By Kelli Newman, APR
While it is challenging to communicate your organization’s purpose in the midst of a pandemic, especially if unrelated to the crises at hand, there will come a time when we return to a version of business as usual. As hopeful eyes search for a light at the end of the tunnel, it is wise to begin planning for those future communications now.
Thinking of your organization’s communications in terms of chapters, we’re well past the Getting Ready messages of preparation and have been operating within the Weathering the Storm chapter for some time. Hopefully innovative adaptions for meeting client and customer needs, newly realized relevance for what your organization offers, and incremental successes, both large and small, have been part of what you’ve communicated to external and internal audiences. The highly anticipated chapter of We’re Back! is going to require a heightened level of awareness for determining appropriate timing.
Not as much about When, but In What Context
An important misstep to avoid will be appearing out-of-touch, or worse, irresponsible if any renewed marketing of your organization’s services, promotion of upcoming events or launch of a public outreach campaign is not filtered through the lens of what has been experienced. Language, tone and even energy should pass a litmus test of thoughtful Covid-19 context before release.
The following evaluation points are offered for determining a communication’s timing and strategic approach to messages:
Pressing Relevance of Non-Pandemic Subjects
Regardless of the pandemic’s status, hurricane season arrives June 1. In many states and coastal communities, that fact will wrestle Covid-19 for front page real estate. When the subject matter of your communications has pressing relevance to the well-being of your audiences, the question of time-sensitivity is the best gauge for determining when information should be shared.
Comfort of Familiarity
Recurring messages that may otherwise have been considered hard sells due to a lack of new information or sense of common knowledge may in this environment be perceived as a return to “normal” and the potential of being welcomed with open arms.
Determined Resilience
Services or needs that demonstrate an organization’s resilience and a renewed significance of its purpose, as a result of the pandemic’s impact, triggers the power of emotion. Because research has established that we are neurobiologically dependent on emotion for our decision-making, this strategy can be very effective in elevating a communication’s timeliness. However, when an organization incorporates emotion into its messaging, it must be genuine or risk backfiring. Now more than ever, manufactured sentiments will be quickly recognized as insincere.
Discovered Solutions
Over the last few months, you may have developed a new method for serving your clients or discovered a solution for needs that surfaced as a result of the pandemic. Given that necessity is the mother of invention, the time is always right for communicating solutions-based messages.
Timing will continue to be an important consideration as organizations transition into the days ahead. How many chapters of communications the pandemic will influence is yet to be determined. Meanwhile, we all look forward to composing the promising pages of It’s a New Day.
© 2020 Newman & Newman, Inc.
