After working with many medium and large size companies, I’ve come to realize they all struggle with one key area of business, their communication strategy. Most, if not all, of these companies, recognize their need to make improvements in this area, but struggle with where to begin or what a communication model should look like for them. Often this leads to infrequent and sometimes irrelevant messages being sent to the employees that offer little to no value to them.
This is where the 4 C’s of communication can help you and your organization.
- Customer – Who is your target audience for the communication?
- Content – What information is relevant and meaningful to them?
- Clarity – How will you communicate that message with clarity and make it super easy to understand?
- Cadence – At what frequency will you deliver the message to your target customer?
The first step in creating your communication strategy is identifying the customer or intended audience for your message. Who is your customer? How do they consume information? What mediums do they use to access the content? Get as much detail as you can gather about your target audience. It will help you keep them engaged in your content and ensure you are adding value to your audience.
The next step is creating the content to deliver to your target audience. Put yourself in their shoes and ask why is this important to them? Why should they care about what you have to say? How will this add value to them? These questions will help you develop a clear and compelling message that your reader will appreciate.
The 3rd step is to get clarity with your message. What are the key points you are trying to convey to your audience? Are those points super clear and easy to understand? How can you make them stand out in your content and make them easily digestible to your customers?
The final step is to create a cadence of accountability for your communication expectations. At what frequency will you send your messages to your target customer, once a week, once a month? It’s important that you spend some time really thinking about this step in your model. If you send out too many communications, you increase the probability of losing the interest of the audience. If you send out too little messages, you run the risk of not getting enough valuable content for your customers to learn and digest.
The 4 C’s provide a simple framework to help any organization get started on building their communication strategy. They are simple, actionable steps for you to consider if your company has the opportunity to improve how it communicates to the customers, employees, and communities you serve.