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How Lack of Communications Planning Impacts Your Business

Many small businesses like Homeroom often start out as a one-person operation that through hard work and dedication grows into a small business. As the growth occurs it is often organic and sometimes rapid so hiring staff, finding an office and branding your business usually becomes the focus.

Therefore it is no surprise that creating a solid communication plan is not at the forefront of business owners mind.

This blog post will highlight some of the issues you may face as your business continues to grow if you continue to ignore the importance of communication planning.

Your message will be lost

When you plan your communications it helps you to determine your key message and why it is important. Planning helps you to ensure that miscommunications don’t occur and that the people who read your correspondence understand exactly WHY you have contacted them and react accordingly.

Failure to plan well can result in the message you are trying to convey being completely lost. Your key message may not be apparent in what you write or it could end up buried behind a multitude of other messages if you haven’t determined your focus.

This could result in the newsletter that you spent 4 hours putting together or the blog post that took you 2 hours to research and write being deemed a complete waste of time.

Inconsistent communications

If you haven’t taken the time to sit down and think about how often you would like to post your blog, send your newsletter or email your staff and on what day of the week, chances are high that you will post whenever you feel like it or have time which will result in an inconsistent schedule.

The key to gaining followers and maintaining the interest of your subscribers is to provide them with consistent communications in a consistent voice. If your audience knows that you publish a new blog post every Thursday then they can plan to read it/ keep an eye out for it. If you post 4 times a week one week then don’t post for six weeks people will forget about you.

In the online world, consistency is key.

Look at it this way, how would you feel if the paper you usually buy on a Sunday decides to publish on a Sunday one week, skips a week then decided to publish the next edition on a Thursday. Chances are high that you would give up on buying this publication.

Target audience is not reached

Failure to plan your communications can result in your messages reaching the incorrect people.

You may write well, you may be consistent with your posts and you may have fantastic branding. However, if you don’t take the time to research your target audience and find out the best language and avenues to use when contacting them you may just miss out on getting your message through to the correct people.

Creating a strong communications plan is essential if you want to grow your business and ensure your communication efforts are effective.

If you have not created a communications plan then don’t panic because it is never too late to create one for your small business. Investing your time in communication planning can result in big rewards.

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