Strategic Communications
All the pieces working together.
We work with organizations, founders, and independent practitioners on specific initiatives, projects, or communications challenges that require strategic thinking.
Overview
When we talk about strategic communications we’re not only talking about good writing. A fantastic blog post, written for the wrong audience and distributed the wrong way, isn’t worth much. Audience is where we begin, always. Communication isn't a one-way street — if it doesn't reach the person, it hasn't worked.
Communications are strategic when they’re crafted with a specific audience in mind, clear objectives, accessible language, and a distinct voice, tone, and style. We settle all of that before we draft anything.
For Trinity School, that meant defining the top audiences and writing voice and tone guidelines before a word of the new site got drafted — then holding both across three divisions and several years of content. The sequence matters more than any single piece: settle the audience and the voice, and everything after is a smaller decision.
Communications challenges are rarely limited to a single channel or medium, so our consulting is flexible by design — built to slot into the places where you need an expert opinion rather than a whole department. Most engagements have scope, deliverables, and timelines defined upfront so the work has a clear shape, though some clients keep us on across years and many projects, which is its own arrangement.
What this looks like in practice
— Audience research and insight — who you need to reach and what would actually move them
— A communications plan for the initiative, with priorities and sequence
— Messaging development — core messages and the supporting language underneath them
— Strategic narrative for ongoing work that’s hard to explain in a sentence
— Communications support across several initiatives or programs at once — so each one sounds like itself and like the organization it belongs to
— An analysis of everything you're already putting out, checked against your priority audiences and brought into line
— The materials themselves: decks, talking points, launch copy, internal communications
— Press materials, built from that messaging — pitches, press kits, media packets
When you need it
— You’re launching a program or an initiative and nobody has decided what the story is
— New leadership, a new direction, or a major shift — and you need to figure out what to say about it
— You have a strategic plan and no plan for communicating it
— The work is good and hard to explain, and the explaining is starting to cost you
— You have a communications team that’s capable and stretched, and you need an outside read
Brand rollouts and rebrand implementation
Most rebrands are handed over as a set of guidelines and a logo package, and then the agency's work is done. That's the point where organizations get stuck. Nobody internally knows what to do first, staff keep using the old deck, and a board that approved the identity in a meeting hasn't seen it in the world yet.
We plan and guide the rollout: sequencing what changes and when, writing the internal announcement before the external one, building the materials that get people using the new brand, and handling the questions that come up when something people were attached to goes away. Megan led this at the Design Trust for Public Space — a full organizational rebrand with new mission and vision statements, a new website, and a refreshed identity — from inside the organization.
FAQ
If you’re consultants, does that mean you just deliver a Powerpoint and walk away?
Absolutely not.
Depending on the task, we may be engaged for high-level strategy (that yes, may come in presentation form). Or we may be doing detailed audits, crafting language, or writing final copy.
More often than not, it’s a combination of both.
It may not always make sense for us to do the most nitty gritty tasks, but we care that the strategies we build with our clients can actually live in the world.
Where does this stop and brand strategy start?
Brand strategy settles who you are and how you sound, once, for everything.
Strategic communications takes a specific thing — a launch, a transition, a report nobody is reading — and works out how to land it. If you don’t have the first, we’ll usually say so; building the second with no foundation in place costs more in the end.
Do you do PR?
We write the materials; we don't make the calls.
The core of it is messaging — what the story actually is, and why someone outside your organization should care about it this week. Then the things that carry it: pitches, press kits, media packets. What we don't have is standing relationships with editors and producers.
For a lot of organizations that split is exactly right. If you already have the relationships — a board member who knows a reporter, a local outlet that covers your work — what's usually missing is the material and the message, not the contact. If you're launching a consumer product and need national coverage, you need a publicist who has those relationships, and we'll tell you so. We're glad to work alongside one; getting the messaging right first is what makes their job possible.
Featured Work
“Megan was essential as a strategist. Her ability to simultaneously see both the finer details and the larger picture kept us efficient and precise—a sweet spot that’s often hard to reach.”
— LYNN OSGOOD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CIVIC ARTSFeatured Package
Thought Partner Package
Sometimes you just need an outside expert in a more open-ended way.
So we offer Thought Partner packages of hours. We stay flexible on what we work on and when, depending on what comes up. It’s built for individuals and small organizations that need a breadth of communications expertise but don’t have the budget for an employee.
Learn more about our Thought Partner Package >Let’s talk.
Find out if we are the right communications experts for your needs.