Messages: Meaning, Importance, Objectives

A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus. A message can be the content of a broadcast. An interactive exchange of messages forms a conversation.

One example of a message is a press release, which may vary from a brief report or statement released by a public agency to commercial publicity material.

Corporate messaging comprises the core message of a company and all of the methods used to get that message into the minds of consumers and stockholders. Companies use corporate messaging hand in hand with public relations to develop and maintain company branding. Without a central corporate message, investors and consumers might wonder what the goals and motivation of the company are. Small businesses use the same corporate messaging techniques to solidify their position in their market and inform the community in which they operate.

Importance

Shows transparency to employees

Employees are savvier these days. They expect more out of their employers and have greater access to learn about a potential employer. Think about online reviews from other employees, chat groups about companies, and friends touting one company over another on social media. So with all these external factors, it’s important that companies create transparency through corporate communications.

Builds strong internal teams

When you work eight or more hours a day with people, you want good co-workers. The importance of corporate communication in day to day operations is paramount. For example, you have a large product rollout and some team members are holding up the process and missing deadlines. The CEO wants to know why your team is behind and now the entire team is held accountable. Or a manager receives new direction on a project and forgets to tell the team what the new goal is. So, the team members miss the mark on achieving the new goal. These, examples of lack of corporate communication led to frustrated employees. And in return, you either start having “checked out” employees who no longer want to perform or worse high employee turnover which leads to bad company reviews. And this can affect getting great talent to join your organization in the future.

Keeps messaging consistent to customers

If you work for a larger company, you may have a corporate communications department for external audiences like customers and stakeholders and maybe an internal communications department for employee communications. Or if you have a smaller company where one person is dealing with all communications, different messaging may be created for external and internal audiences.

The importance of corporate communication is to keep messaging consistent to not only your employees but your external audiences. If you forget to communicate with your customers in the same fashion as your employees, your company brand and mission gets lost. Customers don’t know what you stand for or why they should choose you over one of your competitors.

Objectives

Internal Audience

Maintaining effective communication within your own company is important in avoiding confusion that can affect morale and productivity. Your internal communication objective should be to develop a network that gets important information to staff members accurately and efficiently. The managerial staff needs procedures in place that release information only after it has been confirmed to avoid conflicting internal messages.

Consistency

A business communication plan creates consistency in the message that is important to maintaining the company’s public image. All correspondence that goes out to the media outlets will contain the same message, and the internal audience of employees and managerial staff will also understand the information the company is releasing.

Presentation

Corporate public relations is a precise process. The message that is released by the company is reviewed by managers, executives and the legal team to make sure the company is properly represented. An important objective of business communication is determining who will release the information, how it will be presented and when it should be revealed.

Media Outlets

Your marketing department does a comprehensive analysis of each media outlet and determines which outlets reach particular target markets. Releasing information to all media outlets will get your message out to the public, but you can use the media analysis to create targeted messages that will reach your intended audience and make a greater impact. For example, if you are releasing a new video game, then your marketing department will tell you that certain video game magazines tend to reach your target audience better than other forms of media.