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Episode 13 - Charlotte Surtees-Chapman - How to correctly manage your comms to different stakeholders
117 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, we speak to Charlotte Surtees-Chapman who is the Group Senior Public Affairs Manager at Associated British Foods plc.
Charlotte has worked for Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Associated British Foods on public affairs and communications and so offers a wealth of knowledge around how to correctly manage your communications to different parties.
We discuss:
- What is public affairs and how it’s changed
- When to put something out as you or as your company
- The importance of the timing of your messages
- Checking that your communications make sense
- Using comms for internal benefits as well as external
- Understanding the different audiences your messages is going to
- Measuring the success of a message
Recommended
Transcript
Effective Communication Principles
00:00:00
Speaker
And so I guess when understanding your audience, it's trying to put yourself in the shoes of the person that you're communicating to and understand if you were there, how would you want to receive that message. Welcome to Survey Booker Sessions. Tune in to hear from people working in a range of industries and roles to provide you ideas that you can take away and use in your own business.
Introduction to Guest: Charlotte's Career Path
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm your host, Matt Nally, the founder and director of Survey Booker, which is the leading CRM and survey management system for surveyors.
00:00:27
Speaker
So on this week's episode, we have Charlotte, who's the group senior public affairs manager at ABF. So thanks for coming on, Charlotte. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Always, always. Do you want to start by giving us a bit of background as to how you got into public affairs and sort of your background within it? Yeah. So as you know, we went to university together. So we started out at King's College London and studied business management. And from there, I was very lucky to get onto the graduate program at Coca-Cola. So
00:00:57
Speaker
I started out in the bottling side doing sort of a hybrid role of communications and public affairs across a variety of sort of, I guess the UK market and also Europe. And then after that, I moved over to the Coca-Cola brand side. And again, I did a hybrid role of sort of public affairs and also some brand comms and a little bit of corporate comms as well. And then I moved over to a global role at McDonald's
00:01:26
Speaker
So I was a global campaigns manager, which was sort of focused on public affairs, but also communicating and launching some of our big sustainability campaigns. And as you say now, I am the senior public affairs manager at Associated British Foods, and we are the UK's largest agri-food business and owner of Primark. So my
Understanding Customer Motivations
00:01:47
Speaker
role now is much more focused on public affairs, but I guess I have a background in communications, public affairs, a little bit of sustainability,
00:01:55
Speaker
and always with that food and drink lens. Awesome. So really cool companies in there. Yes, some big ones. Yeah, massive. I imagine you've done some very exciting projects, which we'll maybe touch on a bit later. I think one of the reasons I was really interested in speaking to you today was
00:02:14
Speaker
I suppose one of the challenges that any company has and surveyors are the same is how do you communicate to customers and of course you've got different types of customers for the different services you offer and even within one service you've got different intents behind why someone's trying to go
The Role of Public Affairs
00:02:31
Speaker
ahead. So if you're doing a home survey
00:02:34
Speaker
you know, perhaps it's your first number or an up-sizer or a down-sizer. So there's different motivations throughout. And then you've obviously got commercial clients and they've got a very different mindset to what a domestic client or a residential client is looking for. So yes, I suppose the context for today is looking at everything around that. But just as supposed to get started, what is public affairs? What does that cover? Yeah, I think public affairs has really grown in recent years. Yeah.
00:03:04
Speaker
I think sometimes there's been a misconception that public affairs and communications has been a bit fluffy and a nice to have. And I think especially with the rise of the influence of media, but also social media, people now start to understand that actually being able to communicate well is critical to any business and really sort of supports in driving brand trust and reputation.
00:03:28
Speaker
So I see communications as a great tool for engaging with all stakeholders, whether that's prospective clients, as you've just outlined, whether it's internal employees, media, or I guess the brands I've traditionally worked with, consumers of your end product. And I think it's really important to help you drive business growth.
00:03:51
Speaker
You can gain more sales through the way that you communicate, but also it's about how people perceive your company and building that positive reputation and opinion of your business is really important.
Influencing Policies for Business Benefits
00:04:02
Speaker
You know, I just touched on today's society, you know, one negative media headline or bad social media post can really destroy your reputation and your business overnight. And that's why I think getting it right is so important.
00:04:18
Speaker
And then I guess I'll just touch on public affairs very quickly, which is the other side and my role at the moment, which is really about minimising or mitigating risks on your business. So the government is always working on policies, whether that sort of sustainability policies or I guess for you, maybe constraints around planning and ways in which you might need to carry out surveys. And actually, it can be really important to engage with politicians to try and shape the policies that they're working on.
00:04:48
Speaker
to ensure that they, I guess, benefit your business or don't add too much burden or cost to doing business. And on the other side of that, often government are launching funding schemes, which your businesses might be able to
Authenticity in Communication
00:05:01
Speaker
access. So the public affairs point, I guess, is also quite important to keep a monitor of as well. That's really, really cool points in there, actually. And I think
00:05:11
Speaker
one of the ones that stuck in my head there is it's very easy actually to just always think everything is outward in terms of speaking to people outside the business and not how effectively you're communicating internally to employees and obviously how engaged they feel and motivated so that there's a lot actually in that generally. I suppose there's lots I suppose to take away from there and delve into but what I suppose at a higher level are the keys to
00:05:41
Speaker
successful communication so if you're, where do you start with it I suppose because you've got all of these you know different stakeholders you could approach so how do you sort of decide where to begin? Yeah I think fundamentally you need to make sure that your communication is authentic to yourself and your brand and everything you're communicating you are also putting into practice so it's no good to say communicating about these amazing
00:06:09
Speaker
environmental credentials, for example, if you're not actually doing them. So it's really important to know who your brand is. And then I think to make communication successful, it's really about taking time to understand your audience and build a meaningful relationship with them. And I think through all of that, there's a really important point to being clear in what you're saying, but also being honest. And I guess for you guys, that might be really important if a product is delayed,
00:06:38
Speaker
then actually it's important to communicate that upfront because I often think the people you're communicating to appreciate honestly, they want to feel respected. And so the more information you can give them that's gonna support, I guess your kind of channels is really important. So I guess when it comes to communications in general, what I like to do is come up with a little bit of a commons plan. And I think there's a couple of points within that.
00:07:08
Speaker
The first, I guess, is really understanding why are you communicating? So what is the objective? For you guys, it might be, are you trying to attract new clients? Are you trying to build a better relationship with existing clients? Are you just communicating on an ongoing project? And sort of it's a day-to-day communication. So that's really important. What's your why? What are you trying to achieve? And then I guess the second point there is,
00:07:35
Speaker
what is your message? So what actually is it you're going to be saying and therefore what tone do you need to use? So, you know, we touched at the start, but being clear is really, really important. But also understanding, is the message you're giving positive or negative? How is the person receiving it likely to feel when they get it? And based on that, you can start to think about, okay, which are the ways in which I should be giving that message?
Choosing the Right Communication Method
00:08:02
Speaker
And also things such as, are there
00:08:05
Speaker
points that make you stand out from your competitor, in which case that should absolutely be included in your message, whether that's sort of green credentials or you've got expertise in your business that other people might have. Really using that as a driver for your message I think is important. I guess a couple other points that I'll touch on quickly is understanding who your audience is and that I would imagine would be quite critical for you guys because it depends on
00:08:34
Speaker
How much knowledge do they have of the subject? So if you're reporting, for example, on, I don't know, the condition of a property to a commercial client who's got loads of properties, sees this day in, day out, then they might just want something really sappy. This is what we found, you know, can keep it quite quick. But actually, if you're engaging with a first time buyer who's never done this before,
00:08:57
Speaker
they might want a bit more hand-holding, and so you might need to over-communicate some of the details and really work to reassure them. And so I guess when understanding your audience, it's trying to put yourself in the shoes of the person that you're communicating to and understand if you were there, how would you want to receive that message? And then I guess the final thing I'd touch on is the channel that you're using to communicate is really important.
00:09:25
Speaker
you know, as I said, if your client is doing this day in, day out, then maybe a quick call is really easy and, you know, communicating by phone is fine. However, equally, if you're submitting information to a council for planning permission, for example, then you might want a formal channel where what you're saying is recorded and documented for future use. So yeah, I think those are just a couple of very initial things that you should think of, but really important in making sure your campaign is successful.
00:09:54
Speaker
So there's a couple of points I picked up from that.
00:09:57
Speaker
One was the channel. I completely agree with you on that because I've seen often when I'm having conversations, people like to provide a service in the way that they like to receive communications. So they like phone, for example, which is great. Everyone should have to pick up the phone because that's what they prefer. And actually, that doesn't work for some customers. They just want an email that's quickly outlined something or they want the text or whatever it might be. So it's really important to get the method right and actually put yourself in the shoes, as you say, of
00:10:27
Speaker
the end customer, the end stakeholder, but not your own preference. The other one I find interesting, and I think people often struggle with this, is you touched on really explaining your unique selling points or the value you offer versus a competitor. How do you go about, when you've done this in the past,
00:10:49
Speaker
So I suppose understanding what they are and outlining them properly and communicating in the right way. Because I find a lot of people can very easily get stuck on a feature. And it's often the same feature that everybody else is saying. So I don't know. We're local. We're RCS. We're whatever. And of course, everyone can say they're enough. They're local. They're RCS. They're whatever it might be. So how do you pick up on your unique aspects or your value and communicate that in a way that isn't just
00:11:18
Speaker
sort of generic, I suppose, or the same as what someone else might be. Yeah, I think it's a great question. There are a couple points that I would pick up on. So firstly, making sure that what makes you unique is actually, you know, is actually truthful, is really important. It's no good communicating something which actually isn't a brand value, as I think that that gets picked up quite quickly. And
00:11:43
Speaker
At the moment, you see a lot of claims around, say, greenwashing, where people are claiming that they're really environmentally friendly and actually they're not. And that can do more harm than good. As you say, a lot of the companies that you're sort of talking about are probably quite similar in terms of their offering. I would look at things such as, do you have an expert, for example, a technical expert in the business, which other companies might not have? In which case, you could use them to communicate some of the work that you're doing and really sell off the fact
00:12:13
Speaker
they've got experience that other people might not have or they've got specific knowledge that might be really important. Another thing to look at is, you know, do you have projects that you've done before, which other companies might not have done and might be really relevant to that specific set of stakeholders? So, you know, are there proof points that you can start to bring to life from previous projects that would help to show that you are unique? You know, whether that's a specific project that really stands you out
00:12:44
Speaker
Have you won awards that other people might not have won? And you can sort of communicate about those. Are there sustainability projects that you're working on? Are you trying to reduce your carbon footprint, et cetera? Could you bring that to life? I guess something I would also say is when communicating, it's really helpful to look at what your competitors are saying. And you can start to sort of look at who do you think is best in class out there
00:13:14
Speaker
And what are they saying and how are they positioning themselves? And is there something that they are sort of selling themselves as, which is really unique? And then you can start to work back and think, okay, well, how does that fit into my business? But I think what's really important is rather than just saying there's something unique about you, there has to actually be something that makes you stand out. And I guess that's working internally to find out what that is.
00:13:40
Speaker
And I guess also it comes back to putting yourself in the client's shoes. What would you be looking for? You know, if you've got five companies all in a line, is it that they're more cost-effective, for example?
Customizing Communication for Different Audiences
00:13:52
Speaker
Is it that they've got the greater expertise, the better projects to prove that they're able to really deliver what they say they're going to deliver? Do they have testimonials that might stand them out? You know, really looking at what would you want in that situation?
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's very important. And it ultimately justifies your fee level within the industry. If you can't communicate the justification for your value, then by definition, your price is going to have to come down to reflect that you can't provide the value less than somebody else. So it's important once you spend the time on it, I think. When you've had some really big projects in the past,
00:14:33
Speaker
because I imagine obviously you've been speaking to government, you've then had stuff that goes out to end consumers all around the same project. How do you review that message and adjust how you're sending it out or what's even included in it? How do you decide what to include, what to leave out, how to position it if you're going for end consumer and government and all these different people? It's really important to look at, again,
00:15:01
Speaker
who your audience is and what you're trying to communicate. So from a consumer perspective, consumers don't spend a huge amount of time reading things. We're in sort of a three second TikTok environment. So ensuring that you're communicating something in a way which is really fun, playful, three top line messages max to land. And then also looking at channels. So at the moment, it seems that consumers are quite visual. So Instagram, TikTok,
00:15:31
Speaker
could be the best way to approach your messaging there. If you're then looking to, say, grab a media headline, you need to think about what is that headline that's going to make them write about you? Is there a key stat that sort of stands you out from your competitors? Are you launching a new project that's particularly important? And what makes it exciting for a media to report on? And there, I think it's really looking at the so what.
00:16:00
Speaker
And again, with media, it tends to be sort of face-to-face conversations. Do you have someone in your business that you would want to put up for a media interview? Do you just want to give them a press release? And there you sort of have the key detail behind what you're launching. With government, it tends to be slightly more detailed. So you're usually looking to get a lot more information across.
00:16:25
Speaker
whether that be specific detail about planning permissions or very specific details potentially on a survey finding. And there is probably better to consider who is the voice of the business. Are you going to communicate as the business you're representing or might it be better to put one of your technical experts available, sort of put your technical expert forward to communicate that detail
00:16:52
Speaker
which is probably going to be very formal, written responses to government-style questions. Yeah, that's it. Great points there again. I think one of them actually ties nicely back with a previous episode we did around plenty of email content. It's not what you're saying, but it's how you just lay it out. I know you were talking about visuals a minute ago.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, you can have the same points, but if you've got it as one solid paragraph versus split into nice sections and images and all that kind of stuff within the email, then suddenly the same message, one gets across and one just gets ignored with too much to look at. Yeah. I'd also just say on that, thinking about what voice you're using, because sometimes it might be that communicating as your business and as your brand is going to be most effective.
00:17:44
Speaker
But sometimes it can be really useful to look at, does the CEO have a voice? So, for example, does the CEO have presence on LinkedIn and actually you want to communicate the brand message, but via the CEO or via, I don't know, for us, it might be our chief sustainability officer. And then also looking at, you know, earlier, I think we were talking about ways in which you could stand out from your competitors.
00:18:08
Speaker
Are there specific magazines or publications in the surveying world that are very well read by clients and where you could do sort of a blog or an interview with your CEO or with one of your technical experts?
Leveraging Personal Branding
00:18:21
Speaker
Because that's quite a good way to expand reach specifically in that, I guess, that technical world of people who really know surveying.
00:18:31
Speaker
That's a very good point, actually, and maybe think about something else, which is how do you decide when something should come from the company and when it should come from an individual like the CEO or somebody else? And just in terms of is there a risk that you start to develop too much personal ground with an individual and therefore if they leave, the value's gone in the business because everyone's used to hearing from say the CEO or a particular director. So yeah, how do you find the balance on that?
00:18:59
Speaker
I guess it comes back to the message and does it feel more authentic for it to come from the CEO? So, for example, if you are going to communicate about your business and brand values or the way in which maybe you approach your employees and wellbeing and that sort of message, which feels slightly more personal, then it might be better for that to come from the CEO. Equally, if you've got something, you know, earlier we spoke about
00:19:29
Speaker
a point of difference being you having a technical expert. If you are going to communicate something that is really technical, then it might be better for them to relay that message as they've sort of got the expertise. It's an interesting point and eraser about what happens when that person leaves the company. And the way I've done it previously is we've always had someone where there, for example, if you take someone's LinkedIn, there's not been a lot of crossover from a personal perspective.
00:19:59
Speaker
So we really have worked as a communications team to build that leader's presence on social media and ensure that they are communicating regularly, but not too much on topics that are of importance to the brand. I guess another thing you can look at is to avoid those situations happening. If you communicate as the businesses and the brand, do you then want to get the CEO or another leader within the business to amplify the post?
00:20:29
Speaker
So for example, they could share it on their LinkedIn, they could share it on their Twitter, and that helps to sort of, I guess, increase the credibility of that post, but also increase the reach.
Handling Negative Feedback
00:20:40
Speaker
But also, yeah, keep it then tied back to the company rather than it being too personal every time. Yeah, it's an interesting idea. And I guess also, you know, if, so for example, if I take examples we've done in the past, say if I'm launching something on beef sustainability during time at a previous company,
00:20:59
Speaker
If the chief sustainability officer has been the person to come up with the narrative and the concept and they've worked really hard on that, it makes more sense for them to tell that story because they are more likely to be passionate about it. And then that drives into the credibility and the way in which other people will read it because that passion comes across from them having been so closely involved in it.
00:21:26
Speaker
where, you know, if you're just communicating your business credentials, then that's, you know, far more easily going to come from the business itself. Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point. I think I don't know why this popped into my head. I think it came around the the business sustainability part. But there's obviously I imagine it's very easy to get
00:21:45
Speaker
a scenario where something somehow goes negative, someone decides to pick up on something and they don't believe it and they try and run a different angle, even if it's just on social media with consumers. I suppose the context I'm thinking of more is for a surveyor, you get, I don't know, a negative review for whatever reason, someone decides they don't like something you did, whether it's right or wrong. But how do you then mitigate that
00:22:09
Speaker
aspect in terms of how do you then start to change the narrative when someone's put in a negative review, for example, or said something bad on social? Yeah, it's hard. And I'd say the first thing you need to look at is, is it worth responding to? So there are a lot of times I'm sure you can imagine that the brands that I've worked with where you do get negative feedback, whether that be on social media, or sort of face to face.
00:22:37
Speaker
If it's on social media, what you don't want to do is make the situation worse. And so I guess it's about looking at what reach does that social channel have? How many people are starting to engage with the comment? Is there truth behind it as well? So if they are making an accusation, which actually there is truth behind and could be quite damaging, then that's something that you would want to engage in. But if they're just saying, you know,
00:23:06
Speaker
I disagree with the findings of this survey and the post isn't getting much traction. Actually, it might be better for you not to engage at all. I would say probably for your line of work and the sort of scenarios you would be dealing with, the best thing to do is to comment with, thank you for your feedback. Please drop us an email and we will come back to you directly. And that way you take the conversation off social media and you minimize the risk of it suddenly blowing up and you're able to have
00:23:36
Speaker
hopefully what is a constructive engagement offline where other people aren't able to see it. Yeah, that's a very good point. I think it ties in actually, I think it's popped into my head randomly, but ties in a bit with the method that had been used by the royal family with, well, a royal family, shall we say, with a prince and a princess in terms of, you know, South Park ended up taking that one themselves, didn't they? And responded on behalf of. Can imagine that's a difficult communications team to be part of at the moment.
00:24:06
Speaker
But yeah, sometimes you do need to address the situation absolutely, but there's a time and a place and I think it's about using your judgment as to, is you engaging with someone who actually might not be rational and might be posting negatively about a different company every single day? Is it worth putting resource into making that situation worse? Are they out there to pick a fight or do they have a genuine point where actually
00:24:36
Speaker
trying to sort of get your point across and make them feel comfortable and build back. The relationship is important. And I think it's about using your judgment there. Yeah, you're right. Because actually sometimes there are occasions where someone isn't out for a resolution. They're just out to have a bad, you know, they're in a bad mood and they want to just keep going down the certain line. And it's the same way, you know, you'll see on media stories, there's a huge amount of stories where a company has been approached for a comment and they just don't comment.
Crafting Clear and Purposeful Messages
00:25:07
Speaker
And that's absolutely fine to do. What I would say is if you do have a good story to tell, so for us it might be that someone's commented negatively about our packaging when actually it's 100% recyclable and everything that's being said is in fact, then that's something that we might want to engage in and give a sort of media statement from the company on. It's sort of about, do you have proof points to back up the reason why you disagree with them and how can you put that in across
00:25:33
Speaker
across in a way that doesn't feel too defensive if you are going to respond. Yeah, and actually that reminded me of a point I wanted to come on to earlier, which is, I suppose we're talking more about media at the moment from a national press kind of level. But equally, if you're a medium-sized business, you can still be doing that same thing with the local newspapers where you are. It's the same process. It's just on a local rather than national level.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think to that point, it's, as you say, on a local level, is really important. But also going back to that, are there specialist publications which you would read? You know, I don't know if there is survey as well, or whatever it might be. But are there those sorts of publications or newsletters that come out that you read often, and you might think actually being involved in this is, you know, it's quite an interesting way to engage and to increase the reach and
00:26:27
Speaker
message that we're trying to send out. I like that. One other aspect I wanted to look at was what are the common mistakes that you've seen where things have not necessarily gone disastrously wrong because obviously that's more specific to that scenario but what are the common mistakes that you see people making where the message just doesn't get across and people don't understand it and what makes a really good message?
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, there are a couple of points here. I would say sometimes, especially if you're not a communications expert, if you're so into the detail of what you're trying to communicate, it might make sense to you because you have the background on what you're communicating, but actually to someone else with no expertise and with little understanding of the industry, they might read something and it just completely goes over their head. And so I think when you're writing a message, it's really important to take a step back and look at
00:27:27
Speaker
how would someone who might have no knowledge on this subject whatsoever read it? A good sort of sense check there is if you've written something and you're not sure if you're in that situation or not, are there colleagues or even friends that you could say, hey, have a read of this, does it make sense to you? And if it does, great. And if it doesn't, then maybe you can seek a bit of feedback and advice on what would make it land for them, because landing your message is really important.
00:27:55
Speaker
I think the tone point is also really important. So you never want to sound too defensive in what you're communicating. You want to be authentic to who you are. You want to be clear, concise, and always sort of reviewing your messages of what was the key point that I was trying to make? What am I trying to achieve here?
00:28:18
Speaker
and almost going back to that, that checkpoint that we discussed at the beginning and just making sure that the message actually does tick to, you know, tick all of those boxes. I'd say another thing that people sometimes don't think about is time, as in when is it right to put the message out there? So for example, if you're trying to engage someone on a really important topic, is Friday at 5.30 going to be the best time?
Tailoring Communication Channels
00:28:45
Speaker
Probably not. People are probably ready to get on the drinks and head off for the week. Equally trying to land a really important message on a Monday morning when people are catching up with a million emails, probably not going to work. So it's really thinking about, you know, does the communication make sense? Is the tone right for the audience that you're trying to attract? And then, yeah, making sure that that timing point is right.
00:29:15
Speaker
You know, and also if you're trying to, I'm trying to think if you've got a highly commercial client, for example, or a technical expert, are they going to be looking on Instagram for the message? Maybe, I mean, maybe they are, but most likely they're not. They're probably going to be looking in the specialist publications. And so again, making sure that the channel of communications is right is really important.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a very, very good point because there's a lot of temptation to be on every channel because every other business is trying to be on every channel. But do you really want to be putting a message out that someone's scrolling through on a Saturday on Instagram where they're actually just trying to enjoy their social time and look at other things entirely? They don't want to be getting bombarded with something technical.
00:30:02
Speaker
The other point you made made me think back to my school days where you get the feedback on your homework going, you haven't answered the question. You've gone on your own tangent of what you think the question was and not gone back to it and gone, oh yeah, hang on. Yeah, it's really important. You know, also, I think in a day where communications are playing a much larger role for people's businesses, you know, there's two different types of communication there is sort of
00:30:29
Speaker
day-to-day checking in with your clients, building those relationships, building a little bit more knowledge and awareness of the brand, but also you need to sort of tread a balance because equally you don't want to over communicate.
Setting Objectives and Measuring Success
00:30:41
Speaker
Do you actually have a point to make or are you just communicating something because you think you should be doing something? You know you can sort of lose, we've all had newsletters which you think you're signing up to and then suddenly it's like
00:30:54
Speaker
daily or twice daily bombardment with information that actually you don't really care about so also ensuring that that you're aware of that and you aren't over communicating. Yeah because that's a good point actually particularly with email is um you just it becomes so familiar in your inbox it's easy to ignore um yeah you see the same thing coming up um
00:31:15
Speaker
I think one last thing I was interested in understanding, particularly because obviously the scale of the type of communications you do, is how do you measure the success of a campaign? Because I think it's really easy to put stuff out there. The hard part is obviously getting the right messages as we've discussed, but also understanding whether it's being effective.
00:31:34
Speaker
And yeah, so how do you decide? Because it's obviously likes on the one hand, it could just be a lot of people have seen that they like they visually liked it. So they press the button, but actually they've not necessarily read it. So it could be a manatee metric. Sometimes it's that everyone has engaged and therefore was an important metric. Equally open rate doesn't necessarily mean that they were interested in the communication in an email. So how do you go about measuring or deciding what to measure on the different types of things you put out?
00:32:02
Speaker
This is actually quite challenging as it can be hard to measure the impact of communications. I think going back to your why and what were the objectives that you set out in the first place? So were you trying to build more positive relationships with existing clients? Were you trying to attract new clients? Is it just day-to-day communications? You've got the results of a survey and it's sort of quite transactional. But I would say if you're very clear on your objectives and what you're trying to achieve,
00:32:31
Speaker
then you can start to try and put KPIs to that. So, you know, is it that through this specific communications, we want to try and attract five new clients next month? Is it that we would like an existing client to come back to us and you're sort of looking at client retention? Is it that you just want someone to feel more positive about the work that you're doing and have more trust in you and your business?
Engagement and Visual Storytelling
00:33:00
Speaker
And so,
00:33:02
Speaker
You've got the KPIs on the one hand, if it is really tangible around attracting new clients. The harder measurement comes when it's around that sort of positive reputation and building those relationships. And sometimes you need to measure that through check-ins with clients. Can you check in at the end of some of your communications to say, how do you feel this relationship's going? Are you happy with everything? Are we delivering everything you need? Or is there more that we could be doing?
00:33:30
Speaker
So that's where I think you get some of the softer side. But, you know, as you say, going back to likes on social media posts, I don't think they always give the best, you know, they don't give you the best idea of what's really going on. You know, likes are great. And I think you can use those as a KPI, but I would always look for engagement. So, you know, if you've put something out on LinkedIn, are people sharing it? Are people
00:34:00
Speaker
you know, putting something in the comments and coming back with questions. Are people connecting with you through it or reaching out saying, great posts, we'd love to talk to you more about X, Y and Z. Those are sort of some of the softer, but slightly harder to measure points. And you know, it might be that you want to explore putting a little bit of paid behind some of the campaigns that you're running. So if you've got a really important point to put on LinkedIn,
00:34:28
Speaker
you might want to look at, should we put a bit of money behind amplifying this message, a sponsored post, for example. And then you look at, well, I've increased the reach through that sponsorship. And so I might be more likely to attract more clients through that. But I think it's sort of an evolving process. And especially in the world of social media, it is very difficult to look at what actually was successful.
00:34:55
Speaker
But, you know, I would say if you don't think things are going well, then I would look at, you know, can you seek feedback from other colleagues that you're working with? Again, to the point we raised earlier, is the communications message landing? And also looking again at what competitors are doing this really well? Is there a gap between what they're putting out and what you're putting out and how can you sort of bridge that?
00:35:18
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think the social ones are very, very hard to measure because some of my, I suppose, lowest engagement posts in terms of, you know, the number of likes have actually had the most traction in terms of conversations off the back of them. But I saw an interesting one the other day, which was someone posted a picture of some, I think it was some of Vitti's chocolate digestives and the price, how much the price we've gone up by on the shelf.
00:35:41
Speaker
and they'd had thousands of likes on that and they're like but all my actual useful posts over years of all my experience of how to do x y and z it's just been you know they get hardly anything but suddenly a packet of biscuits but that won't actually have achieved them much work it's just yeah but that's really important because actually that goes back to that message as well and that's an example where sometimes if you have a shocking start i'm sure that's probably around inflation and
00:36:07
Speaker
If you have a stack that's really going to shock people, use it because that's how you get that initial, oh, wow, I'm going to take a moment to engage in that content versus just skipping through a bit. So sometimes, you know, yeah, that makes it different to every other. Yeah, exactly. So I didn't realize.
00:36:27
Speaker
No, sorry. I was just going to say, sometimes, you know, having a hard-hitting fact can be really impactful in gaining attention. And for you guys, you know, your sorts of business you might want to look at, are there milestones coming up where, you know, you've done 100 surveys, which you might want to communicate, or you're investing in X, Y and Z. Especially from a headline perspective, being able to put a figure whether that's financial or number of clients or whatever that might be behind the message can be
00:36:58
Speaker
be really important. Especially a number does help because it helps it to be more relatable. People can actually engage and understand that versus something that's a bit more, fluffy is the wrong word, but intangible. It's hard to understand it or appreciate it. Yeah, that's lovely. And also just thinking about, I guess your audience as well, it's like probably a lot of what you're dealing with is quite technical and quite detailed.
00:37:24
Speaker
So how can you make it a bit of fun? Is it through visuals? Is it through those shocking stats? What brings it to life versus, you know, a lot of people can quite easily get lost in a lot of text. And, you know, that's fine for when you're communicating to government, but if you're trying to win over a new client, it might not be.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yes, I agree with that. I think also what's just popped into my head is it's not just about communication in terms of what you're putting out there in terms of a marketing perspective or general brand communication perspective, but that all still applies within, let's say, a report that you're sending out, whether it's a commercial property or residential property.
00:38:01
Speaker
how you've written everything in there and how engaging it is in visual and whatever makes a huge difference to how someone's going to receive it, understand it, their end satisfaction to come back and use you again. So it all ties into other aspects of the business as well. Yeah definitely and what we sometimes do is you know we launch a report and then we sort of pull out the five key points and put it into an infographic and then you know you can take that to face-to-face meetings, you can drop it through letterboxes, you can put it on social media so
00:38:31
Speaker
especially I think if you've got a project which you're putting a lot of money into such as producing a report, how can you get the most bang for your buck? So how can you really make that one piece of content work hard across all your channels and in different ways with different audiences?
Connect with Charlotte
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think I suppose one thing is if you're surveying and you want to do something locally, you can go, well, you know, of all the houses we've looked at in this particular postcode or postcode district, they on average have this many significant issues, this many low issues, and that averages that as a cost of this. So therefore our service is more than paid for from it. But yeah, you can put that into a nice infographic, aren't you, making the visual. Definitely.
00:39:17
Speaker
Perfect. Thanks for coming on and sharing all of your thoughts today around all the different ways you can communicate and things to think about. If anyone wants to take a look at some of the stuff that you post about for AVF, who you're working with, can they follow you online to see that? Yeah, absolutely. I am on LinkedIn and also Twitter, so feel free to drop me a message and connect. Always happy to talk. Lovely. Thanks very much and speak soon.
00:39:47
Speaker
Okay, thanks so much, bye.