www.presspage.com Open in urlscan Pro
52.30.191.111  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Skip to main content

 * Product
 * Crisis communications
 * Plans
 * Resources
   * Customer stories
   * Ebooks & Guides
   * Blog
 * Careers We're hiring!
 * Login
 * Get Started

Home Product Crisis communications Plans Customer stories Ebooks & Guides Blog
Careers We're hiring! Login Get Started
Share


blog_1_challenges_header_v5


Amsterdam,
June
23,
2021
|
08:25 AM
America/Chicago


THE MAIN CHALLENGES FOR COMMUNICATIONS TEAMS


UPDATED FOR 2021

Summary

Communication is no easy job to handle. It never has been, but due to the rise
of technology and how it has influenced the media landscape, it seems to have
become increasingly difficult to get the right story out to the right people.

We work in an amazing field, but there are some tough challenges that
communications departments face regularly. From our experience working with
hundreds of PR and Corporate Communications teams around the globe, most of
these issues can be traced back to workflow, in this blog post we will talk
about four of the most common ones we've noticed, regardless of industry,
geography, or department size. 


1. MESSAGING CONSISTENCY ACROSS ALL BRAND TOUCHPOINTS

The larger a company is, the tougher it is to keep a consistent story across all
brand touchpoints. There are multiple rounds of approval, seniority levels,
channels, and procedures. Something as simple as using an outdated messaging
document could impact the consistency of your campaigns and have unintended
consequences. 

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION FLOWS 

It’s important to set up transparent information flows between team members.
Making sure all relevant stakeholders are involved in the process of developing
and signing off messaging is one way to keep things consistent. As
time-consuming as it may seem, it might end up saving you some headaches down
the line. Come up with a list of who should be involved and assign roles to them
(accountable, responsible, supporting, consulted, or informed). When you involve
other departments or regions in the process of coming up with key messaging, you
can bring out the nuances relevant to them. This will help everyone adopt the
talking points agreed upon. 

EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS 

Just like internal audiences, external ones – clients, partners, shareholders,
and media – must receive the same core message, but tailored to their needs.
This process isn’t always easy, but the best way to nail the messaging is to
know your audience (learn more about how to define your audiences in our guide
to PR strategy and planning). 

Another best practice to avoid inconsistencies is to keep all your content in
the same place (somewhere you can easily publish and update your content) – this
lets people know that whenever something new happens, they should look for it
there. Wondering what that digital content hub could look like? Download our
free newsroom inspiration guide to see how some of the world’s leading brands
have structured theirs. 


2. ROUTINE TASKS CREATING BOTTLENECKS IN THE TEAM

Most of us don’t notice the bottlenecks until they really become an issue – e.g.
your to-do list is too long. You know how to go about everything in there, but
you have no time. Sometimes you can get away with prioritizing and dropping some
of the items in the list, others, the tasks you need to do directly impact the
result of your communications efforts and they must happen. Servicing the media,
for instance, is key to see earned media results, so you can’t afford to stop
answering media inquiries.

Some of the tasks we often see becoming a problem for teams include: 

 * Publishing and distribute press releases. 
 * Upkeep of media lists. 
 * Answering media inquiries. 
 * Providing the media with the assets they need to publish their stories. 

Failing to provide answers on time or respond to a media inquiry can mean lost
opportunities to build or protect your brand. The easiest way to spot
bottlenecks is to look for the parts of the workflow that seem to be causing
frustration among team members, and tasks taking longer to complete than they
used to. 

Your first reaction might be to throw more resources at it, hire more people, or
get external help. While this helps, sometimes the answer is simpler – automate
it. Organise your contacts and media lists in a contact management system, and
log media requests centrally to be able to assign follow-ups. The benefits of
this approach are two-fold: it removes manual work, and (provided you have the
right tools) you’ll be able to monitor your contacts’ engagement based on their
interactions with your content. 


3. A SCATTERED TECH STACK

When we say technology stack, we mean a set of tools and software components
that help you run an application or project. The real issue here is not the
tools themselves (there are great tools out there, but lots of them weren't
built with the communicator's goals in mind) but how they work together. If they
are disconnected, this affects the way teams work – and their output, too.
Bouncing from one screen to another, switching tools, taking calls, replying to
emails, going into meetings, writing press releases, preparing interviews,
planning campaigns… 

The truth is we’re not as good as we think we are at multitasking, but it’s
important to differentiate between the types of distractions we have some
control over and the ones where we don’t. The bad news is that a scattered PR
stack can be a distraction, the good news is that it’s mostly self-imposed. 

Teams often get to this point due to one or more of these factors: 

 * Legacy tools are kept just because that’s how things have worked. 
 * Tools are acquired as ad-hoc solutions and not with a goal-based approach. 
 * The communications team is using tools originally meant for marketers.
 * There is a limited understanding of tech among key decision-makers.

Most people remain using these tools because they “do the job”, running the risk
of adding too much manual work, creating bottlenecks, frustrating the team, and
leaving room for mistakes that could have been avoided. 


4. MEASURING ROI

Measuring return on investment has been in communicators’ challenges lists for a
long time. With online data on the rise, the cry for measurable results has
become louder. Additionally, comms professionals face the question to provide
ROI on their efforts more often. This requires a new mindset when reaching out
to journalists and creating content for different channels.



 

Unlike marketing, where conversion is a go-to way to measure success,
communications teams struggle to track the results of their PR and Corporate
Communications activities. However, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. A clear,
concrete, measurable goal should be the start. Your goals will inspire the
metrics and the frequency with which you’ll track them – e.g.: 

Goal: Establish X new relationships per month with both trade media and national
journalists. 

Metrics: New contacts added (measured monthly). 

Next, focus on defining your target audience, format, structure, and
distribution channels. When you send out your message, start to gather data
immediately, sometimes that will give you insights into how things are going and
you’ll be able to use them to optimize your content or campaign. Stay consistent
in what you’re trying to monitor and eventually, you will gather enough data to
compare across periods of time, locations, and angles. 

Read more about which metrics are worth tracking and how you can do that: The
essentials of PR measurement. 


HOW DO YOU ADDRESS THEM IN YOUR ORGANISATION?

The things we listed above are common, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to
solve them the same way. Before you start thinking about getting a media
database tomorrow, take some time to think about how these challenges are
preventing you from reaching your goals. 

Check out some more insights we shared in our webinar “The foundations of a
modern PR workflow” about how Enterprise teams can optimize their workflow and
address these challenges.


RELATED ARTICLES


CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS: LESSONS LEARNED FROM 4 EXAMPLES

March
10
,
2021
| 04:45 AM America/Chicago
Every business can face a crisis, regardless of sector or activity. Your
response at that moment will be key to shape the narrative – late or inadequate
responses can have a lasting impact on how …
Read more


WILL YOU BE ABLE TO RELY ON YOUR NEWSROOM IN A CRISIS?

March
02
,
2021
| 04:31 AM America/Chicago
An effective online newsroom should be equipped with the tools and functionality
to quickly layout your message, easily locate the necessary media assets,
seamlessly distribute a response to all your …
Read more


HOW TO USE PRESSPAGE TO DO CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

March
02
,
2021
| 04:30 AM America/Chicago
Crisis communication has been on our mind a lot recently – we’ve even published
a guide for PR teams and a few more resources like holding statement templates –
but in this post, we really want to …
Read more

Show previous items Show next items
RSS feed - Related articles (opens in new window) View all headlines - Related
articles




CONTACTS

Follow me on Twitter (opens in new window)
Add me on LinkedIn (opens in new window)
Bart Verhulst
Chief Strategy Officer
b.verhulst@presspage.com
+1 312-256-9985


Back to Newsroom


SHARE THIS RELEASE

The main challenges for communications teams
Share on: Twitter
Share on: Facebook
Share on: LinkedIn



Skip Twitter widget

End of Twitter widget
Skip facebook widget

End of facebook widget


LATEST NEWS

Apr
14,
2022
-
Transformation for everyone: How a scale-up and a sprinter can learn from each
other
Jan
24,
2022
-
Welcome on the Advisory Board!
Dec
02,
2021
-
Information Security is no longer a choice, but a must
Nov
05,
2021
-
Interview with our CEO: Important milestones for a truly essential CommTech
platform
Nov
03,
2021
-
Fast-growing PressPage receives investment of €2 million
Mar
10,
2021
-
Crisis communications: lessons learned from 4 examples







REQUEST YOUR DEMO

Discover why companies around the world use Presspage to support their PR
activity.

Get Started


EMPOWER YOUR PR WITH PRESSPAGE

DISCOVER

 * Product
 * Customers
 * Plans
 * Get Started
 * Knowledge Base
 * Platform Status

COMPANY

 * News
 * Careers We're hiring!
 * Contact

GUIDES

 * The Ultimate Guide to Brand Newsrooms
 * The Ultimate Guide to PR Distribution
 * The Ultimate Guide to PR Strategy and Planning
 * How to prepare a crisis communications plan
 * The Complete Guide to Buying PR Software

Chicago | Amsterdam

Disclaimer | Cookies | Privacy Statement |
Acceptable Use Policy | Terms and Conditions |
ISO 27001:2013-certified platform



PreviousNext