Communication is key. This is a phrase that has been said so many times, it’s a cliche. But, it really is true, in business and in many other areas of life. If you’re part of a business, whether you’re an owner or employee, making sure that your communication skills are as good as can be is absolutely vital. Of course, internal communications are important for the smooth running of any organisation. But, it is external communications that are arguably the most critical. After all, effective communication can be the difference between making a sale and the customer or client walking away. And, as the working world becomes more and more remote, effective communication becomes even more crucial to ensure that everyone is kept in the loop and external stakeholders still feel valued.
In this blog post, we’ll be discussing the remarkable effect of communication skills for any business when communicating with their clients and other external stakeholders. Why exactly is it so important? What impact can it have for your business and teams? How can working on your external communications influence your sales and marketing efforts? We’ll be exploring all of these questions and more. So, if you are serious about upping your skills when it comes to communication (as any good business owner or team member should be!), this blog post is for you.
So, what is the remarkable effect of communication skills for your business?
If you put consistent, focused effort into improving external communication skills for you and your team, you will soon start to reap the rewards and benefits for your marketing efforts and more. These effects include:
Your brand will become more established
Every business owner dreams of building a brand that is instantly recognisable and has a great reputation. Well, achieving this goal certainly relies on your external communications. After all, if you cannot communicate to your potential customers and other stakeholders effectively, how can you expect them to remember your brand? Simply by improving the way you communicate will raise your brand awareness. Your business will become more memorable, your key messages will be clearer, and you should become more highly regarded.
It builds trust
Similarly, if you make an effort to improve them, the remarkable effect of communication skills for your business will also be to encourage trust from your external stakeholders. People tend to trust brands and businesses that they see often, as well as those who make a concentrated effort to show them exactly why they can be trusted. Furthermore, people are more likely to buy from businesses who they feel as though they can trust, so you have nothing to lose by communicating to them why this is the case. If you want to build trust, social proof is the best way to do it. How can you show your customers that they can trust you? Visible reviews, product demos, and simply being as transparent as possible in all communications are all examples of this. The aim is to get your customers to assume that you are better than your competitors.
Good communication helps problems get resolved faster
It’s natural for you and your external stakeholders to encounter problems from time to time. For many of these people, especially valued customers, the real issue doesn’t lie in the problem itself, but how you deal with it. Poor communication can really hinder this process, and leave your customers feeling frustrated and devalued. This is a recipe for disaster, and is often the trigger for even the most loyal customers to look elsewhere. But, if you put effort into your communications, especially when it comes to resolving problems, these sorts of encounters become a lot smoother. If you can communicate to your customers that you value and respect them, even when things go wrong, they are far more likely to come out of the encounter having had an overall positive experience and favourable opinion of you and your business.
You’ll get to know your audience better
Every single business has a target market. Whether you’re B2B, B2C, or a mixture, you’ll have a customer profile in mind. All of your external communications should be tailored towards this profile. But how well do you really know them? You may think you have a solid customer profile down to the finest details, but you may be surprised. Improving your external communications gives you and your target customers (both existing and potential) the chance to interact with each other. By nature, this gives you the opportunity to collect feedback from these people. What are you doing right and wrong in their eyes? How could you improve things so they are more likely to choose you above the rest? Simply by upping communication, you can find out all of this and more. You can then use this information to help shape your strategy and activities in the future.
But how can external communications be improved?
As you can see, the effect of communication skills can be huge for any business! But what can you do to keep external communications as effective as possible? Here are a few ideas:
A regular newsletter
One of the best ways to communicate with your customers is through a regular email newsletter. The contents of your newsletter is up to you, but it’s common to contain things such as the latest news from your business or industry, and exclusive discount codes or offers for newsletter subscribers to take advantage of. If your customers and other external subscribers receive regular updates from you in their inbox, they will constantly be reminded of your presence. So, they are more likely to think of you next time they require the products or services that you provide. And, it keeps them in the loop and makes them feel valued, especially if you include incentives for them to shop with you again, such as the exclusive special offers previously mentioned.
Keep things social
Social media is an excellent tool to use if you want to up your external communications and see the remarkable effect of communication skills for your business. It can be used in so many creative ways, and you should make the most of it to keep your target audience informed, entertained, or simply just aware of your brand presence.
While email newsletters are undoubtedly effective, bear in mind that most people get hundreds of emails a day, so it’s likely that they can get lost in a sea of other emails. On social media, you can post more regularly, so your followers can be reminded of your presence every day, if you wish. Use social media to post the latest updates, share your specialist knowledge, or just to keep your followers in the loop. You can even use it as a customer service tool to help customers with their queries and questions. Twitter is particularly useful for this due to it’s quick-fire, conversational nature.
If you’re not using social media for your business yet, you really should be, as it’s a valuable yet relatively straightforward way to up external communications. To learn more about using social media for your business, take a look at this blog post: 5 top reasons why social media is not a fad and you need it for your business
A great website
When people are looking to purchase anything, be it a product or a service, their first port of call is usually Google or another search engine. So, it’s important that you have a good website in order to capture as much of this traffic as possible. Think carefully about how you are communicating using your website. Is the copy clear? Are you really emphasising your unique selling point and other features? And, is your website easy for visitors to navigate? All of these are important factors in the usability of your website that must be considered if you want to make the most of it as an external communication tool.
Final thoughts on the remarkable effect of communication skills for any business
Effective communication should be at the heart of everything your business does. After all, it can have so many benefits, both internally and externally. But, focusing on external communications, if you consistently work to up your game, you should find that your customers are more likely to choose you over your competitors, view you as a trustworthy company, and even help you to refine your offering to better suit them. Truly, you have nothing to lose by working to improve the way you communicate, even if it’s already effective. It’s one of those key things that will help your business to succeed, no matter what your goals may be. So, if it’s not already a priority for you and your business, it probably should be.
Here at Chrysalis Growth, I understand the effect of communication skills for any business that wants to increase their sales and revenue. So, if you would like to reach that goal, among others such as working less hours and improving efficiency, I can help. To find out more about what I do, please click here to visit my website, or click here to get in touch with me today.
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