360° Communication: transform the relationship with your publics

Understand what 360° communication is and how it is fundamental to create a greater connection between a company and its audiences.

What ways do you use to communicate? A personal conversation, telephone, email, WhatsApp, social networks… Nowadays, we are connected to each other through the most diverse means. And just as our personal communication is constantly changing, companies need to understand how their audiences are inserted in this context to think about how to improve and personalize their relationship with them in an integrated way. This is where the role of 360° communication, or integrated communication, comes in.

It is a strategy that has this name precisely because it considers all the company’s publics and all the communication channels that make sense to these publics. And we say “integrated” because it is not a different campaign for each public and channel. The same identity and message is present in all communication processes, whether with company employees, suppliers, partners, or customers.

Let’s understand a little more about how the 360° communication strategy works?

What is 360° Communication

As we explained above, 360° communication is a strategy that encompasses various actions and means of communication at the same time, with the objective of taking a brand’s message to its audiences in a more assertive and integrated manner. This means that it is essential that the company understands the best ways to communicate with its audiences, knowing exactly what they are looking for and how they are informed, in order to get closer and ensure efficient communication for both sides.

To this end, 360° communication can involve several sectors of the company: marketing, internal communication, HR, customer service, sales, IT… In other words, all sectors related to corporate communication and the relationship with the public. These sectors need to be aligned so that the public receives the same message and has a uniform experience in all its points of contact with the company.

Just imagine a bank that sells an “uncomplicated” image, without bureaucracies. However, when using the application, the user only has headaches. And what about requesting help from customer service? You spend hours on the phone waiting music and are passed from one attendant to another. Do you understand how important it is for this strategy to be present in all the company’s processes? Otherwise, there is no point in investing in the best communication materials if, in practice, the reality is different.

Even though it impacts several sectors of a company, the management of the 360° communication strategy is usually the responsibility of the marketing team. Below, you will learn about some essential elements for this strategy.

Customer Journey in 360° Communication

Contrary to what many people think, the communication strategy involves not only the moment of purchase, but the customer journey as a whole. From when the customer doesn’t even know that he needs a solution like yours until after he has already used your solution.

To do this, you need to do a study of personas. In other words, draw profiles that gather characteristics usually found in your public to understand their habits, needs, challenges, how your company can help them, among other issues. This can be done through surveys with your own clients or potential clients. With the personas defined, it is easier to know how best to communicate with them at each stage of the customer journey.

After all, what exactly is the customer journey? It is all the stages that involve the relationship between the customer and a product. It starts when the customer discovers that he has a need or challenge that needs to be solved, goes through the moment when he looks for solutions to this problem, and ends with the buying decision, when he is choosing between your product and the competitors’. And more: the post-purchase is very important and must also be considered in the communication.

For each of these stages, there are appropriate communication strategies to reach your audience in the best way. And there is no rule: everything will depend on the personas that have been outlined. By choosing the right message and channels for each stage, your company manages not only to create more opportunities for contact with your customers, but also to strengthen this link.

The journey is not only the customer’s

This concept can also be used for other types of public. Just establish the objective you want with your communication and do the exercise of tracing the journey for each audience. For example: which moments in the routine of employees can lead them more easily to access internal communication channels? What media do they use the most?

Finally, it is important to remember that the message needs to be consistent throughout the entire journey. The next topic goes a long way toward ensuring this.

Branding for integrated communication

As we well know, the higher the degree of customer satisfaction, the greater the customer loyalty. And this is a vital factor for the financial health of any company, since it is the customer who is responsible for generating revenue. But it’s not only the customer that matters: establishing a healthy relationship with employees, partners, and suppliers also makes all the difference in the business and its results.

Building a reputation that inspires confidence in the market is not something easy or that happens overnight. It takes a lot of work, dedication, and strategy. And, for this reason, we hit again the key of the importance of maintaining the same positioning and values throughout the communication strategy, in all the company’s processes.

In this sense, good branding work becomes essential to transmit a clearer and more objective image of your brand. We live in an age in which information easily reaches different types of people through different channels. It is branding that helps ensure that all people – or most of them – have a positive perception of your brand.

The brand values and identity established through this work also need to guide the 360° communication strategy. Remember the example we talked about with the bank? If the same positioning were followed in all points of communication with the client, the image that he will have of the institution will hardly be different from the image it would like to convey.

Once the company as a whole is aligned under the same values, it is time to insert them in the communication plan. And what are the possibilities for action? Many!

360° Communication: from on to off

Instead of a single, isolated strategy, 360° communication makes it possible to bring together various strategies, be they online or offline. The goal is not only to reach a greater number of people, but to communicate with them in the most efficient way, and to enable the development of a relationship.

Offline actions are all those that do not involve the digital world. From ads in a magazine to participation in events. Despite requiring a larger investment and not having as many precise metrics to monitor results, offline actions can bring a huge impact to your brand. One of them is the wide visibility. You can imagine the reach that a commercial on prime time TV or a billboard on the busiest avenue in your city has.

At the same time, they also help to strengthen the relationship with your audiences. Whether by organizing events for your market or incentive campaigns within your company, “real life” interaction with your publics reinforces and humanizes your brand’s presence. It demonstrates transparency and openness for a real dialogue, not just a one-way street.

Online marketing also allows mass communication and, at the same time, personalized actions. But in different ways than offline actions. We can spread advertising campaigns, create content to educate the market and attract potential customers, participate in digital communities, communicate in real time with our audiences, and much more. All this with the possibility of creating segmentations, directing your message to the public of your interest, and having a variety of tools that help to measure the results of your actions accurately.

Unity is strength

And, in the end, is it better to focus on online or offline actions? There is no right answer. Each type of action may work better for each audience or for each stage of the purchase journey. A sponsored post in a social network can increase the visibility of your travel agency, for example. But setting up your store for a day with the theme of one of the destinations offered, such as Salvador, highlighting the sights and offering pampering such as Senhor do Bonfim ribbons, can be the difference in the customer’s buying decision.

That is why a 360° communication strategy needs a great deal of planning to produce results. It is not imposed from the company to the public, it is tailor-made for them. It is a work that studies the habits and needs of the public to deliver the right messages at the most opportune moments and in the most strategic channels.

The importance of a 360° agency

You can realize that this is a job for many professionals, with different profiles. If your company has the structure for a dedicated team, everything can be done internally. However, we know that this is not the reality of most companies.

Another alternative is to hire agencies to perform the actions. But for an integrated communication strategy, having one agency for advertising, another for content, another for visual communication and so on can cause distortions in the message and the headache of having to constantly guide and ask for adjustments in the materials.

The most recommended path is to look for a 360° agency, that is, one that has professionals with the most different specializations to conduct all the actions. Thus, the company needs only one point of contact to manage the strategy. And the agency can guarantee the integrity of the messages and the company’s identity in all actions carried out.

This is what the Centro Universitário Salesiano de São Paulo (Unisal) started to do in its vestibular campaigns. Unisal chose Vision Comunicação, a 360° agency, to elaborate all the campaign pieces, online and offline, in order to cover all the contact points with the students. Click here and learn more about this successful case!