A brand is a criterion that affects the choice of a consumer. Brand recognition, consumption, loyalty, reputation are the indicators by which you need to monitor and analyze how effective your brand is. What is an integral element of effective communication? That’s right, it is a communication strategy development. One of the most important points of the strategy is the study of the target audience, the development of key messages and the choice of communication channels. In this article, we will look at the types of communication channels, and descry what goals can be achieved through this or that channel.
What is the communication channel?
Primarily, we’ll determine what a communication channel is. It’s a tool. With its help, the source of communication transmits the message to the object, that is, the brand transmits the message to the target audience. Sometimes a well-structured message, thought out in the light of the purposes of the audience, may be ineffective. Why can this happen? It is possible that the message transmission channels were selected incorrectly. Each segment of the audience has its own customary ways of obtaining information. The main task is that the brand finds exactly the ways in which the right audience massively accumulates.
How to choose a channel?
- Carefully work out a communication strategy.
- Identify the goals to be achieved through a specific channel.
- If possible, study historical experience (which channels were used in the past, assess their effectiveness).
- Study competitors (to investigate the channels peculiar to this category of consumers).
Types of communication channels.
- Social network sites. Their popularity is constantly growing. The audience of social networks is also growing. The time we spend leafing through the newline is also growing. This type of channel helps to frame a feedback with the audience, to carry out sales (you should always remember about UTM-tags), to increase a brand recognition, as well as the recognizability of the HR brand. Here, such segments of the audience as potential customers, competitors, investors/partners, journalists, employees can be concentrated.
- Corporate blog. Through the blog, you need to broadcast an expert opinion of the brand and share a useful information with the audience. Quality content, regular updates, dynamics of development represent excellent opportunities for free promotion. Through the blog, you can achieve the necessary level of involvement, sales, brand recognition. With its help, you can distribute the information to the following segments of the audience – potential customers, competitors, employees.
- The media. Everyone wants his or her brand to be successful. Accordingly, they want to cooperate with professionals in their field. Knowledge and skills are being expressed in the profile publications, which emphasize the specialization of the company. Through the media, you can construct a brand awareness, sales level and form a reputation. The audience, with which you can communicate here, consist of potential customers, employees, competitors, investors/partners.
- Email. The easiest way to promote is to send out any collections of publications from the corporate blog. They can be accompanied by a thematic lead-up or a short overview of the latest news. It is only necessary to form a subscriber base and point-in-time to introduce special offers. Email marketing helps to generate audience loyalty, brand awareness and increase the sales. You should focus on potential customers and potential partners/investors.
- Branch measures. One of the key channels of brand promotion in B2B. You will be able to build personal relationships with partners, form a reputation and brand awareness, HR brand, and increase sales. Here are concentrated segments of the audience, such as potential customers, investors/partners, employees.
- Partnership. One of the most effective ways to attract customers. Your partners can be those who are not direct competitors but work with the same target audience. It is the opportunity to form a reputation, brand awareness and increase sales. It is a focus on targeting potential customers and competitors.
- It should be remembered that the internal communication of the brand is also important, as well as external. It’s about the HR brand because it’s also one of the effective business tools. A positive brand image needs to be formed not only for potential customers or competitors but also for company employees. People like to feel that they are involved in something good, qualitative, holistic. That is, they are involved in the brand of the company.
Remember, there are different types of communication channels. The above options are not the only ones. In addition, they are not mutually exclusive. They are closely interrelated, and will help to reach the purposes necessary for a brand when in a complex. The main thing is to carefully work out the communication strategy from the very beginning, correctly determine the goals, key messages and corresponding channels. Experiment, look for new channel options, try to mix them, analyze and the result will be effective.