Communications: Back To Basics

In today's increasingly interconnected world of instant communications, it's all too easy to lose sight of how best to reach out to your audience. Here, Stefan Lepkowski, Founder of Karol Marketing, an award-winning PR agency renowned for accelerating brand value for over 25 years, shares his top communications tips.

It’s quite incredible to think how much communications have evolved over time and how everything is now available at a touch of a button, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But with so many different ways to connect and communicate, it makes being able to do so effectively more complex and challenging than ever before.

The platforms we choose to communicate through will vary depending on the project or client, but regardless of the situation, or how big or small your company is, it’s integral to business success to not feel trapped behind a screen and apply a ‘one size fits all’ method of communication to everyone you come across. In our fast-paced world of 24-hour news cycles, sometimes the temptation to fire off a message to tick a box can be all too tempting. But, as with any good PR campaign, effective business communications should utilise a package of tools and one of these should be face-to-face communication.

Don’t get me wrong – emails, Tweets, Skype and WhatsApp messages are all brilliant practical tools that help to reach new audiences, maintain conversations and create quick and frequent twoway communications. Technology is something we’d all be lost without and we must use it to our advantage.

However, I believe that making the time to talk to people in person still remains the most effective form of communication for businesses. There is no substitute for talking to a person directly as it provides you with a real-life platform to engage, interpret and nurture stronger and more meaningful long-term relationships. You’ll have a different relationship with someone you’ve met in person, even if it’s just briefly, over someone you’ve only spoken to online.

Time is precious, yes, but meeting someone faceto-face can boost efficiency in the long-term and also act as a critical component when it comes to building and maintaining business relationships.

Meetings can reveal much more in terms of personality and likes/dislikes for communications moving forward. They build an element of trust and transparency, help to cement relationships and provide you with an opportunity to explore projects and ideas much more freely.

Meeting up with someone doesn’t always have to take place in a formal setting either, it can be as simple as going for a coffee or popping into the pub for a pint. These informal discussions have different benefits altogether and can allow both parties to relax and delve into an idea in more detail, ultimately adding more colour to something that you wouldn’t normally get from an email or over the phone.

Never underestimate that people are your best assets in business so next time, instead of resorting to email communications, I suggest taking the time to get to know them and soon enough, the results will speak for themselves.