As your organisation presses ahead with its mission, all eyes fixed on achieving its goals, it can be all too easy to let the needs of your stakeholders take a back seat or, even worse, fall by the wayside completely. Everyone is so busy focusing on delivery that reporting on achievements, what they mean and how they fit into the bigger picture can take a back seat. But be warned – you neglect stakeholder management at your peril. Effective stakeholder engagement and communications are vital factors in building relationships, exerting influence and preventing crises.

Below, we share some key things to consider to help keep your stakeholders informed, engaged and aligned.

Know your audience

Before planning your communications, it’s helpful to begin with a stakeholder mapping exercise> This will allow you to build a firm understanding of who your stakeholders are, what kind of information they will need and how best to communicate with them.

The map should include all your internal and external stakeholders, including employees, managers, executives, customers or other end users, suppliers and investors. Each of these will have their own unique set of needs and expectations that you should also consider and incorporate into your mapping and approach.

Consider your channels

Once you have a good idea of your stakeholders and their needs, use this to build an understanding of how you intend to communicate with them. Here, it’s important to think about the rich variety of communications channels available and their relative strengths and limitations.

Consider email newsletters, reports, social media, group meetings (virtual or in person), stakeholder briefings, workshops, internal channels such as a staff intranet or noticeboards, press releases, posters and digital signage as part of your comms toolbox. All of these are able to reach different audiences in different ways, so embrace diversity and incorporate a range of formats to amplify your messaging, whether that’s for internal communications or external communications.

Build frequency

Another vital factor in effective engagement is how often your stakeholders will expect to be updated. This will be partially led by the channel and format – for example, a group meeting will take longer to plan and implement than a social media post.

From these considerations you can start to build an understanding of how often you want to put messaging out – be that daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.

Resource will of course be a factor here, so try to be realistic. Think about how often you will reasonably be able to get these communications out, whether this is achievable long-term and, crucially, if it’s scalable as your organisation develops.

Stay consistent

Once you’ve decided the frequency, plan a regular communications cadence and stick to it. If your communications are useful and impactful, your stakeholders will grow to expect them on schedule.

Remember that consistency goes beyond format and frequency – consistency of quality, detail and tone of voice are all just as important. Once you start building a regular communications output, your stakeholders will expect you to maintain it. This is a good thing! You’re building a relationship of trust with your stakeholders that will prove a vital asset as your organisation develops.

Think big

Keep in mind that all stakeholder communications should support a larger communications strategy that tells an overarching story in support of your organisation’s objectives. So, consider your story, the role your stakeholders play in it and how your communications can support this.

For more about strategic communications and how it can support your organisation, click here.

Open conversations

Ask yourself – if a stakeholder wanted to feed back on a message, would they know how to? Direct feedback is valuable as it helps your stakeholders feel heard and provides opportunities to improve your communications.

To support this, try to incorporate two-way communication into your stakeholder engagement efforts. Consider incorporating contact details, feedback surveys or comment boxes into your messaging so that reporting back is both simple and inviting.

Get in touch

At MIH, our team of experts have a wealth of experience in effective stakeholder management. If you could use some support building and implementing an impactful stakeholder communications plan, our team are on hand to help.

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