Executive Communications
Executive communication refers to the exchange of information between leadership or an executive team and two potential audiences: their department or team members and their clients, customers, or community. Materials that could constitute executive communications could include things like memos, newsletters, articles, announcements, press releases, and landing pages — really anything that an executive or executive group is using to communicate a message.
The Goal of Executive Communications
Ironically, the goal of executive communications is to have a goal. Every piece of content that falls into this category should have a pre-planned result or interpretation of what the audience will take away. For example, the goal of the communication might be damage control. Perhaps you want to communicate that some mistake has been made, like a shipping issue, and you’re taking specific action to rectify the situation. This would also fall under crisis communication and management.
Another example might be that you want to announce a new team member to the company. Again, it could appear in many places, including the website, newsletter, social media, or company messenger. When it comes to avenues or mediums for communication, you’re only limited by your imagination. Just remember, if you finish a piece of executive communication and can’t identify the point… you need to pause, reflect, and figure it out.
Process for Executive Communication
Whether they’re CEOs or managers of a smaller team, many executives don’t actually write their executive communication. Maybe they’re not comfortable with the writing process, or they simply don’t have the time. Either way, executive communication is often being written by someone else in the executive’s voice, a bit like ghostwriting. This partnership involves a process early on of interviews/meetings between the “speaker” and the writer.
The goal for the writer is to grasp the speaker’s tone, style, syntax, key phrases, etc. This doesn’t necessarily need to be the person’s literal voice, either. Voice can be crafted to achieve a certain goal or meet specific standards. As long as it stays consistent, then it’s doing its job.
Elevate Your Executive Communications
Sometimes at Cosmitto, executive communication is already built into another service. We might be writing an ongoing newsletter for you, and depending on who you’ve decided is the speaker and audience, you could point to it as executive communications. In other cases, you might want to craft a more targeted strategy around the concept — including CEO blog posts, seamlessly run social media accounts, videos, etc.
If you want to learn more about this service and what we can do (or might already be doing based on your goals), contact us today!