In a nutshell, I help you effectively talk about what you do.
As a brand communications consultant, I help organizations translate their brand promises and potential into actionable, effective communications strategies that impact, influence, and engage audiences. I do not fly in, help figure out what needs to be done, then leave you to do it. I do not develop a project plan, go away for weeks or months, then return with a finished product. I am an end-to-end communications expert who will roll up my sleeves and work alongside your staff throughout a project to implement strategies, processes, and tools that set your organization up for success moving forward.
My work falls into four main categories:
1 | Brand Development :: The WHAT and the HOW
Your brand can be broken down into two parts: the ideological and the creative. The ideological elements — your mission, vision, values, goals, etc. — describe the WHAT of your organization. What does it stand for? What is important to and about it? What does it hope to accomplish in the world? The creative elements — your logo, colors, fonts, visual language, voice, etc. — define HOW you will share your brand’s WHAT with the world.
Every organization has different needs for how comprehensively and tightly they define their brand. Whatever the current status of your brand definition, I will help you ensure it is positioned to be an effective foundation for your communications and organizational strategies.
2 | Communications Strategy :: Thinking, Learning, Feeling, and Doing
Even the strongest brand can’t be effective without a plan for sharing it with the world. An effective communications strategy will define, create, and maintain channels, campaigns, initiatives, programs, and content that reach your target audiences and inspire them to think, learn, feel, and/or do something to further your brand’s goals and support its mission.
I will work with your team to translate the aspirations of your brand into a realistic, sustainable, comprehensive strategy. And with my decades of hands-on experience in all aspects of communications — from content strategy and creation to processes and structure to digital platforms and tools — I will work alongside your team to implement and execute.
3 | Systems & Processes :: Doing the Work Effectively
There are rarely enough hours in the day, people in the office, or resources in the budget to address all our aspirations. To make sure we accomplish as much as possible, I will work with your team to establish priorities, systems, and processes that will maximize our efficiency and effectiveness.
4 | Tools & Technology :: Supporting Efficiency and Consistency
Like any work worth doing, creating and publishing content, sharing and collaborating with peers, communicating with constituents, and managing projects requires the right set of tools — content management systems, project management software, digital asset management tools, messaging programs … the list goes on. I will work with you to identify and implement the most appropriate tools to support the work, strategy, and team.
Other Services
Your website is your organization's face to the world. Does yours represent the quality, personality, and current priorities of your organization? Are you able to update it with your latest information? Are there features or content that you wish were there but aren't?
I will work with you to ensure you have a website your organization can not only be proud of, but that will raise your visibility, serve your customers, and support your business goals.
I will evaluate your website and provide a detailed report with actionable recommendations to help you maximize its performance, effectiveness, findability, and overall value to your audience and your organization.
Your website is your organization's most powerful, available, update-able, and findable communications tool. Are you sure yours is serving your audience and representing your organization as well as it could be? I will analyze every part of your website based on the following six criteria:
- Content: Your content is the heart of your website. Is yours effectively informing, engaging, and inspiring your audience to take action, while also supporting your brand and delivering your key messages? I will look at, among other things:
- How often do you publish new content?
- Are you covering the right topics and conveying the right messages?
- Are you using the right types of content?
- Is your content focused on the needs of your audience?
- Is your content engaging, interesting, compelling, and accurate?
- Is your content well-written, in terms of spelling, grammar, and syntax?
- Is your writing optimized for the web?
- Does your content, in terms of style and voice, support your brand?
- Is your content SEO-optimized?
- Is your web content integrated with and complementary to your other, offline content?
- Site Structure: The best content in the world won’t make a difference if your audience finds your site frustrating to navigate.
- Is the structure of your site focused on the needs of your audience?
- Does your site’s navigation serve the needs of the user?
- Do you have the right features on your site?
- Design/Usability: Design is about more than just supporting your visual brand; it’s about making a site that the user finds intuitive, easy-to-use, and wants to interact with.
- Does the visual design of your site support your brand as it is presented in print and other media?
- Do the design and layout of your site make it easier and more pleasant for your visitors to find and explore your content?
- Are the interactions on your site—e.g., search, contact forms, etc.—easy, logical, and painless for the user?
- Is your site design responsive/mobile-friendly?
- Performance: The power of great content and design will be lost if the user gets frustrated by long load times and broken interactions.
- How quickly do your pages load?
- How quickly does your search feature respond?
- Do you have bad links, missing pages, or broken interactions?
- Technology: In the eyes of your audience, your staff who manage it, and even search engines, the quality and effectiveness of your site is greatly impacted by the underlying infrastructure upon which it runs. Implementing good design, publishing strong content, and fostering an engaged audience all starts with a good, strong, technical foundation.
- Are your underlying systems and configurations up-to-date?
- Is your code (HTML, Javascript, CSS, etc.) well-written and optimized?
- Process: A good website is a well-maintained website. Web publishing and maintenance activities must be built into your organization’s operations. We’ll help you figure out how to maintain the quality of your digital presence.
- Is someone in your organization responsible for maintaining a publishing/content calendar for the website and assuring it is effective?
- Do you utilize a content management system that allows your staff to efficiently and effectively manage the website and publish new content?
- Is someone in your organization responsible for monitoring site performance and analytics, and reporting that information to stakeholders and interested parties?
- Is someone in your organization responsible for providing support for website users (e.g., handling “contact us” communications, etc.), and addressing website issues?
I will evaluate your social media universe (or lack thereof), including not just your social-media activity, but activity from others that is relevant to your brand, industry, or interests, and provide detailed recommendations for building an effective, impactful, and sustainable social media presence to help your organization achieve its goals.
Social-media channels provide organizations with many and varied opportunities to reach new, larger audiences in more creative and effective ways. But just being out there isn't enough. You have to be in the right places with the right content at the right times with a presence that is reasonable for your organization to effectively maintain. To help you build a comprehensive social-media strategy, we will evaluate the following areas, among others:
- Audience:
- Where is your audience active on social media?
- What types of content are most likely to engage them?
- Messaging: How do your organization’s key messages translate to different social media platforms?
- Voice: What social-media voice will best support your brand and carry your messages?
- Engagement Strategy:
- Social media is a two-way street. How do you move beyond presence to participation?
- When, where, and how do you engage with your customers/audience (as opposed to just broadcasting content)?
- How do you deal with/respond to negative content?
- How do you appropriately insert yourself into relevant conversations?
- How do you identify and engage with influential people and organizations that can help you achieve your goals?
- Hashtag Strategy: On certain social networks, a well-thought-out hashtag strategy is key to finding conversations and new, relevant followers.
- What hashtags are relevant to your industry, market, community, audience, and goals?
- How do you use the right hashtags at the right times to maximize your reach and engage more people?
- Monitoring and Evaluation: You have to know if what you are doing is actually having an impact.
- What do you monitor and how?
- What tools do you use to monitor social media activity for conversations and people with which you should engage?
- What metrics do you use to define success, identify areas of opportunity, and adjust your approach?
- Process:
- Is someone within your organization responsible for scheduling, creating, and publishing social media content?
- Is someone within your organization responsible for monitoring social media channels for relevant conversations and events?
- Is someone within your organization responsible for monitoring engagement, audience growth, and other statistics and reporting back to interested parties and stakeholders?
Having a great website is only effective for your organization if it actually gets seen, and it’s no secret that search engines are the primary referrers of new traffic to most websites. I will evaluate your site’s content, structure, and technology and provide you with detailed recommendations for the sole purpose of helping your site rank higher on major search engines for the keywords and phrases that your potential audiences are searching for.
An SEO review is a specialized Website Audit with a focus on identifying the strategic keywords and phrases and making changes that improve your rankings. Prior to performing an SEO Review, I recommend that you have a high level of confidence in the quality and effectiveness of your website as a whole.
Your organization’s digital communications will only be as effective as the staff who are responsible for populating, managing, and maintaining it. Their knowledge and understanding is crucial to your success. I will share my 25 years of experience in one-on-one, small group, or classroom-style trainings, customized to the needs of your organization and based around any of the topics below.
- Social-Media Basics
- Content Strategy
- Writing for the Web
- Writing for Social Media
- Search Engine Optimization
- Usability
Digital-communication technologies can be used for more than just augmenting your organization’s marketing and communications efforts. They can also be the basis for new products and revenue streams, better administrative tools, or enhanced internal communications. I will work with your organization to assess the potential for new digital product offerings that will improve your operations, enhance your image, elevate your visibility, or contribute directly to your bottom line.
It takes strategic thought and prior planning to develop and maintain a well-rounded and impactful website, blog, or social-media program. I will work with your staff to create a monthly content calendar that effectively represents your organization to the world, and integrates with all of your marketing, communications, and PR initiatives. And, if you lack the resources, I will help you develop, create, and publish the content to implement your calendar.
