Communication strategy for stakeholder engagement

 

Stakeholder consultation and engagement typically follows a recognized three-step process: notification, consultation, and participation.

The public has the right to be concerned about your project, to ask questions about it, and even to oppose it. But every person should have the correct information to form her or his opinion.

Meaningful consultation that involves ongoing two-way communication with a project representative increases understanding, clarifies the community’s preferences and values, and allows the proponent to understand how the public’s views can and should lead policy decisions. However, organizations often struggle with communication with their stakeholder groups.

Factors that negatively influence communication include:

• Not understanding how to set up a stakeholder engagement project so it effectively communicates the organization’s intentions
• Suffering from a lack of focus when engaging stakeholders – and failing to define the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, and why)
• Having the wrong person representing the organization. This can be someone who is inexperienced or whose strengths lay outside the field of communication
• Company and stakeholder groups involving multiple representatives that change over time. Relationships get lost and communication history, or commitments that were made can be forgotten.

5 tips for an effective communication strategy for stakeholder engagement

1. Make sure all information regarding your project is presented in a transparent way. The more you share in an honest, factual and easy to comprehend format, the more likely it is that stakeholders will take the time to comprehend your intentions, what their role is, and how it may affect them.

2. Communicate with stakeholders in the manner that works best for them. Recognize that each person or community is different and select the most suitable communication channel – email, online platforms, social media, phone, or in-person group meetings . People should be offered a variety of options to communicate with you and provide their input.

3. Do not judge what your stakeholders value, instead seek to understand why. Keeping an open and curious attitude will help your team understand the history and concerns of your stakeholders. This open, curious attitude will help both sides reach creative solutions to overcome roadblocks, aligning values and interests in the process.

4. Provide feedback to stakeholders on how their interests and issues are addressed and resolved. Track commitments made to them and ensure project team members coordinate consultation events, share information, and assign tasks and follow-up actions.

5. Keep a careful record of all aspects of stakeholder communications that occur over time. This includes meetings, phone calls, emails, and commitments made. Misunderstandings and delays can be prevented if you can easily demonstrate the history of all aspects of communication with your stakeholders – which is especially challenging with multi-year projects that where representatives change over time. A tool like StakeTracker helps organizations stay on top of their projects by centrally managing all communications regarding the potential impacts of initiatives on the communities in which they operate.

The value of information, and how it’s tracked and reported, is of paramount importance during the consultation process. Missteps with respect to stakeholder information management can put the success of your project in jeopardy.

Detailed consultation will identify a community’s views on your project and how this perception changes over time. It will allow you to anticipate issues and develop ways of addressing them. Ultimately, it will help develop trust and generate solutions with your stakeholders and rights-holders.

Image: Pranav under Creative Commons 2.0

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How To Communicate Effectively With Your Stakeholders

BY HANNAH STACEY

Learn how to properly communicate with all of your stakeholders enmasse and individually

Let’s face it – marketing can seem like a bit of a minefield when you’re a busy entrepreneur. When you’re occupied with new business meetings, dealing with suppliers and the other hundred and one things on your to-do list, embarking on a marketing campaign can seem like opening Pandora’s Box.

But getting your offering in front of the right people is integral to its success, and a cleverly-crafted marketing campaign can help you achieve just that. Strapped for time? Here’s a cheat sheet to creating a good marketing strategy.

What Are Your Marketing Aims?

Before you start thinking about who you want to get in front of, you must seriously consider what you want to achieve with your marketing efforts. This can be more than one thing, but remember to be reasonable with your expectations. For example, you might be:

Trying to get your product or service in front of potential customers

• Trying to get your product or service in front of potential customers

• Wanting to generate interest in your business amongst potential investors

• Get potential business partners involved

Figure Out Who You Need To Get In Front Of To Fulfil Your Aims

The scattergun approach to writing a press release, paying a questionable newswire service to post it on a few websites that nobody reads, and then sitting back and hoping for the best will not cut the mustard if you’re serious about getting in front of the right people.

If you’ve created a sound business plan, you’ll know who your various stakeholders are. Let’s use an example. I’ve just set up a great new education tech company that teaches Swedish to secondary school children using a revolutionary method (over-dubbed One Direction songs) outside of class. I’m also looking for more investment. I’ve got loads of different stakeholders, and the message that I want to relay to each of them is slightly different. These stakeholders could be:

• Secondary school pupils themselves
• The parents of secondary school pupils
• Decision-makers in schools
• Potential investors

Once you’ve come up with an exhaustive list of stakeholders, make sure you’ve recorded them in a spreadsheet to keep track of your activity.

Think About What You Want To Say And What They Want To Hear

If you get into the mindset of your potential stakeholders and what drives them, you’ll be able to craft messages that appeal to them more. Create personas by asking yourself the following questions:

• What demographics do they fall into? How old are they? Where do they live? What is their income?
• What is their part in the buying process?
• What does a day in their life look like?
• What are their pain points? What issues in their job or day-to-day life bother them?
• How can your product/service help them address these problems?

Let’s take the parents of our secondary school pupils in my example. They’re likely to be between the ages of 35 and 50 and will be the ones buying the product for their beloved children. They probably don’t speak Swedish personally but are keen to see their child progress in their Swedish lessons at school, however, they are having problems convincing their troublesome teenager to do their homework (because they would rather swoon over Harry Styles on Twitter).

How does my product help address their pain points? It makes their life easier and helps them feel like good parents when their kids ace all of their Swedish exams at school. In this case, my marketing message might be: “My product makes learning fun, so your kids succeed without you having to moan at them.”

Track Down Where They Hang Out

You may have your marketing messages sorted, but if they’re not reaching the ears of your target audience, you’ve wasted your time. It’s important to think carefully about the types of places that each of your stakeholder groups goes to for information. Here are some of the biggies and how you might use them in your marketing efforts:

• National newspapers and their websites – creating newsworthy PR stories and targeting them at relevant journalists in the national press.
• Trade press – tracking down any trade press and placing articles (interviews or opinion pieces, for example) in them.
• TV and Radio – again, using PR to generate newsworthy angles that get covered in the broadcast press (easier said than done, though!)
• Social media – using marketing techniques like social media advertising (on Facebook or LinkedIn, for example) to target your chosen demographic. Many social networks have advanced targeting options for advertisers so you can get the message across.
• Google – optimising your website for certain search terms to rank higher.
• Blogs – contacting bloggers and trying to persuade them to write about your product or service.
• Outdoor advertising

So if I’m trying to get in front of parents, the best course of actions is probably a PR campaign that gets attention from the national and broadcast press (unless they’re incredibly keen, parents are unlikely to reach any education trade press.) I would also make sure that I had ads on social networks targeting my chosen demographic with my key messages, and also make sure that my website was keyword optimised so that for any parent searching ‘how to get my child to do their Swedish homework’, my product would be the first thing that pops up in Google.

This process should be repeated for each of my target stakeholders. It may seem like a complex process, but refining your messaging to the key needs of stakeholders means that your precious time is not wasted in the long run.

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The Importance of Communicating With Your Stakeholders

Introduction

Understanding your stakeholders is vital in modern-day business. This includes listening to the views and beliefs of stakeholders as well as seeking their feedback. After all, these are the people who will shape and influence future successes (or failures).

A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in the business, either having an effect on the business or being affected by it. Typically, stakeholders can be categorized into two groups; internal and external stakeholders. Examples of internal stakeholders are employees, managers and directors. External stakeholders include customers, suppliers, shareholders and funders. Keeping every stakeholder on-side can be difficult, but can be hugely beneficial.

What is it?

The key to keeping stakeholders on-side is consultation. This involves the development of constructive and productive long-term relationships. Stakeholder consultation aims to build relationships based on mutual trust and benefits. Listening to and understanding the views and feedback from stakeholders can help shape and improve the overall operations of a business.

Stakeholder consultation can be project-based or on-going. Specific project-based consultation is generally used for the development of new products and services. For example, a company may consult with customers to establish specific needs of the target market. On-going consultation, however, is generally used to track the progress of a company in regards to stakeholder expectations and to maximize buy-in. For example, a company may consult with stakeholders regarding changes to the company’s direction or its branding.

What are the benefits?

The benefits of stakeholder consultation are clear, with some of the most significant reasons listed below:

• Enable more informed decision making
• Lead to greater stakeholder satisfaction
• Improves chances of project/initiative success
• Promote open, two-way communication

The 4-step process

The stakeholder consultation process is an opportunity for key groups to be kept informed, and for their views and feedback to be heard. It is important that any consultation is thoroughly planned with clear objectives set at the beginning.

Regardless of the aims and objectives of the stakeholder consultation, the process typically consists of four steps: Planning, Process, Presentation and Promise (the 4Ps).

Planning

The “planning” stage is where the aims and objectives of the stakeholder consultation are discussed and agreed upon. After the aims and objectives have been determined, the “planning” stage is used to discuss how the process will be carried out. Process owners allocate resources and select an appropriate consultation method. Several questions need to be asked at this stage to ensure every facet of the process is considered.

• Why do we need to consult?
• Who are we consulting?
• What resources do we have?
• How are we going to do it?
• What materials will be needed?

Process

The “process” stage is where the stakeholder consultation is actually carried out. It is important at this stage to develop effective two-way communication with the stakeholders in order to promote open and honest sharing of views and beliefs. The process and data will then need to be accurately recorded for the final stages.

Presentation

The “presentation” stage is where the data gathered is analyzed and reported on. The aims of this stage are to ensure the data is an accurate representation of the stakeholder views, and to prepare the report ready for presentation. The report is typically presented to the process owners, such as the company itself or policy makers. However, feedback will also be provided to those who took part in the process.

Promise

Lastly, the “promise” stage is where actions are put in place in response to the information gathered. The ‘promise’ of action on the back of the stakeholder consultation process helps drive the development of a long-term relationship based on transparency and collaboration.

How is it done?

Methods of stakeholder consultation are largely the same as those used for market research. The key question is whether the consultation requires depth of knowledge or breadth of knowledge. The answer generally determines which method will be chosen.

If depth of knowledge is required, a qualitative study is usually appropriate. These are studies which encourage open styles of discussion and debate. The most common methods used to gather depth of information are focus groups, individual depth interviews and observation (or ethnography). If breadth of knowledge is required, a more quantitative study is usually appropriate. These are studies which encompass large number of respondents but are restricted to closed style questions, aimed at providing generalist viewpoints. The most common methods used to gather breadth of information are online surveys, telephone surveys, and short street interviews.

Concluding thoughts

As understanding stakeholders becomes more and more important for businesses, stakeholder consultation will become a vital process to maximize success. Stakeholder consultation can be used to evaluate reactions and to track the perceptions of a company’s activities, and ensure collaboration and partnership with all stakeholders. The long-term effectiveness of an organization can depend on its relationships with stakeholders, ensuring commitment and buy-in to any future strategies and challenges. This makes for a more informed organization that is responsive to the needs of all its users and stakeholders.

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PDCA. Plan, Do, Check, Act

 

PDCA is an incessant management cycle used to continuously improve quality and control of business processes. Other names for this method are Deming Cycle, Shewhart cycle, Deming Wheel, or Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA).

The PDCA method was developed by William Edwards Deming, an American engineer and management consultant, based on the work of an American physicist and engineer Walter Andrew Shewhart. William Edwards Deming developed the ideas of Walter Andrew Shewhart in his book The New Economics: For Industry, Government, Education and called this method “Shewhart cycle”.

PDCA is an abbreviation formed by the words Plan, Do, Check, Act

1. Plan. At this stage, we set goals and form an action plan. We define resources.
2. Do. Implementing the action plan. Here we get the actual information and generate reports. We document activities and results.
3. Check. We analyze the data and compare the results with the forecast. It is necessary to understand at this stage of the cycle whether the process has improved or not. If the result is not what you predicted, you need to understand why you failed to predict this result.
4. Act. We adjust our activities for optimization. We decide what changes are necessary. At this stage of the cycle, we implement the recommended changes. It is necessary to correct the detected shortcomings. We prepare and start a new cycle.

PDCA means working on continuous business improvement. The cycle should be repeated over and over again to ensure that the organization has the agility to adapt to a changing environment and to implement stable development of processes. This model is suitable for use in any business process of the organization.

When applied to managing the work of the marketing department in a company, you must work to continuously improve each stage of the marketing process. Let’s take the marketing process of product promotion as an example.

PDCA in Marketing

Plan

First, we choose a product promotion strategy and fix the main goals (they can be both economic: increasing demand and sales, and non-economic: informing consumers about the product, creating a favorable image, increasing customer loyalty, etc.). Depending on the goals, we create an action plan. 

The action plan can include the following elements:

• set the period of the campaign
• identify the target audience
• choose the means of promotion
• select the communication channels
• set KPI that evaluate the effectiveness of the promotion strategy
• make a budget

Do

At this stage, we are doing what we have planned. You must adhere to the action plan and realize it. You implement planned indicators and monitor their performing, collect analytics.

Check

Based on the information collected, you analyze the data. You compare the results and draw conclusions based on plan/fact deviations. For example, do you meet the deadlines set in the action plan? If not, then why. What resources did we use in the implementation of the plan? What resources do we still need? For an objective assessment at this stage, KPI will also help you.

Act

Here you make changes to the plan. At this stage, based on the conclusions made in the third stage of the cycle, you make adjustments to the action plan to improve the process. (for example, you change communication channels or try other means of promotion). Once the process is complete, you are ready for a new cycle.

PDCA is a universal tool. You can implement this model in your company and adapt it to your business processes.

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Experience Matrix™

 

Experience Design is widely recognized to be critical to the customer development process. Not just in our digital age, but even long before bits-and-bytes driven firms grabbed control of the helm from their brick-and-mortar predecessors.

Global research by Avaya (2014/2015) indicated that “Eighty-one percent of those who have seen a significant increase in profits have a CEM (Customer Experience Management) program in place, compared to those who have seen profits remain static (46%) or suffered a decrease in profits (35%).” and “Companies see the biggest improvements in customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention and repeat purchasing, which the survey finds is largely attributed to the fact that 88% of customers would rather spend their money with companies that make it easy for them to buy.”

In contrast “a staggering, 81%/82% (2014/2015) of organizations have seen their CEM initiatives fail in the last three years.” According to business decision-makers, “the top reason for CEM failure is project-misalignment with customer preferences, indicating communication barriers within organizations themselves.”

If anything, the ROUNDMAP™ is designed to increase the effectiveness of cross-silo collaboration. However, it is also important to mention that the scope of the third sector, Delivery, is much wider than offering customer support and customer service.

As indicated by the Avaya-research, “companies do not typically associate functions like finance, R&D, IT and operations as dealing with customers. This could be a blind spot in the way they approach and plan CEM initiatives given that people across all departments within the company have direct or indirect contact with customers and prospects and not just the roles typically seen as customer-facing.”

This made us create the ROUNDMAP’s Experience Matrix™:

The Experience Matrix™ contains four elementary experiences:

1. Brand Experience or BX (product-driven)
2. Customer Experience or CX (lifetime-driven)
3. User Experience or UX (service-driven)
4. Shared Experience or SX (meaning-driven)

Similar to how we’ve mapped four value disciplines to four elementary business models in the Business Model Matrix™, we have also mapped experience design to the business model.

For instance, a product-centric business model should focus on BX-design, while a resource-centric business model profits most from UX-design. Coca-Cola is a product-centric business, with a product-leadership value position, driven by brand experiences. Greenwheels, on the other hand, is a resource-centric business, driven by user experiences.

In fact, the choices regarding business model, strategic advantage, value position, and experience design together are what sets the firm’s value proposition apart: from similar offerings or experiences.

Similar to how value disciplines are to be perceived, experience designers should keep a threshold, indicating that while experience design requires a certain priority in line with the business model and value position, it should not neglect the basics of the other experience design functions.

ROUNDMAP™ Full Stack

The Experience Matrix™ and the Value Position Matrix™ are both part of the ROUNDMAP™ Full Stack:

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Cover Image by Daria Nepriakhina from Pixabay

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Business Model Development

 We’ve discussed the Integrated Customer Lifecycle (Customer Carousel), Business Strategy, and the Primary Business Models. Now let’s have a look at how we can change our heading to adapt to the world around us, or discover a new path for others to follow.

15.1 - BUSINESS MODEL DEVELOPMENT

We believe business models can be developed into two directions:

• BUSINESS MODEL REGENERATION (= Evolutionary)
• BUSINESS MODEL SHIFTING (= Revolutionary)

15.2 - BUSINESS MODEL REGENERATION

Business Model Regeneration is an evolution of an existing Primary Business Model ─ often driven by advancing technology. For instance, the traditional supermarket is a product-centric business model, focused on growing or defending market share, while Amazon’s Go cashier-less grocery stores are simply a contemporary regeneration (digital evolution) of a traditional business model.

We’ve created a slide to illustrate business models regenerate: ROUNDMAP™ Business Model Regeneration in Action

15.3 - BUSINESS MODEL SHIFTING

Business Model Shifting is a revolvement (clockwise) to the next Primary Business Model in the Business Model Matrix™. Shifting is, by far, the most transformative of the two. The best way to explain ‘ shifting’ (or revolving) is by looking at IBM.

15.4 - SHIFTING VERSUS REGENERATION

If we put the two together, business model shifting (revolution) and business model regeneration (evolution), this is a way to perceive it:

As stated before, shifting (the color-coded cycle) is by far the most transformative of the two. It has a huge impact on all of the dynamics (organizational, business, customer, and market). A decision to shift the business model shouldn’t be made lightly. A regeneration (dashed cycles), on the other hand, is often limited to change and innovation and, therefore, much less drastic.

15.5 - OLD BOUNDARIES REMOVED

You may perceive that the Sharing Economy is exemplary of the Digital Age, however, it isn’t. If you ever took a plane, train, or taxi, you were essentially sharing a resource. However, digital technology removed the need for a physical dispatch location which greatly improved the ease with which to hire a resource. This has allowed resource-centric businesses to grow rapidly which attracted others to the scene.

What about the Platform Economy? Well, remember the Silk Road from your history lessons? Hundreds of marketplaces had emerged along the trade routes between China and Europe. Facilitating a digital platform, often called a marketspace, is very much similar to setting up a traditional marketplace. However, without the physical constraints, marketspaces (or platforms if you will), now have a sheer unlimited reach, offering network-centric businesses an opportunity for exponential growth (Facebook, Uber, eBay, Taskrabbit, Producthunt, etc.).

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

~ Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc.

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