Success Through Strategy!

Strategy Matters delivers news, tips and strategies for effective communications through traditional and social media. 
Let Your Knowledge Be Your Promotion!

We recently launched a new LinkedIn group -- Let's Get Strategic About Communications! -- that we're hoping will generate some good discussion and sharing of best practice insights among communication professionals. It's a closed group, meaning that we are carefully monitoring participation and limiting it to those who are committed to openly sharing information in a non-promotional manner. 

 

As we contemplated starting this group, it generated an important insight or philosophy that we have found is shared by most of the clients we work with: "Let your knowledge be your promotion!" We work with a number of "thought leaders," primarily in the healthcare and business consulting arenas, and we find that those who are most successful are those who freely share their wisdom and expertise with others.

 

It seems counter-intuitive, but particularly in these days of MOOCS (massive open online courses) and free content widely available through blogs, webinars and websites, if you're not willing to share freely, you're likely to quickly become irrelevant.

 

So, if you're a communication professional interested in connecting with a group of other communication professionals from various backgrounds, we encourage you to join our group and become part of the conversations. And -- we promise -- no promotions!

That "Silly" SWOT: Not So Silly After All!
 

I used to consider SWOT analyses to be "silly exercises," but after using them on a number of occasions during strategic planning processes with clients and, after conducting research for my book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Strategic Planning, I've come to believe that (if done effectively) they can help drive better strategy development.

 

If done correctly, SWOT analyses should:
  • Be based on "real" data - not guesswork. If the SWOT is grounded in reality, the strategies that are developed from it will be realistic and will appropriately direct the efforts of the business. For instance, if an organization says that its strength is customer service (without data to substantiate that opinion) and creates a strategy designed to leverage this great reputation, that strategy is destined to fail. By the same token, if important data is not used or considered during the SWOT process, opportunities may be missed.
  • Include broad input. Often when I work with groups on strategy development I will recommend that once they have developed their SWOT analysis, that they share it with key constituencies including employees, vendors, customers, etc. Gathering that broad input can provide an important "reality check" for the work done by the project team and, especially with employees, can generate support and buy-in for the plan.
  • Be prioritized to focus on the "big rocks." Once a list is developed I recommend that clients prioritize it using some type of group rating process to identify the most important items under each category. Those, then, provide the basis for the development of strategies.
  • Serve as the framework for strategy development. Strategies should be derived directly from the SWOT and should be focused on leveraging strengths and opportunities and overcoming strengths and weaknesses. This is actually the area of strategy development where organizations have an opportunity to be most creative and where innovative ideas can emerge, but only if the SWOT has been appropriately prepared in the first place.

 

STP: A Useful Marketing Acronym

 

One of the marketing concepts that I find many people struggle with--even marketing professionals--is defining a target audience. 
 
Seems pretty simple but, in fact, most people tend to cast a very wide net when determining who to target their marketing messages to. Much of this is because, I'm sure, we all have a tendency to believe that our product or service could appeal to a large segment of the market. So we attempt to reach the masses and, as a result, fail to effectively position our product or service within the minds of an audience that is most likely to respond.

 

The problem is that when we attempt to be relevant to everyone we end up being relevant to no one.

 

There are three key terms that I've "thrown around" here, and they're terms that we all tend to throw around, often without adequately or thoroughly understanding what they mean:

 
Segmenting, targeting and positioning -- or STP. 
  • Segmenting involves identifying the segment (or segments) that you believe represent your market.
  • Targeting involves identifying ways of reaching these segments.
  • Positioning involves presenting what you have to offer relative to other competitive offerings.
This isn't just an academic exercise. Getting this right can mean the difference between a communication effort that falls flat and one that generates desired results. Read more here.
Volume: 5 - Issue: 11
November, 2013
Strat Comm logo
In This Issue
Tell, Don't Sell!
Best Practices for SWOT Analysis
Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning
We're In the News! 






 
Research Matters
Some recent news and  research you may be interested in--we were!  
 


EContent: Maintaining Digital Communities in a Crisis

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There's Gold in Those Tweets! 

Suppose you've had an active Twitter account since 2008 and you've been posting, on average, about three tweets a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year at about 140 characters/tweet -- that's about 115,500 words, or the equivalent of about three books' worth of content. 

 

But, if you haven't been collecting, aggregating and effectively using that content, it is literally "lost in cyberspace." Tips for repurposing your content.

  

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