Seven easy steps to developing a communication strategy

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So, are you worried when somebody pokes you for your communication strategy? If you have a communication strategy with you, it works as a guideline for your organisation’s communication needs. Of course, the communication strategy needs to be a dynamic document – ready to accept new dimensions as per the cropping needs.

If you follow the theories –and yes, you need to do that to a certain extent – the entire communication can be divided into external and internal. The internal communication connotes the communication within the organisation and the stakeholders while the external communication denotes the communication with wider audience.

Step 1 – Analyse the background
The first and foremost step is to analyse the communication environment – finding out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (termed as “SWOT Analysis”, some love to call it “TOWS Analysis” singling out the threats and opportunities first).

Step 2 – Formulate goals and objectives
The next step is considering the goals of your programme and carving out communication objectives from those goals. The objectives should be SMART – specific, measurable, achievable/attainable, realistic and time bound. For instance, a SMART objective can look somewhat like this – “By 2015, three million people in Bangladesh will be aware of tiger conservation in the Sunderbans”.

Step 3 – Analyse the target audience
Analysing the target audience is another crucial step in developing the communication strategy. According to the demographics and lifestyle the communication preferences vary and it is essential to cater to the needs of each segment of audiences. Let’s take the example of the above objective of making aware people of Bangladesh on tiger conservation. If we analyse the probable target audience, at a glance, we can say that some of them might be the bureaucrats, forest officers, people residing in the Sunderbans, mediapersons and the list goes on. Here, each of the target audience has its own age group, lifestyle and preferences. If you analyse the behaviour of the target audience well, it will be much easier to craft the key messages and call to action.

Step 4 – Develop the key messages
Developing key messages is another major step. The message is developed according to the target audience. As I mentioned, the key messages to each audience varies as per the preference of the target audiences. The key messages sum up your message in short memorable statements. The key messages should have some benefits for the target audience, otherwise they won’t be willing to support your communication objective. For instance for the people residing in the Sunderbans you can tell that saving tigers will raise their economic situation and save the magnificent species for the future generation. The overall key message for a wider spectrum of target audience can be compiled by putting together the benefits intended for them.

Step 5 – Craft the call to action
Call to action – what you need the target audience to do or act upon is similar to the key message but different from it as it provokes the target audience to act upon something or to do something. Simple rule to generating a call to action is to think what the target audience is asking you what they should do to meet the communication objective. Taking the case of tigers and Sunderbans, the call to action for the local communities can be “save the tiger”.

Step 6 – Design the tools and activities
Designing tools and activities for each of the target audience is quite simple if you go through all the steps of communication goals, objectives, target audience, key messages and call to action. For example a media trip can be organised for one of the target audiences, journalists in the above mentioned issue. A range of tools and activities including flyers, newsletters, online portals, street drama, radio programmes, public service announcements (PSA), public debates, television infomercials, media trips to name a few are employed to achieve the communication objectives. Be careful to choose the channels properly for media multiplier effect.

Step 7 – Set a budget and timeline
Budget and timeline is yet another crucial factor which can make or break your communication aspirations. Given a budget, you need to wisely craft and plan the tools and activities within a certain timeline. For instance, organising a media trip in the rainy season might be disastrous. In the contrary, if you broadcast a PSA on preventing forest fire during the dry season, you will be able to catch the interest of the target audience as it is the season of forest fire. Likewise, as per the priority and your communication calendar you can design the timeline for maximum impact.

Monitoring the activities and measuring the impacts is crucial for assessing your efforts and redesign, reschedule your activities accordingly.

Put all the above in a compact matrix format, keep a constant track of your objectives and activities and remind yourself of your priorities. This is a must to implement the communication strategy!

Very useful - Seven easy steps to developing a communication strategy by @sankuchy http://t.co/CEiwjsxxJS
— Dr Sangita Shrestha (@SangyShrestha) February 7, 2014

High five branding

Creating strong brands catering to all the senses


Starting on a cheery note – let me start with an anecdote. During my college days, I was bunched in hostel together with like-minded friends and we ended up having frequent drinking sessions in the name of ideating. Once we had just started pouring drinks and as we were to raise the toast, one of my seniors asked, “Do you know why we tinkle the glasses before starting to drink?”

“Well, obviously to say cheers and wish good health to all,” was my immediate reply.

To this he said, “No my friend, you are wrong and not only you, a whole lot of people think so.” “While drinking, not all five senses are engaged – the skin touches the glass, the nose gets to smell the aroma, the tongue tastes the flavour, the eyes get to see the colour of the drink, but the ears have no job to do – so people came up with the idea of saying cheers and tinkling the glasses so that all five senses are engaged and we get the maximum satisfaction from the experience.”

His point of view was an oral history that he had heard somewhere and we all appreciated it. However, the marketers are well aware of this phenomenon and have introduced the involvement of five senses in their marketing pursuits.

I remember a friend of mine from India who often says, “Baingan ko dabake dekhna” meaning you need to press a brinjal before buying. In the past, the marketers well-captured the “touch”, “see” and “feel” aspects of the products in their marketing plans in the past through consistent packaging, colours and ambience respectively.

Consistency and coherence alone is not enough to create the “top of the mind” recall among customers. So the marketers are experimenting with the rest two remaining senses – hearing and smelling – turning the whole exercise into sensory branding.

These days if you visit the leading eateries, you will notice that they follow a certain theme to spread the design throughout the room and create a coherent ambience. However, that alone doesn’t sell. It’s a first time curiosity factor which attracts the customers for the first time. To retain the customers and make them visit again you need to create consistency in the delicacies, aroma and music around the room. A soothing music and fresh fragrance not only refreshes the customers but if the experience is consistent all the time along with the good service, then you are bound to create a horde of loyal customers.

Well, the sensory branding can not only be created in case of eateries alone but for a whole gamut of products that are being produced to cater the customer needs. The only thing that you need to consider is aim for five and not just three senses!

Read the article Sensory branding - tickling all five senses

Human bonds make your brand stronger

How people branding can help create stronger brands


Does human bonding strengthen the brand? The answer is – yes. The brand loyalty develops among the employers if they bond well together and the brand loyalty capitalises into brand equity.

Spending on your people can lead to building better and stronger brands. In the recent years, organisations have recognised the power of people branding and have come up with everyday solutions to make their brands stronger.

The first one is, of course, team outings. Once in a while the teams should be encouraged to get together outside office environs and feel that besides working together at office, they are good buddies as well. This strengthens bonding, creates better teams, increases outputs, effectiveness, efficiency, and eventually helps build the brand. Trust among team mates is crucial for successfully achieving a common goal.

Imagine how you feel when you are invited to a bar by your immediate boss and s/he behaves like your closest friend. It encourages you further to put forward your creative inputs during discussions. You come out of the fear factor that haunts you all the time when you want to assert your ideas forward or disagree with your seniors.

The team building exercises also build stronger bonds leading to strong brand building. You never know who is good at what. Someone who might be too slow in grasping might turn out to be an idea champ. The team building exercises bring out the unseen qualities inside a person. Identifying and recognising talents is another crucial step towards building better teams.

Hiking the whole day in the weekend, sharing each others’ experiences in the way, competing with each other in terms of stamina, in terms of creativity in the photos you click on the way, sharing lunch, coffee, tea together creates a camaraderie which shows up in the group performance. Especially, if certain hikes are turned into a corporate social responsibility (CSR) stunt like distributing notebooks and pens to a remote school, teaching students about the environment, it generates sense of responsibility among the group.

It is high time organisations work towards bringing cohesion among the informal groups within the organisation. It is proven fact that the informal groups help nurture organisational politics that eventually hinders the growth of the organisation. Social events like “Happy Hour” once a month help bring together the whole organisation.

Every Fridays can be turned into a learning cum idea sharing platform. Well known think tanks can be invited to the organisation to interact with the staff. It not only infuses enthusiasm among staff, but also provides them ample opportunity to speak up their mind and put forward their opinions that might be worth a hundred dollar idea.

Bonding together motivates the staff to work effectively and efficiently. Organisations should seek to turn the workplace into a playground where camaraderie and ideas flourish together. It turns the workplace into a magic wand - waving it, the teams can create miracles anytime at the drop of a hat.

Make your brand more visible

What are the cheapest ways to step up your brand recognition? This is the most asked and nerve-wracking question to the brand managers and corporate communication specialists. And the frequent reply is – “Rome was not built in a day, it takes time to get your brand recognised”.

However, apart from your brand manager or corporate communications specialist, you too can help raise your brand recall everyday. There are simple solutions that can be implemented without expending an extra penny from the office coffers.

Let’s start from the workplace. Displaying a visible and large size board in the office premises gives the passers-by a chance to glance and a point to ponder over the brand. If the office is located in a busy street, then of course, daily hundreds of people get to see the brand and out of those hundreds, some will have the brand in the subconscious corner of their minds. Their brains will recall and reiterate the brand if they happen to see it somewhere else. Just have a look at the corporate offices of some of the big brands.

Now let’s get the brand moving. By moving I mean to say put the brand sticker with some catchy slogans on the back of your vehicles. At least some hundreds of followers on the busy road will get to see the brand daily while you are driving to or from work. Especially, at traffic lights and jam, the followers will notice the brand.

There’s another amplification factor to make this more effective. If the office has a pick and drop facility – then the whole bus or car can be painted with the brand. Or a huge, easily visible sticker can be stuck to the vehicle. This will not only make the brand more visible but give a dynamic touch to the brand – more people will get to see the brand everyday. You can imagine how much the DHL vehicle running across the city advertises its company.

If you can spare a day for your office and environment, there’s another cheapest mean to spread your brand visibility. Wear the office tee shirt and cycle to your office every Friday. This will obviously get your brand noted on the streets. And you will feel proud to go green at least once a week.

Word of mouth branding leads to tipping point results. Talk about your brand while talking with your friends during get together and parties. If they find it interesting, they will again talk to more of their friends and it will in fact bring the chain effect to spread the message. Haven’t you been tempted when one of your friends recommends a particular eatery to you? So effective is the word of mouth branding.

The buzzword social marketing can prove profitable in your organisation’s case. Partner with a media house to occasionally place the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) messages in the media. The intermittent messages in the media keep people interested and curious towards your brand. Haven’t you seen the WWF messages to save the endangered species? It reinvigorates the brand everyday.

Celebrate some important days which matches with your organisational values. This will again rejuvenate your brand once or twice a year. Have you not heard about the “Walkathon” organised by Standard Chartered Bank? It obviously gets you noticed – on the streets and in the minds of probable clients.

Corporate gifts, especially calendars and desk souvenirs which have a long shelf-life give your brand that extra space in somebody else’s office. Not only the holder but the visitors to the office of the holder get to see your brand and appreciate it (if it’s really good). Everybody will look at the calendar if it’s from Pirelli!

Appoint an ambassador. Of course s/he should be a public figure. It will not only connect your brand with the admirers of the public persona but will also highlight your organisation’s cause. Just ponder why UN appoints goodwill ambassadors every year.

Cattle oldage home to conserve vultures

When a man dies, people come together, praise the good deeds of the person and take his body for the final rites. However, in Lalmatiya village of western Nepal, the local communities organize an honouring procession when old cattle die. They cover the carcass with a white piece of cloth, offer flowers and incense to the dead, chant mantras and dispose the body to a platform meant to be an eating table for vultures.

As soon as the men leave the platform, the carcass is covered by a venue of vultures and they eat up the whole body within hours. Few years ago, the whole village used to be drenched in a strong stench of the dead animal for weeks, because there were no vultures around.

“The vultures had vanished from this area,” says Shyamesh Chaudhary, the President of the Kalika Community Forest Users’ Group. “After we banned Diclofenac and started feeding the vultures, they started coming back.”

The community forest users’ group opened an oldage home for old livestock two years ago. The local communities also banned Diclofenac in Lalmatiya and nearby Sisahaniya village.

When the cattle die, they are fed to vultures. Before accepting the old cattle, they confirm that they were not treated with the anti-inflammatory drug, Diclofenac. The drug has been the main cause of drastic decline of vulture population in Nepal. The vultures die of kidney failure after eating the carcass of cattle administered with Diclofenac.

“The oldage home for livestock is a unique way of conserving vultures and respecting the old cattle,” says Moti Adhikary, the coordinator of the oldage home. “Earlier the old cattle used to stray in the nearby community forest and village after being deserted by the owners. Now they have a safe place to stay before they die.”

The oldage home pays a nominal amount to the owners for providing the old cattle. The cattle are well taken care of and fed properly. “Right now we have 25 old cattle with us,” says Dil Bahadur Kumal, the caretaker of the oldage home. “In total we have had 152 cattle and we fed them to vultures after they died.”

After the oldage home’s establishment, five different species of vultures have flown to this area with many building nests in the nearby community forests. “We have located 22 nests in our community forest,” says Chaudhary. “More vultures have built nests in the neighbouring community forests and people come here to watch vultures.”

With a simple innovation, the villagers have not only taken care of old cattle and revived the vulture population but also attracted many visitors to this area.

Discoveries in the times of extinctions

Over 350 species discovered in the Eastern Himalayas

Chitwan Scorpion (Heterometrus nepalensis)

While the world is reeling under the impacts of climate change with the possible extinctions of species, the new findings in the Eastern Himalayas spanning Bhutan, the north-eastern Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, North Bengal and Sikkim, the far north of Myanmar (Burma), Nepal and southern parts of Tibet Autonomous Region, have delighted the conservation fraternity.

Over 350 new species including the world’s smallest deer, a “flying frog” and a 100 million-year old gecko have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas.

A decade of research carried out by scientists in remote mountain areas endangered by rising global temperatures brought exciting discoveries such as a bright green frog (Rhacophorus suffry) which uses its red and long webbed feet to glide in the air.

(The WWF report The Eastern Himalayas – Where Worlds Collide details discoveries made by scientists from various organizations between 1998 and 2008)

In Nepal alone 94 new species were discovered which include 40 plants, 36 invertebrates, 7 fish, 2 amphibians, and 9 reptiles.

One of the most remarkable discoveries in Nepal was Heterometrus nepalensis, a scorpion new to the world discovered in the Chitwan National Park in 2004. This discovery was significant as it was the first species of scorpion ever to be discovered in the country and was given the name to honour the occasion.


The Eastern Himalayas report also mentions the miniature muntjac, also called the “leaf deer” (Muntiacus putaoensis) which is the world’s oldest and smallest deer species.

Scientists initially believed the small creature found in the world’s largest mountain range was a juvenile of another species but DNA tests confirmed the light brown animal with innocent dark eyes was a distinct and new species.

The Eastern Himalayas are now known to harbour a staggering 10,000 plant species, 300 mammal species, 977 bird species, 176 reptiles, 105 amphibians and 269 types of freshwater fish. The region also has the highest density of the Bengal tiger and is the last bastion of the charismatic greater one-horned rhino.

Historically, the rugged and largely inaccessible landscape of the Eastern Himalayas has made biological surveys in the region extremely difficult. As a result, wildlife has remained poorly surveyed and there are large areas that are still biologically unexplored.

Today further species continue to be unearthed and many more species of amphibians, reptiles and fish are currently in the process of being officially named by scientists. The Eastern Himalayas is certainly one of the last biological frontiers of Asia with many new discoveries waiting to be made.

Tigers roar loud in Nepal

A tiger captured in a camera trap in Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve of Western Nepal/ Image courtesy: GoN/ WWF Nepal

2008 population estimate brings a sigh of relief among conservationists

The wild tiger population is at a tipping point. More than half of the Bengal tiger population was lost to poaching in the last decade. The estimated number of tigers in important range countries is frighteningly low, with a recent government census suggesting there may be as few as 1,300 tigers left in India, the species’ stronghold. Besides poaching tigers are facing an epidemic of habitat loss across their range.

When the Government of Nepal started the nation-wide tiger population estimate with the help of conservation organizations like WWF and National Trust for Nature Conservation on 15 November 2008, there was a hidden fear among the conservationists that the results might be dishearteningly low. But when the final figures were released there was a joy and sigh of relief in everyone's face. The 2008 population estimate has confirmed the presence of 121 adult tigers in Nepal. The 1995-2001 estimates had shown the presence of 123 adult tigers in Nepal.

Following the unique bar codes
Each tiger has unique set of stripes, just like the unique fingerprints we all have. The set of stripes are different on both the sides. To capture the stripes on both sides, a pair of camera traps is fitted at the probable sites of tiger encounter in such a way that when a tiger crosses between the cameras they click at the same time.

To derive information on both abundance and distribution of tigers, the current survey employed two methods - Camera Trapping method inside the protected areas and Habitat Occupancy survey both inside and outside the protected areas. Three hundred camera traps were fitted at the tiger encounter sites and the images captured in the cameras were analyzed to find the final figures. To obtain reliable population estimates the survey was undertaken simultaneously in all potential habitats. Previous studies had been undertaken in different time periods and at different spatial scales.

Illegal trade behind the declining tiger numbers
The main reason for the decline of tiger populations has been attributed to poaching and illegal trade. This is linked to the illegal international trade in tiger parts and derivatives (skin, bones, meat in some cases although not reported in Nepal) and use in traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM). Apart from these, sporadic cases of retaliatory killing from irate communities have been reported. Other important reasons of tiger population decline are habitat shrinkage and fragmentation due to human intervention, loss/decline of prey species.

As per the recently released figures, Chitwan National Park has 91, Bardia National Park 18, Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve 8 and Parsa Wildlife Reserve has 4 adult tigers. The tiger numbers have increased in Chitwan but have decreased in Bardia National Park and Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve of the western Nepal.

"In spite of the decade long insurgency, encroachment, poaching and illegal trade, the present numbers is a positive sign, but we can't remain unworried," says Mr. Anil Manandhar, Country Representative of WWF Nepal.

"The declining numbers in western Nepal has posed more challenges, needing a concerted effort to save this charismatic endangered species focusing on anti-poaching and illegal wildlife trade."

Transboundary cooperation a must to save tigers
The Government of Nepal has approved and launched the 'Tiger conservation Action Plan 2008- 2012'. A comprehensive management plan has been devised in which the target is to increase the population of tigers by 10 per cent within the first 5 year period of the plan implementation. Many conservation organizations like WWF are helping the government to conserve the tigers. However, with the effort of Government of Nepal and conservation organizations alone won't be enough to save the tigers.

"Nepal and India share a porous border and many protected areas in both countries are linked with each other," said Dr. Uday Raj Sharma.

"Both the countries need to work together to save these endangered species."