention, the more effective you can be in standing out from the crowd.

Published by Jaci Clement

Jaci Clement is executive director of the Fair Media Council, a nonprofit organization advocating for quality local news and educating the public on how to recognize it. She grew up dividing her time bet...  View profile

To comment, please sign in to your Yahoo! account, or sign up for a new account.