Chapter 3 — Full chapter
3.3 Defining the Communication Objective
Knowing who the stakeholder is and what information they need is not enough. Communication also needs a clear purpose: what should the stakeholder be able to understand, decide, or do as a result?
A communication objective translates a broad topic into a specific intended outcome. For example, “communicate our repair service” describes a subject; “help customers understand whether their garment is eligible for repair and how to access the service” defines what the communication needs to achieve. Similarly, an internal objective might be to ensure that sales teams use an approved recycled-fibre claim consistently, while a supplier objective might be to obtain the data required to substantiate that claim.
A useful communication objective can therefore be framed through three questions:
Who needs the information? What decision or action should it support? What should change as a result of the communication?
Once the objective is defined, the organisation can determine the information, evidence, ownership, format, and feedback mechanisms needed to support it. These elements are brought together in the Stakeholder Information and Communication Matrix in the next section.