Knowing and understanding your clients’ company culture and identity
Two weeks ago, I discussed the importance of company culture and, specifically, the strong culture that the MANGO team endeavours. It’s definitely imperative that you are able to understand and live out the culture of your company, but I feel that it’s just as important to understand the company culture of your clients. Understanding the culture of the business, as well as their vision, mission and goals properly will help you to produce content that will reap the largest return on investment for your clients as possible.
You might be wondering; how do I understand the company culture if I’m not directly involved and operate in the company’s environment? Obviously, being an employee of a company allows you to interact with everyone on a daily basis which is a huge advantage in learning the company culture, but just because you might not always be present in their place of work, doesn’t mean that you can’t learn about the company’s culture.
As PR and communications specialists, we are required to yield the best return on investment as we can for our clients. Another way of gaining insight to a client’s culture is to understand their Corporate Identity and brand tone. Does their image reflect a fun and colourful company? Or do they prefer to come across as subtle and to the point? Knowing and using the company’s corporate colours, fonts and themes correctly is one way to relay the corporate identity and culture. The tone one their website and other external communication is also a good reflection on how they wish their brand to be perceived. However, the best way to gauge company culture is through communication with the client and understanding the nuances of their communication with you and their colleagues.
In my experience, learning about the company on every possible level is important when creating content and coming up with innovative communications ideas for the client. Understanding the company properly allows for efficient relations between the agency and the client – if the agency understands exactly what the client is wanting, they are able to produce work that is relative and effective to the client’s overall communication objectives. For one of our clients, I am required to create the majority of the social media images for the account. I have learnt that in order for me to fulfil my job and develop creative content, I had to ensure that I did my research about the company so that I could fully understand who they are. In doing so, it has been to my advantage to learn more about the background of the company as it has contributed to my knowledge and understanding about the messages that each client wants to portray, through the creatives I develop for them.
How do you get to know more about your clients’ company culture and identity? If you have any tips or advice, leave them in the comments section below!
