Every company has stakeholders. These stakeholders need certain information to be able to support your organisation and buy into its culture and processes. This is true whether discussing the employees of the corner tearoom you sneak to, to buy cigarettes under your wife’s radar (when you were supposed to be walking the dog) or the suppliers of a large multinational corporation.
Those invested in your company need access to the information that will help them build it. Image Credit: Cliff
Existing both internally and externally, these stakeholders can have competing priorities and needs. In an ideal world, organisations could ignore this clamouring for attention and go about the important business of making money – no doubt the reason for their being. No such luck. Stakeholder relationships that are unmanaged or mismanaged have a number of less than favourable consequences for companies. These include unnecessary expenses, and a lack of buy-in to processes and initiatives aimed at transforming the company. However, stakeholder management is a difficult undertaking for organisations because it requires investment and commitment to a long term structured process. While there are a number of efficent information management tools available through eMarketing, it's important to start with the big picture - who are you going to be speaking to and how? Here are some tips to help you to get the wheels of this process in motion.
1. Identify your stakeholders
Particularly in larger organisations, this process is a critical one because the network of stakeholders with an investment or interest in your business is broader than you would originally have imagined. Consider that likely stakeholders include your board, management, other employees, customers, suppliers and the community within which you operate. It is important when making this list that you gather and collate as much information as possible about the individuals and groups on it. This will enable you to start thinking through appropriate and targeted communication with them.
2. Prioritise them
However noble your intentions regarding stakeholder relationship management are, there unfortunately have to be some individuals and group who’s needs are more important and who require prioritisation if you intend maintaining their support. While this sucks for the interns, the chairman of your board will be pleased to know that you have his best interests at heart. Prioritising begins with segmenting your list into groups and then listing them in order of importance. This process needs to be completed with the organisational goals and the level of stakeholder information in mind. Ultimately, this will ensure personalisation and consistency across communication channels at a later point in the process.
3. Understand their needs
Stakeholders require consistent and regular communication and service. However, their individual distinctiveness requires that this communication be personalised and targeted. This is difficult enough in the corner store but is universally impossible across larger organisations – the number of individuals is just too great. The next best thing understanding each group. A key part of this is knowing what information they have, how accurate it is, how it aligns with your organisational goals and what information they need. This should align with your process of prioritisation, with the groups at the bottom needing the least amount of information and the groups at the top needing the most.
4. Engage with them
Now the easy part is over and you actually have to find an innovative and efficient manner in which to communicate with these stakeholders. Whatever tactics you use, it is helpful to have a communication plan in place so that the process runs smoothly without negatively impacting on productivity. Using a collaborative software package could be the answer, particularly if you want to keep a specific group up to date about a specific project. Regular status reports are useful and email newsletters are very effective for those individuals who are not privy to sensitive information. Going one step further, these can be divided into an internal and an external newsletter; the first being only for staff and the second for clients and interested parties. For small groups and occasionally large ones, meetings are a good way to get a message across and invite buy in and feedback. Remember that in order to be effective, this engagement should be two-way. Stakeholders need a forum to air concerns and grievances while having the comfort of knowing they will get a response. Neglecting this element of communication is bound to undermine the ultimate goals of your organisation.
Regardless of tactics though, the important part of this aspect of the process is understanding and managing stakeholder expectations. Your stakeholders need to know when to expect communication and what sort of communication to expect.
5. Monitor your engagement efforts
There is little point in engagement with your stakeholders if it is perceived to be token or ineffectual. While it’s admirable that you are trying, this lack of efficacy is not going to encourage buy-in and may undermine your company, particularly if the negativity spreads. It is thus important to track and monitor your efforts and gauge the response to them. Speak to individuals directly, encourage feedback and through email tracking assess whether people are reading the information that you are disseminating. Tweak your efforts accordingly. Part of this is keeping a finger on the pulse of your company’s reputation which is also important. Conduct surveys if necessary and establish who thinks what and why. Knowing what the perception is will go a long way toward finding the necessary means to turn it around.
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Lyndi Lawson i am waiting for your tips day by day and week after week , And what i wana say that i am getting to understand the basics that ease the concerns and the treats that the e-marketer face in his work . so that i started to read and look after the persons who have the efforts and optimized easy translation for each word and meening and how to become a superior marketer.
But what i wana know that why don't you people seek on what the customers and the clients (old or new) wana have exactly from the market coz every thing become normal to have and use and every thing become inside and out side the home and the office or any place that u can expect to see.
By the way i hope that next week i'll have more tips from you coz i really like your ideas , and i hope to have terms to make the marketing easy to understand , so take are of your self abd CU
Posted by Eyad J. Jarrar on 2010/03/11