What Is Strategic Communications?

What is the difference between strategic communications and public relations?

photo credit: javiberm

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) defines strategic communications as “using corporate or institutional communications to create, strengthen or preserve, among key audiences, opinion favorable to the attainment of institutional or corporate goals.”

In general, a strategic communication plan wants to achieve three things:

1. Promote favorable public policy outcome
2. Reduce the cost of doing business
3. Support marketing and/or operational effectiveness

Where public relations focus on injecting a particular message amongst a particular audience, strategic communications focus on developing a program that meets the objectives of an organization. For example, a strategic communication plan compliments a marketing, sales, or fundraising campaign by developing the message and delivery method for that message. When planned together, an organization can maximize the impact of the campaign as well as the metric by which the campaign will be measured.

Here are other articles I have written on this topic:

• New Campaign for Will County Health Department
• How to Write a Strategic Communications Plan
• Do You Think Like Your Market?
• U.S. Military Establishes New Social Media Policy
• Chicago 2016: The Biggest PR Failure in a Generation
• 10 Day Tune Up for H1N1 – Day 2: Your Message
• 10 Day Tune Up for H1N1 – Day 1: Influenza Update
• Writing a Strategic Communications Plan: Executive Summary
• Writing a Strategic Communications Plan: Evaluation
• Writing a Strategic Communications Plan: Planning & Implementation