Strategic Communication Techniques for Stakeholder Engagement
Highlights
Effective communication is an important component of any business undertaking, including project and change management initiatives
Planning and analysis focused on the needs of key stakeholders are the critical first steps to successful communications.
Prime 8 has developed techniques and strategies for engaging stakeholders, choosing communication technologies, and managing change.
When it comes to project and change management initiatives, communication that engages key stakeholders for project success doesn’t just happen — it requires an investment in planning and analysis focused on the needs and interests of those stakeholders. Without that upfront investment, you risk getting off on the wrong foot, wasting time and resources.
How to Identify and Address Stakeholder Needs
Consider this example from a recent Prime 8 consulting engagement:
We were retained by a global technology services provider to ascertain why a pre-sale marketing campaign wasn’t delivering results. We took a close look at all the elements of the campaign, evaluating the overall messaging as well as the creative that went into the execution: text for emails and landing pages, graphics, headlines, keywords, etc. We also leaned into the data about the target audience of stakeholders: the lists being used, SIC codes, business demographics, etc.
Through this analysis, we soon identified a key factor behind the underwhelming results: the client had great messaging but was delivering it to the wrong audience. It wasn’t the program itself that was the problem but the stakeholders the client was targeting.
Specifically, we found that while small and medium-sized businesses were a large part of this company’s overall client base, they did not typically respond to marketing outreach as consistently as larger, enterprise clients. Reorienting the program with a sharper focus on larger clients ultimately brought about higher ROI.
As this example makes clear, getting a clear on your audience or stakeholders is the first step in shaping any communication strategy. That’s true whether it’s external marketing to customers or internal communications to employees, partners, investors, etc.
A project simply cannot achieve success or serve its intended audience without first getting clear on stakeholder identification and categorization. This involves asking questions like:
Who are the stakeholders?
What is their “stake” in this initiative — what are the “hot buttons” that motivate them?
What is their role in the process: Influencer? Decision maker?
What information do they need in order to fulfill their role and how often do they need it (i.e., daily, weekly, in sync with their own reporting timeline)?
What are the best ways to connect with them?
MAPPING AND TESTING
When we begin a project, we often create a stakeholder map or matrix that visually represents how we are categorizing stakeholders. This helps in shaping and prioritizing engagement efforts. This can also be a great time to test the waters on key messages using surveys or sample communications.
Choosing Communication Technologies for Aligning Stakeholders
How you take advantage of different technologies to deliver your message is an important consideration in any communications effort. With the array of tools available today, there are more options but also more pitfalls.
For internal communications, more people are comfortable with messaging today, and it’s an essential part of collaboration tools such as Teams or Slack. But for announcing a major new corporate initiative or engaging stakeholders in project management, it’s likely far too informal.
Almost every organization has learned the hard way how important it is to get the right mix of communications. Video meeting fatigue was not simply a phenomenon of the pandemic era. Messaging overload remains a common complaint.
We were engaged by a client whose rhythm of business reporting reflected plummeting employee satisfaction scores on internal surveys and polls. To identify the root causes for the decline, our consultants embedded in the organization.
It soon became apparent that employees were satisfied with their work but felt overwhelmed by the communications — especially calendars overloaded with meetings that often seemed to lack a clear focus and frequently came off as redundant.
Embedding with the group made it possible to better understand the culture of the organization and introduce a set of targeted improvements that included overhauling the content used in meetings and optimizing time management. The results were quickly apparent: In-person meetings were reduced by 120%, and those same internal surveys are now reporting higher employee morale and satisfaction.
Stakeholder Communication Smooths Adoption of Change Management
In the modern business world, change is a constant. Economies and markets expand and contract. New technologies emerge and old ones become obsolete. Organizations are constantly adapting, which can be unsettling to employees and managers who crave routine and stability. This is why successful organizations have adopted structured practices for engaging stakeholders in change management.
Change management encompasses numerous methodologies, frameworks, and best practices. Stakeholder-focused communications is a touchstone of all of them. Open and transparent communication allows you to address concerns, clarify misconceptions, and reduce resistance.
Implementing a successful change management program is often a focus of Prime 8 consulting engagements (particularly when it comes to strategies for rescuing troubled projects).
We follow all the steps we’ve outlined here for identifying stakeholders and choosing technologies, but we’ve also found that a great deal can be accomplished by adopting simple techniques that emphasize transparency, such as:
Including an agenda in every meeting invite
Scheduling regular check-ins with stakeholders
Maintaining action logs
These and many other strategies help maintain the feedback-rich environment needed for surviving in today’s environment.
Getting Communications Right
Successful communication that effectively delivers the right message to the right stakeholders often appears effortless. In reality, it’s usually anything but — that seemingly simple, streamlined quality is usually the result of a major investment in upfront analysis and planning. Fortunately, once that investment is made, the returns are significant.
Ready to bring your stakeholder communications to the next level? Take advantage of our expertise in creating successful communications strategies for a wide range of clients. Contact Prime 8 today.
