Are you on the comms hamster wheel?

There's a version of communications that looks ever so busy and productive from the outside but doesn't actually move anything forward.

I call it the comms hamster wheel and I've been on it more times than I care to admit.

You're ticking all the boxes; newsletter sent, social media scheduled, story on the website.... but for whatever reason, all this activity just doesn't make a dent when it comes to your actual objectives.

It's not a failure. It's just activity mistaken for strategy.

The activity trap

Communications tactics are output: the posts, the emails, the reports, the campaigns.

Communications strategy is the thinking that makes the output land: knowing who you're trying to reach, what you need them to do, and how your communications is going to get them there.

Most organisations default to activity. Not because they're lazy but because strategy takes time and requires uncomfortable conversations that start with "actually, comms is a strategic management function, not a postbox/leaflet shop".

And to many people (unfortunately) taking a brief pause in our 1000-mile-an-hour, always on, always visible world feels like a dereliction of duty.

So the newsletter keeps going out. Your colleagues are happy that someone is promoting their very niche activity. The social channels keep ticking over. And nobody asks: is this actually working?

The question that changes everything

The single most useful question in communications is: what is this trying to achieve?

Raising awareness is not a goal - what do you want your audience to think, to feel and to do. And how will you measure whether you've been successful, in a specific way.

What strategy looks like in practice

It's not complicated. But it does require you to stop before you create.

A strategy shouldn't be a glossy document kept in the top drawer, or a workshop with Post-it notes. It's the discipline to work through your 'why' before the 'what'.

And when you have a strategy, everything gets easier.

If anything, you create less content - but it's better , hyper-focused on your audience and therefore it actually lands. Your team knows what they're trying to achieve. You stop spending budget on things that don't move the needle.

And you start building something that actually matters: an audience who trusts you, understands your impact, and keeps paying attention.