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Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few weeks, you’ll be well aware that the Budget is to be handed down at 7:30pm this evening, Tuesday 14 May. If your company has decided to comment publicly on particular Budget announcements, these five fast tips will help you stay clear and on message.
1. Know your audience – stay relevant: Who are you speaking to and what are their concerns? Keep this in mind when drafting or otherwise shaping your Budget commentary to ensure you stay relevant. Knowing your audience will also help inform the channels you choose to distribute your content e.g. EDM, traditional media, social media … or all of the above.
2. Focus on your subject matter – stay informative: Once you have agreed on your target audience, you need to decide exactly which subject matter is of most significance to them, zero in on it and learn it backwards. Unless you are an economist expected to make broad commentary, you should narrowly focus on a few topics of relevance to your audience. Speaking on areas of specific expertise will position you and your brand as thought leaders in the areas that matter to your stakeholders.
3. Agree your key messages – stay consistent: Decide the party line for each area on which you want to comment. Ensure you have clear key messages and stick with them to ensure consistency. Please note that it’s just as important to agree on what you won’t comment on as what you will – and how you will communicate this to the media. And, as with any communication, you should use clear, concise language and stay clear of using jargon.
4. Be available – stay around: If you have decided to respond to the Budget update this year, you should have decided the spokesperson/people for each topic and how you intend to distribute your content e.g. via an earned or owned channel. No matter how your commentary is distributed, you must ensure your spokespeople are available for follow up questions or enquiries (including monitoring online response and social media). To genuinely engage your target audience (be they media or customers), two way communication is required.
5. Be timely – stay ahead of the game: By Thursday morning, most traditional and social media channels will already be saturated by Budget coverage. If you want to position yourself as a leader in your subject matter, you must be in there addressing the issues ahead of your competitors. Prepare as much content as you can (there have been enough leaks to give you a great head start!) so you can simply amend your final comments following the Budget announcement and have it distributed first thing tomorrow morning, if not before.
We hope you find our fast five tips helpful in finessing your Budget coverage. Stay tuned to the BlueChip blog for tomorrow’s special Budget edition, showcasing some of the most useful Budget responses and roundups from the financial services industry.
