Make Sure It Is Clear

You can’t communicate a message clearly if you’re not clear on why and what you’re communicating. Follow these steps to clearly articulate your communication objectives.

KNOW YOUR INTERNAL CONTEXT

WHAT? What your organisation does, its vision and mission.

WHY? Your communication efforts should emerge logically from your organisation’s vision and mission. In articulating your communication goals and messages, it is helpful to restate your organisational vision and mission as the foundation upon which your communication efforts are built.

1. Refer to your organisation’s vision and mission, and ensure that they are aligned with your communication goals.
2. Reference your organisation’s SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Refer to this as you consider your communication goals and messages. How could your communication efforts have a positive impact on that SWOT analysis? Can you use communication efforts to turn threats into opportunities, or to play up strengths or compensate for weaknesses?
3. If you do not have an existing organisational SWOT analysis, do a basic analysis for your own reference. What are your organisation’s strengths and opportunities? What are its weaknesses and what threats does it face? As mentioned above, consider how your communication efforts could have a positive impact on that analysis—how can your efforts help build strengths and diminish weaknesses?

CASE STUDY:

MEDIA RIGHTS AGENDA

When Nigeria’s Media Rights Agenda saw the need to improve its use of information and communication technologies, the group recognised the need to revisit and sharpen its organisational mission and objectives. As MRA put it in its description of its plans: “MRA clearly needs to rethink its overall communication strategy and formulate a well-thought out strategy which takes into account its messages, the various audiences it wants to target with these messages and the most effective tools for communicating with them in light of new communication tools available. This process will include refining its organisational mission and objectives.” With financial assistance from an IFEX grant, MRA worked with an external communications consultant, and in a two-day meeting with staff and the consultant, “was able to create a vision statement for the organisation, ascertain that all staff understood MRA communication direction, identify various communication platforms that will be tailored to meet our goals and noted the key elements of the communication plan format.” Following that meeting, the consultant and staff continued to work together to refine the plan, resulting in a relaunch of MRA’s website and enhanced MRA social media activity.

MRA’s vision statement: Achieving good governance through the promotion of Freedom of Expression.

KNOW YOUR EXTERNAL CONTEXT

WHAT? The external context involves understanding the societal issues and influences affecting both your organisation and the issues about which you are concerned. What is the external context within which your organisation operates? Who are your main competitors? What are their key activities, campaigns and messages? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

WHY? Reviewing your external context on paper, especially when placed beside your organisation’s mission and vision, can be useful in organising your thoughts, seeing connections and challenges you may otherwise be ignoring or dismissing, and spotting opportunities you might otherwise miss.

HOW? If your organisation has not already done so, consider completing a PEST analysis—an analysis of the Political, Economic, Social and Technological context within which your organisation functions and which may affect your activities and key messages. Note that neither the SWOT nor the PEST analysis needs to be exhaustive or complicated. While they may require additional research, often, you can develop a topline SWOT or PEST analysis based on what you already know about your organisation, issue and environment.

ARTICULATE YOUR COMMUNICATION OBJECTIVES

WHAT? What are your organisation’s current strategic objectives? List them.

WHY? Considering how your communication efforts can be tailored to help your organisation meet its strategic objectives will help you to create communications objectives that fit clearly with your overall strategic objectives.

HOW? As you articulate your communication objectives, ask yourself if they hit the MARC:

M: Are our objectives measurable? What will success look like? What metrics will we use to measure success?

A: Are our objectives aligned with our organisational strategic objectives?

R: Are our communication objectives realistic, given available time, budget and resources?

C: Are our communication objectives clear?

And finally, ask yourself, are there key events or external deadlines that will affect our objectives and our ability to meet them?

But what if your communication objectives have already been defined—perhaps by your board or senior staff—and they do not neatly align with your organisation’s strategic objectives? Again, the problem may be either that your overall strategic objectives are out of date—or that your communication efforts are off target. In either situation, you should seek clarity on how the communication efforts and overall strategic objectives fit together: a misalignment signals a lack of consistency in what your organisation says it should be doing, and what you are actually doing.

CASE STUDY:

MEDIA RIGHTS AGENDA

Nigeria’s Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has a stated organisational vision of “Achieving good governance through the promotion of Freedom of Expression.” Nigeria signed into law a Freedom of Information Act in May 2011, but few citizens were aware of or understood the law, and organisations that had obligations under the law weren’t necessarily being monitored. In line with its organisational vision, MRA determined that one of its communication objectives would be to create awareness of the FOI law, increase the number of people using the law and monitor compliance and usage of the law. This objective was clear and aligned with the organisational vision. While the campaign was large and touched on many sectors, measurable communication engagement goals on social media and other platforms were set and monitored.