Strategy isn’t a plan. It’s the thinking behind the plan.
‘Spray and pray’ is a term I wish I’d never heard. I truly hate it, and not just because it makes me imagine a very juvenile conversation. I hate it because no one in the worlds of marketing or communications should take a “let’s just fire it at as many channels as possible and hope something lands” approach. It’s a waste of time. It's a waste of budget. It’s a waste of limited resources. And it’s disrespectful to the people whose attention it wastes when it reaches them.
Yet it’s an approach that I’m frequently reminded still exists. And what’s sadder is that I honestly understand why. Many time-starved marketers and business owners hear a constant clamour of noise about what they should be doing. Post long-form content on LinkedIn. Share videos on YouTube. Write on your company blog. Comment on other users’ LinkedIn posts. Share news about your wins. Invite happy customers to share testimonials. Add FAQs about your offerings to your website.
The irony that I’m here to add to that list is not lost on me. But bear with me, because I am here to tell you to put that list on ice. There’s something more important that you need to do first.
Start by stopping
“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." Blaise Pascal’s frequently misattributed quote is an apt one for describing the challenge many businesses face today. It’s one we face in communications agencies too.
When the pressure is on to produce content, secure coverage, post on social media and generate visibility, it can be easy for all of that activity to become an end in itself. But when that happens, activities can often become disjointed, lose authenticity and turn into noise that’s easy to ignore.
The value of B2B communications (in fact, all communications imho) isn’t determined by how much you do. Instead, it lies in how you decide what needs to be done, and why.
Strategy starts with objectives, not output
Communications and PR need to start with clear decisions about what to communicate, to whom, why, where, and how you’ll know you’ve succeeded. This sounds dangerously close to those SMART objectives we all remember from university or business school, and perhaps that’s why so many people just skip ahead to the tactics.
For me, it comes down to one much simpler question. Why?
Instead of simply writing a press release, blasting it out to the media and adding it to the company news page, when someone says “We need to announce that we’ve brought finishing in-house,” I ask why.
If the answer is “because the CFO is complaining about how much the machine cost and wants to see a quick win”, then maybe some news on the website may do the job (although I’d argue there’s more that we can do for her too). If the answer is “to tell our customers”, then perhaps that message would be better shared in a beautifully finished piece of direct mail, a few videos of your new capabilities on social media, and a mention in your monthly newsletter. You can still share a press release with the trade media too, but if you know why you’re writing it and what else you’re doing to get your message out, you’ll have a better idea of what to include, what images to choose, and when to time it. That will give the story its best chance at having the impact you want it to.
Step beyond choosing the channel
In the PR and communications world, we often talk about Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned (PESO) media. We don’t do it so that we can whack another acronym on our creds deck, but rather because a good communications strategy considers how to build a narrative or proliferate a message across otherwise fragmented channels from each of those media streams. When it’s done well, the result is so seamless that the audience isn’t sure where they first encountered a message, only that it has resonated with them.
Audiences no longer encounter organisations through single platforms. People use search engines AND they ask questions of their LLM of choice - indeed, according to research from Similarweb, 95% of ChatGPT users also use Google search. They look at what their peers and competitors say on social media. They look at what organisations’ existing customers say in testimonials. They seek advice and discuss challenges on Reddit. They search YouTube. They read content by trade media and follow specialist blogs.
As a result, good communications practice is not about picking one message, grabbing a megaphone, and shouting it across every possible channel. A strategic approach to communicating means understanding your audience well enough to know what role each channel should play in sharing your message, and then making sure that the right message will reach the right audience at the right moment.
Start with something
I’ve been working in PR and communications for more than 15 years, so if I had a quid for every time I’ve heard someone say “Let’s get loud about this”, I would probably be writing this from an office on a nice little vineyard in Franschhoek or the Hunter Valley (while direct-to-object printing my own customised wine bottles of course).
Sometimes we do need to get loud, but communications professionals can’t manufacture credibility from nothing. We amplify success, dispel misinformation, spotlight innovation, demonstrate expertise, build authority, enhance reputations, and even change perceptions, but the impact of what we do is only ever as strong as the story we’re telling. As a result, a large part of our role is identifying what matters - whether that is knowledge, innovation, customer outcomes or market insights. We find the story in that, and then we tell it in ways that will resonate with the audiences that matter.
Do more with less
The most effective communications strategies are rarely the ones generating the most activity, and they’re almost never the noisiest. They’re the ones with a clear purpose, an understanding of what success looks like, and a plan to build on that when they get there. Most will have stopped, thought and then:
Evaluated what their organisation needs to achieve with its communications
Thought about who matters and what will resonate with them
Understood where to be visible
Planned how to measure progress
When you take that approach and start with ‘why’, communication becomes much more than a noise-generating activity. It becomes a valuable business asset.
If your communications activity feels stretched thin or if your PR strategy looks like a blank page, please connect with us on LinkedIn or pop us an email. We love helping businesses find their ‘why’.
