What is corporate communication?
Corporate communication is a term that denotes the management of relationships with stakeholders of the organization.
Examples of stakeholders in an organization are:
- Journalists, bloggers and (social) media
- Politicians and administrators at municipal, provincial and national level
- Partners and ambassadors
- Suppliers
- Residents
- Investors or shareholders
- Competitors
- Detractors
Corporate communication is aimed at mapping the playing field of the organization and its stakeholders and so on implicit or explicit support and create support for decisions or the organizational vision.
Corporate communication aims to all forms of communication inside the organisation accurately coordinated. The aim is to clearly convey the image of the organization to all stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization.
In short: it is communication by the organization as a whole, focusing on communicating the identity and strengthening the image of the organization.
Focus areas of corporate communication
Which focus areas fall under the responsibility of corporate communications?
1. Corporate branding and identity
What does the organization stand for? Which brand values are important, which design matches the identity and with what tone of voice does the organization present itself? Corporate communications owns this communication in many organizations.
2. Image, reputation management and goodwill
In corporate communication, creating a good image and goodwill among all target groups is central.
Creating or protecting an organization's image (or reputation) is one of the most important goals of an organization's communication strategy. Bee reputation management Three elements play a role:
- Brand awareness or name recognition
- Sentiment (how much respect, trust and admiration there is for the organization)
- Presentation
The latter expresses the strength that the organization radiates in terms of vision and leadership, corporate social responsibility, financial presentation and innovation.
Corporate communication is therefore characterized by a clear long-term perspective, which requires a tone of voice that is not specifically aimed at sales.
3. Issue management and crisis communication
Issue management is the management of so-called issues that arise outside the organization, over which the organization has only indirect influence, but which do have a negative impact on the reputation of the organization.
Recognizing issues in a timely manner, or even predicting them, prevents an issue from developing into a crisis. In some cases, an issue does become a crisis.
Issue management and crisis communication include developing scenarios and drawing up proactive or reactive strategies for dealing with an issue or crisis.
4. Public Relations (PR)
The communication discipline of Public Relations covers all communication with all public target groups, through advertisements, promotions and publicity.
The essence of Public Relations it is providing the right information to the right stakeholder (journalist or blogger) at the right time. Having relationships with the media is therefore very important.
Examples of communication expressions are press releases, writing a column or op-ed, press conferences and press events or spokespersons.
5. Investor relations (IR)
Depending on the type of organization, shareholders or investors can play an important role. In some cases, corporate communications will be responsible for relationships with these specific stakeholders. In other cases, a financial department or management does this.
6. Public Affairs (PA)
In the discipline public affairs relationships with all political stakeholders at municipal, provincial and national level are central. Anyone who wants to influence the political and social agenda must be well informed about what is going on in the public domain.
Also read more about the playing field of public affairs.
Communication as a basis
In corporate communication, it is necessary to coordinate all communications to all stakeholders so that there is no conflict in communication. Or to prevent a certain stakeholder from being 'forgotten'.
To clarify what the essence of corporate communication is, it is important to know what exactly 'communication' means. Because that ultimately forms the starting point of the entire communication strategy within an organization, regardless of how it takes shape.
The dictionary defines the term as: notice, communication. But it is much broader: we mean communication all forms of information exchange, and that is much more than just words and language.
The essence of communication is that sender and receiver transfer information to each other by responding to each other's messages or signals. And that can be done in other ways than through text and language.
Because people also communicate through their posture, through facial expressions, tone and gestures. You also convey a certain message by looking away or saying nothing.
However, the meaning of that message is influenced by the relationship between sender and receiver, and by the interpretation of the receiver. This makes communication a complex process in which communication is created – consciously or unconsciously – through both language and behavior.
That is why an organization must be acutely aware of its total package of communications. Because that influence is greater than just providing information: in addition to well-thought-out campaigns, visible behavior can also strengthen or weaken the organization's message.
Other communication disciplines
In addition to the areas of attention mentioned that fall under the responsibility of corporate communication, there are other communication disciplines where it is important to coordinate expressions.
Internal communications
Internal communication is, as the term indicates, communication with the 'internal' stakeholders in the organization, such as employees, management, executives and, for example, franchisees or branches. It includes all formal and informal contacts, not only top-down from management to employees, but all different forms of communication.
Information to exchange knowledge, to ensure that work runs efficiently and thus to connect people with each other and with the organization.
This makes internal communication an essential instrument for a good organizational culture, because employees feel more involved in the organization.
This involvement provides added value, which results in loyal customers and therefore constant growth.
Internal communication tools that are used for this purpose include email traffic, newsletters, presentations, training and feedback sessions. Intranet, a protected part of the internet available to employees, can also be an efficient means of promoting internal communication.
Management communication
Management communication is defined as: all information that management communicates to its employees. The aim is to create support for organizational goals or decisions.
An organizational tool whose task is to organize and coordinate management decisions, and to convince employees of and include them in the goals of the organization.
Because in order to successfully implement the vision and mission of the organization and the associated strategies, it is important to have support at all levels of the organization.
To achieve this, it is essential that all parts of communication fit together seamlessly. This makes management communication an important part of an organization's total communication package.
Marketing communications
The purpose of marketing communication is to influence the customer or user in order to generate profit. Marketing communication is often used to influence a point of view, certain knowledge or habits of the customer or user with regard to a certain product or service.
By using marketing communication specifically to convey product or service related information to the target group, the customer or user can be guided directly or indirectly in making choices regarding certain products or services.
The sale of products or services is central, through the use of various marketing communications. The marketing department therefore mainly focuses on customers and prospects.
The most important challenges in marketing communication are determining the target group, the image of the service or product, the positioning of the service or product (the way in which it is marketed) and the distribution channels that the organization can best use. .
Of all the means that promote sales, advertising is the best-known form of marketing communication. In advertising we distinguish between 'above the line' and 'below the line'.
Above the line includes advertising aimed at the masses, with a focus on brand or name awareness. Commercials on television and promotional activities through channels such as radio, TV and (online) advertisements are examples of this.
Below the line is a way of advertising through a select group of customers or users. Examples of communication tools are direct mail, sales promotion and sponsorship for the direct goal: increasing turnover.
Also read: what is labor market communication?
The approach to a good corporate communication strategy
A structured approach to a corporate communication strategy starts with mapping the vision, mission and image of the organization. With these keywords the organization describes its objectives and the image the organization strives for.
In addition, the organization uses a number of tools to achieve those objectives:
- A stakeholder map.
A tool for mapping the position of the organization, which makes it clear which issues are important to the organization. Such as organizational safety and quality control, for example. Also see: stakeholder management. - By a specific one strategy The organization can prioritize certain issues, which thus form the basis of a communication strategy.
- A communication plan, in which the organization specifically describes what message it wants to convey to stakeholders, how often and in what way. It forms the connection between strategy and communication calendar.
- The communication calendar contains a timeline in which the organization records communication on certain topics, such as in communication campaigns.
Developing an efficient corporate communications strategy is often a challenge for organizations. First of all, there must be clarity about what can be expected from a strategy before you start working on an action plan.
The following elements are discussed:
- A clear diagnosis.
A sharp and analytical view of the organization forms the basis for identifying the symptoms as clearly as possible, which immediately provides clues for a good organizational strategy. - A guiding policy.
In a controlling approach to eliminate the described problems, the objectives and the target group you want to reach are formulated in concrete terms. - A coherent action plan.
The detailed action plan includes a strategy for the planned actions that will be taken to implement the outlined policy.
Why is corporate communication important?
Ideally, the department fulfills corporate communication a bridging function between the internal and external world and between the various internal departments. She can play an important role in identifying the most important issues, introducing environmental sensitivity, incorporating stakeholder management and directing or managing the most important issue teams. And of course when formulating key messages, communication strategies, Q&As and other communication expressions.
By thinking more in terms of issues, a corporate communication department can come closer to management and the importance of corporate communication is emphasized more. After all, the issues are the topics that management struggles with. Precisely by optimally informing the management about new developments internally and externally surrounding issues, introducing environmental sensitivity, identifying pain points and proposing solutions for these issues, the communications department can play a role in the management's considerations. Moreover, the department is also taken seriously when formulating policy. If this department also coordinates the issue teams, the continuity of the approach is also guaranteed.
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