Before you can put pen to paper and begin developing your communications strategy or brief, you need to understand the market that you compete in. As you know, there are a variety of factors that can impact your brand's communications program.
Are you a leader or a challenger in the category? Entering a new market? How many brands are already established and what does this new audience know about your brand? This is important because the way you speak to your consumers depends on the position you hold in the market. If you're a leader, you speak differently than when you're a challenger.
Companies invest a considerable amount of time and money profiling their target audiences and bench-marking competitors; however, an area that often gets overlooked is understanding, both past and present messaging that has been generated by you and your competition. Whether it's through traditional, digital or social communications channels, what has been said or is being said in the marketplace about your brand by you or by your competitors has an impact on your future communications and is not something you should ignore.
Armed with this information, you can develop messaging strategies that focus on important need gaps being left unattended by you, as well as your competitors. Or, you may uncover that your competition has identified a messaging opportunity that you need to exploit.
Analyzing communications messages, what is and has been said about your brand and company, is a critical step in the development of your future messaging.