Why customers prefer one brand over another? How do you know about the companies’ promos and deals? How a company makes an apology and issues a recall for unsafe or defective products? It is all about a company’s effective communication strategy that customers know about products and services.
It shows the importance of communication. That is why companies invest in building effective corporate communication teams that are solely responsible for communication activities.
Table of Contents
What is Corporate Communication?
Corporate communication is a process and it includes managerial activities related to conveying company communication, with relevant internal and external stakeholders to create and maintain brand image and positive reputation of a company.
By internal stakeholders, I mean the management, marketing, and sales staff, manufacture, and purchase departments. By external Stakeholders, I mean all are those individuals and groups from outside of the organization who can affect the performance of a business. A good example of these people are users/customers, suppliers, laws and regulations department, and governments.
Corporate Communication Vs Public Relations
Corporate communication is a process through which a company disseminates information to internal and external stakeholders of the company. Public Relations, on the other hand, is one of the functions of corporate communication that deals with employees, investors, government, media, and the general public. The purpose of PR is to shape and maintain a positive image of the company.
Corporate Communication Vs Marketing Communication
Corporate communication is a well-structured process through which a company tells its customers about its goals, attitude, and company’s beliefs so that the public would perceive a good and favorable image of the company.
Marketing communication is comprised of various communication channels that a company uses to reach its target audience. The purpose of marketing communication is to reach the targeted audience and influence their buying decision.
Corporate Communication Vs Organizational Communication
Having discussed earlier that corporate communication is a process through which a company communicates with both internal and external stakeholders. Like government institutions, and nonprofit organizations.
Organizational communication comprises of all the communication channels that takes place within the organization only. People are working in the HR department, employees training and management, public relation, public affair, media management, research and development, and other areas of company fall in the category of organizational communication.
Objectives of Corporate Communications
Every business department has some objective and the corporate communication department has no exemptions as well. It also sets the objective and tries to achieve them efficiently and effectively. Then the performance is measure by how it has achieved the target for lagging.
To Increase Awareness
The important job of corporate communication is to increase awareness of a product or brand among different audiences. Organizations use different ways to make this communication effective, for example, social media, blogs, events, one-to-one meetings, newsletters, and annual reports. The other means of communication might be working with an influencer or journalist who can write about the company’s success stories.
Goal-Oriented Objectives
Corporate communication not only performs knowledge sharing activities about the products and services or problems. But the department also set SMART objectives and work hard to achieve them. For example, it sets goals for 80 percent positive social media reviews and feedback, positive media coverage by 75 percent. But before doing so, the company should conduct surveys, focus groups and analyze the industry, and the company’s history to set realistic goals and objectives.
Budget-Oriented Objectives
There are different types of organizations some are Non-profitable while others are profitable organization. Profit organizations work hard to increase their profit and reduce costs. Corporate communication department has no direct involvement in cost and revenue-oriented goals. However, some of its objectives might have a direct connection with the financials. For example, the management might be interested to boost sales without hiring the sales staff.
Key Components of Corporate Communication
Some of the important key components of the corporate communications are as follows;
Corporate Branding
Corporate branding is a widespread term comprises of all the marketing activities of a company and their relations with each other. In simple words, we can say that corporate branding is a way that how a company presents itself to its employees, the public, and the whole world.
The goal of corporate branding is to create a favorable perception of the company and its product/service among the targeted audience. Companies usually employ corporate branding strategies when;
- People don’t have much information either about the company, or its product/service.
- They consider the product/service of the company a risk.
- Customers would think about purchasing the product/service of the company when you tell them about their features.
Corporate Identity
Corporate identity is a visual representation like logo, text, fonts, color, and tagline that the company uses to identify itself and create an image in the minds of the public and promote it. The purpose of the corporate identity is to express the company’s vision and its core values, and how they differentiate with others.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is a self-regulatory business model where a business makes itself socially accountable to its stakeholders and the general public. When a company takes social responsibility and performs certain actions towards it, then it’s called corporate citizenship. The purpose of corporate citizenship is to make companies realize that their actions have social, economic, and environmental consequences, and they should take responsibility for it.
Corporate Reputation
Corporate reputation is a perception that people and stakeholders have about the company, and how they see the past and future of the company based on its actions and behavior. Having a positive corporate reputation is very important for your business, otherwise, other companies won’t take your business seriously.
Crisis Management
Crisis communication is a subcategory and department of public relations that deals with the public image and reputation of a certain company or a person. The purpose of crisis communication management is to protect and maintain the public image of a person or a company from many factors like; government investigation, media prosecution, and criminal attack that could destroy the reputation.
Media Relations
Media Relations is the process of developing a mutually beneficial relationship of sharing information between the company and media. It is also one of the functions of PR that you tell the company’s values, policies, mission statement, and plans. It’s very important to have good relations with the media and news agencies because they deliver the news to the public. It would benefit you if they’re on your side.
Internal communication
As the name implies internal communication is the process of sending and promoting the right information within the organization. Internal communication used to create a lot of conflicts, but technology has made the job of internal communication much easier.
Investors Relations
Investor Relations department deals with investors who have spent capital and resources into the company. They are very important for a company. Therefore, it’s significant to give them the right information; it would help them to make an informed decision regarding their investment.
Importance of Corporate Communication
In the following lines, we are going to discuss why corporate communication is crucial for a successful business.
To Avoid Miscommunication
When communication is not effective, then chances of miscommunication increases within the organization. If the concerned person did not tell the team members about the deadlines, they will know nothing about the updates.
To work effectively, everyone needs accurate and UpToDate information. For the said reason, an effective communication system must be in-placed to disseminate information to all those who need it.
To Maintain Brand Image and Awareness
An effective corporate communication strategy enables companies to respond appropriately when needed. Conveying the most appropriate message, statement, social post, or blog to the right audience at the right time will increase its brand image and awareness.
During a problematic business situation that might affect the brand’s perception, corporation communication plays its role at diffuse the situations and it puts things on the right track.
To Address Customer Problems
Effective communication policy is a great way to build customer-company relations. Customers need information regarding the new product launch, discounts, or any company updates to make informed purchase decisions.
For instance, if your company is to launch a new product with a 30% discounted price, you should timely inform the customer by using appropriate communication channels. The information will let them save some money, which they can spend on the new product later on. It will avoid a problematic situation for your loyal customer at the time of launch.
Effective Ways to Improve Corporate Communication
It’s very crucial and significant to get the right information across the organization. Here are some of the ways that you can use to improve corporate communication;
Make Information Accessible
Companies and businesses should have a centralized communication channel that would make the information accessible to every. Technology has made it possible through mobile phone applications, radio devices, and other walky-talkies. When you make the information accessible to everyone, then it would save a company’s lot of time and resources. Everyone would be aware of one’s role, and how it would affect the whole chain of processes.
Information Sharing and Engagement
Management of the companies and businesses should encourage the open culture of sharing information, and it should work in two ways. There shouldn’t be any conflict between management and employees regarding their work and information. Open culture of sharing information would increase the productivity of your organization.
Strengthen Connections
The management needs to develop connections within the organization across different departments. When you have strong connections within the organization, then it would help you not only at the personal level. But it would also increase productivity and innovation at the workplace.
Hire Qualified Team Members
The recruitment process of the company should be clear and precise, and the final selection should be solely based on merit. When you hire well-qualified team members, then it would benefit you in the long term. The right person would be loyal to one’s job and deliver the work on time.
Use Social Technology
Since everyone is casually accustomed to the use of the latest tech applications like Snapchat, Messenger, Facebook, Whatsapp, etc. Therefore, it’s important to use such social technology as what people are accustomed to and feel comfortable with it.
Image by William Iven
