I was lucky enough to moderate the panel at this week’s Singapore Financial and Professional Services Network meeting and was able to participate in a very interesting and thought-provoking dialogue about a number of issues confronting corporate comms practitioners today.
Perhaps the most illuminating points came in response to a question from the audience. Our questioner, a long-term comms professional who earned his spurs in media relations and then, like many of us, widened his skillset to include internal and digital comms, wanted to understand how his peers worked – on a practical level – with colleagues in marketing.
This topic had been touched on throughout the evening, mainly in connection with discussions about how digital comms are run and how they can be made to pay – since they are so obviously now an established part of the broad comms and marketing mix.
It very soon became clear that we all have ways in which not only is our daily work affected by the needs of marketing colleagues, but also that this is something that is more and more of a requirement. Years ago we would have sterile debates about whether comms was a sub-discipline of marketing or whether it’s a discipline all of its own. And we have worked in organisations where comms is set up according to one or the other of these models. Now it's going to come up in every strategy discussion we have.
What’s the answer? Well, our conversation revealed that the advent of digital channels, with their wealth of analytics, aren’t only providing comms with the longed-for data to help sharpen strategies and demonstrate ROI, but that our marketing colleagues are more and more in need of the skills comms brings to the table – especially the ability to create solid narratives and engaging copy.
If the two functions aren’t aligned formally and structurally, there is now more than ever a need to form close, co-operative relationships between them, which will ensure we’re really delivering value to the business. As our original questioner said, “we need to be grown-ups” for the good of our employers, as well as our own effectiveness at our jobs.
The power of uniting our activities is undeniable. When new products and services are launched, we can now create strategies that tie traditional comms activities directly to the lead-generation and new-business funnel by linking what we do to the marketing function. Comms practitioners can create content that has a real point beyond grabbing some column inches and a story in the weekly staff newsletter. As another panellist put it, we have now become the newsroom, providing our colleagues with the stories they need to engage potential customers.
What does this mean for traditional media relations? The good news is that this is still a core factor in our campaigns – but now, the coverage we obtain through good relationships with quality reporters at credible publications can be leveraged – or ‘amplified’ as it’s become so popular to say – via our internal and external social media channels, providing even greater value for the hard work these more traditional skills require.
Discussing this with a roomful of experienced and committed communicators, it was clear that there is a great deal of change under way and that the best way of dealing with it is to harness the expertise of our colleagues in other disciplines – regardless of how our orgnisations have structured their comms and marketing functions. New tools are bringing new – and much better – ways of practicing our craft. Improving our effectiveness as communicators means reacting constructively to changing circumstances – which is, after all, what we have always done.
(The Financial and Professional Services Network meeting was hosted in the stunning offices of committee member Baker Mackenzie with sponsorship from Brandwagon and Cognito)
