Principle 1: Situation Analysis
At every interval of time, organizations and institutions that desire success must pause and take stock of their activities to see if the corporate goal is being achieved or otherwise. Relevant in this context is the question: What could be the challenges undermining the general performance and attitude of stakeholders toward the organization? A common strategy used in this regard is known as the SWOT Analysis. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis helps a strategic communicator to explicitly understand the prevailing organizational situation (Patterson & Radtke, 2009).
Principle 2: Set the Communication Goals
In every strategic communication, the goals of the communication must be identified and stated before anything else. These goals are mainly rooted in the core organizational goals, vision and available resources, as revealed by the SWOT analysis. The goals are simply the expected outcome of the communication efforts. Strategic Communication goals must be SMART (Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). An example of a SMART Strategic Communication goal for Government Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion can be “To create awareness about the importance of vaccine intake in ten (10) rural communities in Nigeria, from January 2023 to February of 2024.”
Principle 3: Identity or Profile the Audience
It is important to note that in Strategic Communication, there is no general audience (Patterson and Radtke, 2009). The communicator must identify the various target audiences and group them based on certain characteristics such as age, sex, level of education, language, and media consumption patterns, among others as the case may be. Pilotta and Schultz (2005) opine that members of the audience can be profiled based on their susceptibility and receptivity to change. Audience profiling or segmentation, as it is often called, is important because it informs the packaging of messages and prioritization of communication resources. To adequately profile the audience, an audience study, often known as audience analysis, is necessary.
Principle 4: Message Development
One of the fundamental principles of Strategic Communication is content development. Content in this regard refers to the actual messages, both audio and visual, that will be transmitted to the target audience to influence certain behavioral changes. The communicator must have the skill to develop simple and appealing content for every target group – good strategic content that resonates with the cultural biases of the target audience. As observed by Crawford and Okigbo (2014), many communication campaigns suffer resistance to the messages because the target audience feel such messages contradict their ingrained behaviors and culture. Therefore, it is usually advised that strategic communicators must use appropriate emotional and/or logical persuasive appeals to elicit desirable attitudes and behaviors.
Principle 5: Channel Selection
There are several media channels such as TV, radio, newspaper, social media, and oral media which can be used in Strategic Communications. Selecting the right channels to use in a given campaign and for a given audience is key to the success of every campaign (Davis, 2016). However, it is always difficult, especially for inexperienced and untrained communicators, to be able to select the appropriate channels. Similarly, many Publicity and Public Affairs personnel, who have become addicted to the traditional mass media, finds it difficult to appropriately select the right channel, away from the traditional media such as radio and TV which they have become accustomed to. There is no almighty channel of communication because every channel has its strengths and weaknesses. However, Rice and Atkin (2000) suggest that, when selecting channels of communication, factors that must be considered are audience reach and the suitability of the channel(s) to support the audience’s level of comprehension. Similarly, the WHO (2017) suggests that before selecting a given channel, Strategic Communicators need to analyze the audience’s access to different media resources and preferences. Though there is a growing belief that the multi-media approach remains the best, it is important to note that the choice of channel for Strategic Communication is determined by the nature of the target audience and the target goals for the communication purpose.
