What is institutional communication and how to make the most of it?

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Also known as "corporate communication," institutional communication encompasses all communication actions carried out by a company to build and strengthen its brand image, reputation, and legitimacy. Want to know how to structure your institutional communication strategy to improve your company's image? Discover our tips and best practices!

What is Institutional Communication?

Definition of institutional communication

An institutional communication strategy relies on a series of channels and actions designed to assert your organization's identity, its mission, values, and commitments, and to strengthen your relationship and proximity with the audiences mentioned above.

On the organizational side, institutional communication is typically managed by a communication director or head of communication.

What is the Role of Institutional Communication?

And much more! If after all this, you’re not convinced...

What Are the 3 Main Types of Institutional Communication?

Let’s dive into some theoretical jargon. There are 3 main types of institutional communication:

1. Image communication. As the name suggests, it helps you build a strong and positive brand image with your different audiences by promoting your mission, values, and the vision of your company. Unsurprisingly, the more positive your image is with your various audiences, the more it will positively impact your financial results.
2. Reputation communication aims to increase your visibility with potential customers, investors, or talents. For example, if you’ve just launched your business or expanded into a new territory, this type of communication is essential to help you get known.
3. Legitimacy communication seeks to establish your company’s credibility by showcasing your expertise, the quality of your products and services, and your social, environmental, or ethical commitments, such as your contribution to the local community. The goal is to position yourself as a trusted player, recognized in your sector, and engaged!

Keep in mind that your image, reputation, and legitimacy are not built overnight. They will be developed step by step over time, which is why an institutional communication strategy is so valuable.

What is the Difference Between Marketing Communication and Institutional Communication?

Marketing communication or institutional communication, it’s not always easy to understand the differences and nuances between each concept. However, these two types of communication have very distinct objectives!

But be careful! While they aim for different objectives, these two types of communication complement each other. As you might have guessed, institutional communication and marketing communication are complementary. It’s essential to deploy them in parallel while maintaining coherence between these two strategies and the resulting multichannel communication operations.

What Are the Main Channels and Tools of Institutional Communication?

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A solid institutional communication strategy relies on a wide variety of channels and tools to reach different audiences. It is recommended to use, as much as your human and financial resources allow, the following channels:

• Your company’s website. It represents your main business card and the central pillar of your brand image. It provides detailed information about your identity, purpose, values, history, missions, and the benefits of your products and services.
• Press releases and media relations are an effective tool for announcing significant news such as an expansion plan, a recruitment drive, a new partnership, or the organization of an event (annual general meeting, open house, etc.).
• Social media is now an essential external communication channel for sharing your news, products, and services, as well as your commitments and values.
• Publishing annual reports provides transparency and credibility to your company and strengthens the trust of your institutional audiences (partners, investors, etc.).
• The professional email signature and custom banners allow you to discreetly yet effectively showcase your values, certifications, or certain actions during your email exchanges.
• Lobbying helps target specific audiences (large companies in the sector, public authorities, etc.). However, it follows specific rules that go beyond mere communication.

How to Effectively Carry Out Institutional Communication?

How to Create an Institutional Communication Plan?

Looking to implement an effective institutional communication strategy? Just follow these 5 steps:

1. Assess your company’s image using online reputation analysis tools, surveys with your customers, employees, and partners, social media interactions, customer reviews, or brand audits...
2. Analyze the expectations of your different target audiences (needs, most used communication channels, etc.), as well as your competitors' institutional communication strategies to see how you can stand out.
3. Define the guidelines of your strategy for institutional communication (vision, long-term goals, budget...).
4. Translate your communication plan into operational terms, i.e., transpose your strategy into actions. To do so, you need to detail the various actions: selecting the most appropriate channel for each target (social media for a wide audience, annual reports for institutional partners, email signatures to highlight your commitments during each interaction...), drafting your messages, defining your calendar, allocating resources, and selecting key performance indicators to evaluate the relevance of your actions.
5. Measure and analyze your results (number of media mentions, sales increase over a specific period, reputation changes, new social media subscribers, etc.).

How to Improve Your Institutional Communication Strategy with an Email Signature?

This email signature is like the digital business card of the sender and the company. It helps add a more professional touch to your communications and also serves as an often-overlooked institutional communication tool!

Easily customizable by adding a mail banner, it allows you to effectively broadcast certain messages or direct the email recipient to other content, such as your website.

For example, you can add a banner to your employees' email signatures to reinforce your brand image by including mentions that highlight your commitments, certifications, or values. If you are highly committed to environmental issues, the banner could include a phrase like "We are committed daily to a more ecological future."

As with any communication action, you must follow certain best practices, such as ensuring visual consistency of your banner with your brand image, regularly updating the information to prevent it from becoming outdated, and prioritizing simple messages. For this, don’t hesitate to turn to a ready-to-use signature template like those offered by Letsignit!

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