What is communication strategy for businesses?
Table of Contents
By: Shelby Campbell, Edited by: Valerie Black
Published: April 21, 2025
Communication strategies can help businesses promote their products, services, and messaging while reducing misunderstandings. Explore how effective business communication strategies can empower your employees and customers in this guide.
What is a business communication strategy?
Business communication strategy refers to how businesses relate information about their practices and offerings to employees and stakeholders such as clients, customers, and investors. Companies may have two classifications of communication:
Internal communication
Internal communication may refer to how businesses relay information about goals, strategies, and company changes to employees, partners, and contractors. Examples of internal communications can include:
- Memos or emails
- Directives or goals
- Meetings
- Employee resources like handbooks and style guides
External communication
External communication may refer to how a business shares information with stakeholders outside the organization, including clients, customers, and media. A company's public-facing communications may include:
- Public relations
- Customer service
- Crisis management
- Advertising and marketing
Key differences between internal and external communication strategies
Internal communication
- Shares details about business strategy
- Influences employees' day-to-day work and perception of leadership
- Promotes alignment on shared goals
External communication
- Is determined by business strategy
- Influences brand awareness and consumer decision-making process
- Promotes sales and market position
Roadmap for a successful communication business strategy
Clear, authentic communication sets the tone for your business and its public perception. Whether you're building an internal or external communication strategy, you should start by identifying your audience and goals for communicating with them. You can then consider what action the message should inspire and what mode of communication transmits it best.
Building external communication strategies
Public relations
Public relations (PR) refers to how businesses connect and share information with their stakeholders, including customers, investors, and the media. Companies often establish a PR strategy to communicate overarching guidelines for their brand communications. This framework can help PR employees align each piece of communication with the brand strategy.
PR strategy guidelines may dictate the following:
- Tone and language
- Overall themes
- Public vs. proprietary information
- Brand representatives and ambassadors
For example, your goals for a product announcement may differ from a news release about leadership changes. Both, however, should adhere to the overall standards of your organization's public relations strategy.
Customer service
Customer service strategy dictates how your brand directly interacts with potential and existing customers to answer questions and provide information about your offerings. Having a strategy helps customer service representatives move each consumer through the appropriate service process.
When creating a customer service strategy, you should plan how representatives respond to the different inquiries your business may receive. Your customer service strategy can include guidelines for interacting with consumers through different channels, such as:
- AI chatbots
- Phone calls
- Self-service centers
- Messaging services
- Emails
- Social media
- Video chats
Crisis management
A crisis management strategy is a guideline for how your organization responds to internal and external crises. By identifying, planning for, and mitigating problems before they occur, a crisis management strategy can help preserve your organization's reputation and profitability.
To build a crisis management strategy, begin by acknowledging potential problems. Although this may be difficult, identifying vulnerabilities allows you to address them before they affect your market value.
You can then create a timeline for releasing public statements or implementing further mitigation strategies. Many businesses also recruit senior leadership to assist with crisis management based on their specializations, like cybersecurity, PR, or finance.
Advertising
Advertising strategy lays out how your company promotes its products and services to the public. Developing your advertising strategy starts with identifying your target audience and researching how they make buying decisions. Then, you can base your branding — such as online posts, television and radio commercials, and media representation — on what that target audience may best respond to.
For example, many fast-food restaurant brands develop witty personalities in their interactions with consumers and other brands on social media. This advertising strategy aims to have its online communications mirror popular online trends to attract a specific audience: young, social media-savvy consumers.