Your business needs to be more like Roy Hodgson

"We've been unable to deliver.
Thank you very much."

Ok, so maybe you shouldn't adopt the last sentence of Roy's resignation announcement as your new company motto - especially if you are an Amazon or DHL.

There is much speculation that Roy had written his resignation speech before the first whistle of the miserable encounter with Iceland, let alone the final one.  If that is indeed the case then I'd ask you, where's  the problem ? Put aside the questions over whether his team selections  or tactics were correct and imagine you are Roy and the England squad are your business.

Do you approach any situation hoping that your business will fail miserably (even if you have failed in the same situation for more than a decade!)?  Of course not. But you damn well ought to be catering for every eventuality in terms of how you communicate with your consumers/fans. 

Your audience will either expect to hear from you around significant events related to your business, or theirs, or you have the opportunity to surprise and delight them with some unexpected content. 

Either way my point is that you have to plan - even if you're planning for the unexpected/unintended/unwanted.

We spend a lot of time at TaleFin helping clients take a long-term, holistic view of not just their video content but the wider strategy of how, when and where they are talking to their consumers.

Why does this sort of planning matter? 

It matters because even if you want to be reactive in most of your communication you need to PLAN to be reactive. You need to ensure you have the resources in place to create or curate the most impactful, relevant and engaging content you        possibly can.

A well constructed content calendar will help you take a long-range view of your communications strategy; minimising costs, maximising impact and therefore improving the quality and quantity of your content.

This is particularly relevant with video which can be significantly more expensive to create unless you have the appropriate resources in place. The appropriate resources may be a full camera crew ready to capture content or one of your staff with a smartphone and access to your social channels  in order to post content in record time.

If you haven't planned for the camera crew you will either pay more or not be able to find one in time. If you haven't planned to give employees the required resources and access then they will most likely encounter multiple barriers to delivering  that 'cost-effective, fast turnaround video content'. 

When working with clients we find that it's usually easy to get them to identify events in their business cycle that they want to be taking about. They are usually the celebratory ones such as highlighting new releases or milestones and successes. The real work is identifying when you might NEED to say something because your audience will expect to hear from you and often that involves having a Plan B. 

Roy's Plan A was to celebrate an English victory over Iceland but while Joe Hart let Plan A roll into the back of the net Roy realised that he would need to reluctantly pull Plan B from his pocket. 

So, who says what next? FA announce a new manager?  Minister for Sport announces a review of elite football in England? Your guess is a good as mine but any announcement needs to be assessed in term of its context with other communications and strategic aims.

It will need a plan!

TaleFin work with clients to develop clear and powerful content strategies for their business. Get in touch if you'd like to start a conversation -                                                          with us and with your consumers.