Stakeholder engagement
Specialist stakeholder engagement agency
Stakeholder engagement is an important aspect of corporate communication. The views and perceptions of internal and external stakeholders have implications for decision-making and organisational success. Stakeholder engagement enables organisations to identify potential social, political, economic and environmental issues and develop robust response strategies.
Freshwater is a specialist stakeholder engagement agency who advises organisations in the private and public sectors how to effectively engage stakeholders, manage relationships and build trust.
Stakeholder engagement strategy
We have years of experience helping clients to build and manage relationships by developing comprehensive stakeholder engagement strategies to communicate through change, win support for a new development or increase participation in service design. Our experienced strategic communications professionals will work with you to devise and implement a stakeholder engagement strategy appropriate to your needs.
Bespoke stakeholder communication plans
Our work includes stakeholder management plans that take a five or ten year look into the future and focus on fostering positive relationships and creating meaningful, long-term partnerships. Or short-to-medium term stakeholder engagement plans that capture feedback on emerging issues.
- Mapping stakeholders and understanding your audience. Understanding your stakeholders is essential to successful engagement. We create detailed stakeholder maps which identify and categorise your target audience, noting their current level of awareness and basic perceptions. We segment the audience into different groups – from members of the public to members of parliament, and staff to supply chain – and consider how, where and why they are forming opinions about you.
- Stakeholder communication programmes. Different stakeholders require different communication strategies. What works for one stakeholder group will not necessarily work for another. We create bespoke stakeholder communications plans and draw on a breadth of communications tactics – online or offline, digitally or face-to-face – to implement practical programmes of communication that engage them in the most effective way.
- Tracking, measuring and evaluating perceptions. We help clients to identify, measure and respond to the political, environmental, economic and social issues that matter to stakeholders. This is a continual process, where clients are kept abreast of the emerging issues that matter or whether stakeholder opinions are shifting over time.
