Using Strategic Communications to Strengthen Your Brand’s Impact

Welcome to our latest edition of the Tell Your Brand Story Newsletter. In today’s issue, I'll show you a 4-step formula to use strategic communications to build stronger relationships with customers, donors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders in your business or projects.

If you master these steps, you’ll drastically improve your chances of making profits, driving donations, raising awareness for your causes, and effecting positive behavior change.

And even if your audiences do not become active advocates and donors, you can at least make them feel something by inspiring empathy in them moving them closer to becoming future customers, donors, or advocates!

Unfortunately, most social impact communicators don’t have a predefined system for doing this.

Driving positive change doesn’t happen by chance. They happen from carefully crafted communication strategies that resonate with your audience and inspire them to take action.

The formula we’re going to explore today is what I call the GAVN Steps in strategic communication. It was inspired by a TEDx talk from Keisha Brewer.

1. Identify the Goal
2. Understand your Audience
3. Communicate your Value
4. Express your shared Need

This approach is beneficial for the following reasons:

• It amplifies your impact
• It drives better decision-making
• It makes your communication purposeful
• It enhances your organization's credibility
• It aligns your values with those of potential stakeholders

What though, is strategic communications and how can we use it in business circles?

What is strategic communication?

According to the International Peace Institute, strategic communications is “the purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfill its mission.”

For communication to be effective it must be purposeful and showcase value in order to achieve a goal or mission.

Here's a step-by-step way to use strategic Communication to Drive Action:

1. Identify the Goal

Know what you want to achieve otherwise you’ll be speaking into the air. In social impact, the goal is often to mobilize resources or change public behavior. In business, the goal is usually to get leads that convert into buyers.

For example, Charity: Water knows its goal is to drive donations by showing the human impact of clean water. So they zoom in on a beneficiary and tell the story of how access to clean water transformed the individual’s life. The goal is to get you involved in their life-transforming project.

Here is an example below

Video Credit: Charity: Water (Instagram)

2. Understand the Audience

Understanding your audience is another way to make your stories hit the right people in all the right spots.  Research your potential stakeholders to know what their values are.

See an example of how I used the knowledge I have of this long-time customer in my clothing brand to communicate strategically with her.

Knowing her, I was convinced that the fabric options I curated had hit the right spot. What I did not know was when she would respond. Good things take time :)

3. Communicate the Value

The next step is to communicate the value in it for the audience. At the beginning of this newsletter, I spelled out what is in it for you. “If you master these steps, you’ll drastically improve your chances of …”

Ask yourself, what does your audience get out of the partnership, donation, or purchase? Is it the satisfaction of contributing to a good cause? Seeing their values reflected in your work? Or wearing dresses that make them feel confident? It is important to note that values need to be aligned with your audience’s interest. This is why number 2 is a critical step in the process.

4. Express Shared Needs

At the onset of this newsletter, I expressed a shared need for why you need to master the steps in strategic communications in your business or project. “Even if your audiences do not become active advocates and donors, you can at least make them feel something by inspiring empathy…” Isn’t that our shared need as business owners or employees?

Slum2School (a non-profit that provides access to underserved children in Nigeria and across Africa), doesn’t just present their work as an opportunity to help out-of-school children.

They frame their stories to show that educated children are a real blessing to society. They tap into our shared needs for security and economic empowerment. We all know that when children are educated, they come out of poverty. And when they are out of poverty, you and I will live in a safe and crime-free environment.

Video Credit: Slum2School (Instagram)

When you highlight a shared need, you can turn a campaign into a shared mission and help communities take ownership of the projects that benefit them.

To Summarize:

Strategic communication is the backbone of impactful storytelling. If you identify your goal, understand your audience, communicate value, and express shared needs, you’ll strengthen your brand's impact and push your mission forward.

Now go, tell that impact story.

That's all for this week. I'll talk to you soon.

Nora

P.S. One ask: At Pulse Narrative Media, we work with organizations like yours to build stories that drive impact. Whether it’s influencing behavior, driving sales, or mobilizing resources, we help you turn your mission into powerful narratives that inspire action. Follow our new page on LinkedIn