data analysis improve internal communications

Internal communication strategy: build one in six steps

By Nicolas Saliba · Updated October 2026 · 9 min read

In short

An internal communication strategy turns three to five business priorities into audiences, messages, channels and measures that leaders can check. Build it in six steps: priorities, audiences, messages, channels, socialising it with leaders and managers, and measurement. Most strategies stall at the last two, so give every objective an owner, a measure and a baseline before you publish anything.

Key takeaways

In MIT Sloan research across 124 organisations, only 28% of the executives and middle managers responsible for executing strategy could list three of their company’s priorities.

Gallagher’s Employee Communications Report 2026 found that 73% of communication teams want to work as strategic consultancies, but only 18% say they do.

Only 27% of Gallagher’s respondents agree that their strategic documents are well understood by stakeholders.

Gallup finds that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement, which makes them a channel your strategy has to equip.

Gallagher reports that leaders mostly ask for sentiment (56%) and activity or reach (52%) metrics; only 27% ask for business impact data.

Why do most internal communication strategies stall?

An internal communication strategy is the document that says which business priorities communication supports, which audiences matter for each, what you need them to understand or do, which channels carry the message and how you will know it worked. A plan or calendar then schedules the activity; the strategy decides what deserves to be on it.

Many teams have one on paper and still work reactively. Gallagher’s Employee Communications Report 2026, based on more than 1,300 communications and HR professionals surveyed between September and November 2025, found that 73% want to function as strategic consultancies but only 18% say this is their current reality; most (49%) operate as a centralised broadcast function, and almost 1 in 5 feel like a reactive service desk. The report’s explanation is that teams often hold a set of intentions rather than a codified decision-making framework: for 5 of the 7 foundational strategic assets it asked about, such as strategic narratives and manager toolkits, more than half of teams have no agreed, codified standard.^[1]

The problem is not limited to the communication team. MIT Sloan senior lecturer Donald Sull and his co-researchers surveyed 124 organisations and found that only 28% of the executives and middle managers tasked with strategy execution could list three of their company’s priorities.^[2] If the people executing the strategy cannot name it, more messages will not fix it. A short, specific internal communication strategy, socialised with those people and measured, can.

The six steps below produce a one-page strategy map you can copy, followed by a measurement table. Expect stalls at steps 5 and 6: a strategy that is approved but not understood, and objectives with no baseline.

Step 1: Which business priorities come first?

Start with the business strategy, not with the channels. Ask your executive sponsor, the strategy or transformation office and two or three business leaders the same question: which three to five priorities must the organisation deliver in the next 12 to 18 months, and what has to change in what employees know, believe or do for each one to succeed?

Keep it to three to five. More than five priorities and the strategy becomes a list of everything the organisation does.
Use the business’s own words. If the board calls it “margin recovery”, do not rename it “financial awareness”. Leaders will check your strategy against their priorities, so make the match obvious.
Write each communication objective as a change. “Plant supervisors can explain the new safety standard to their teams by March” is an objective. “Communicate the safety programme” is an activity.
Include the communication function’s own goals only if they serve a priority. Better intranet adoption is a means, not an objective.

Step 2: Which audiences does each priority depend on?

For each objective, name the audiences whose understanding or behaviour decides the outcome. Department and location are a starting point, not the answer. A cost programme depends on budget holders and procurement; a safety programme depends on supervisors and shift workers; a transformation depends on the people whose roles change.

Segment by what changes how people receive information:

Role and level: executives, people managers, individual contributors.
Access: desk-based employees with a corporate account, and deskless or frontline employees without one.
Exposure to the change: directly affected, indirectly affected, unaffected.
Tenure: people who joined in the last year have not heard the story before.
Language and country, where messages need translation or local context.

Most teams skip this step. Gallagher found that only 8% of organisations formally use robust personas, and that audience profiling and manager toolkits were the two strategic documents most universally neglected.^[1] It matters because clarity at work is not a given: Gallup reports that only about half of U.S. employees strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work (49% as of May 2026).^[3] Define your segments using attributes you can actually report on later, from Microsoft Entra ID or your HR system, otherwise step 6 will fail. Our guide to audience segmentation for internal communications shows how.

Steps 3 and 4: Which messages and channels carry each priority?

Step 3: Write one core message per priority

For each objective, write one core message in a sentence an employee could repeat, then three proof points: facts, examples or decisions that make it credible. Together, the core messages form your narrative: where the organisation is going, why, and what it means for each audience. Test each message with someone from the audience before launch. If they cannot say it back in their own words, rewrite it.

Step 4: Choose one primary channel per objective

Give each objective one primary channel, the one you will measure, and supporting channels that repeat or deepen the message. Choose by audience access and by the job the message needs: a policy change needs a durable home such as the intranet, a strategy that needs discussion needs a place where replies are expected, and a message for frontline teams usually needs managers or in-person briefings. Our guide to internal communication tools and channel jobs covers the choice in more depth.

Put steps 1 to 4 on one page. This is the template leaders will read.

Business priority	Communication objective	Key audiences	Core message	Primary channel	Owner
Example: reduce workplace incidents	Supervisors can explain the new safety standard to their teams by Q2	Site supervisors; shift workers	Every shift starts with the same five checks, and you can stop work if one fails	Manager briefing pack plus site town hall	Head of IC with HSE director
Example: move customers to the new platform	Account managers recommend the new platform by default	Sales and customer service	The new platform solves the three complaints customers raise most	Viva Engage community with product experts	IC business partner, Sales
Your priority

The examples are illustrations, not recommendations for your organisation. Keep the table to one row per objective and three to five rows in total.

Step 5: How do leaders and managers learn the strategy?

A strategy that is approved but not understood changes nothing. Gallagher’s data puts numbers on this: only 27% of respondents agree that their strategic documents are well understood by stakeholders, and the report found that socialising an active strategy reduced missed KPIs by 50%. When a function’s strategy is socialised and acted on, the likelihood of it identifying as a strategic consultancy increases fourfold.^[1]

Managers deserve the most attention. Gallup finds that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement.^[3] Yet Gallagher found that 37% of organisations have no manager toolkits or playbooks.^[1] Socialising the strategy means:

Review it with the executive team and ask each member which objective they will sponsor and speak about.
Brief business partners and HR so the strategy shapes the requests they bring you.
Give managers a toolkit for each priority: the core message, the proof points, likely questions and where to send people for more.
Publish a short version on the intranet so anyone can see what communication is for and how to request support.
Use it to say no. When a request does not serve a priority, the strategy is your reason to schedule it lower or route it elsewhere.

Step 6: How will you track each objective?

This is where most strategies stop being used. Gallagher found that in the more reactive segments, almost half of a function’s mandate is not tracked, and that respondents who see themselves as a reactive service desk mostly measure basic outputs (57%). Leaders do not always ask for more: they mainly request sentiment (56%) and activity or reach (52%) metrics, and only 27% ask for business impact data.^[1] If you want to be treated as a strategic partner, bring the impact measures before you are asked.

Give each objective three measures, a baseline taken before launch and a target:

Layer	Question	Example measure	Read it by
Reach	Did the audience receive it?	Share of the target audience that read the core message on any channel	Department, country, role
Understanding	Did they get it?	Pulse question: “I can explain what the new standard means for my team”	Same segments
Outcome	Did anything change?	The business measure the priority owner already tracks, such as incident rate	Same segments, where available

Then review the data monthly and use it to adjust, not only to report. Compare channels: which one reached supervisors, and which one did not? Compare segments: which department or country is behind, and does it have a manager problem or an access problem? Compare content: which posts were read and discussed, and which were ignored? Each answer should change something in next month’s plan. Our 90-day IC measurement plan and outputs, outcomes and impact model go into more detail, and the common mistakes to avoid is a useful check before your first review.

Reach by audience is the layer most teams cannot produce without manual work, because each channel reports separately. Communication Insights brings SharePoint, Viva Engage, Viva Connections and email newsletters into one place and reads them by department, country and role, so your strategy’s measures turn into a monthly report instead of a spreadsheet exercise. To see what that report looks like for your priorities, book a 15-minute call with Jérémy.

Frequently asked questions

What is an internal communication strategy?

It is a short document that links communication to the organisation’s priorities: for each priority, the audiences that matter, the core message, the primary channel, the owner and the measures. It guides what the team works on and what it declines. A communication plan or calendar then schedules the activity.

What is the difference between an internal communication strategy and a plan?

The strategy decides why and what: priorities, audiences, messages, channels and measures, usually for 12 to 18 months. The plan decides when and how: the campaigns, posts and events scheduled week by week to deliver the strategy. Write the strategy first, then build the plan from it.

How many objectives should an internal communication strategy have?

Three to five, each tied to a business priority. Fewer and you risk missing a priority leaders care about; more and the strategy becomes a list of everything the organisation does, which makes it impossible to measure or to use for saying no.

How often should you review an internal communication strategy?

Review the measures monthly and the strategy itself at least once a year, or whenever business priorities change, for example after a reorganisation, an acquisition or a new chief executive. Keep the baselines so year-on-year comparisons stay possible.

What should an internal communication strategy template include?

One row per objective with the business priority, communication objective, key audiences, core message, primary channel and owner, plus a measurement table with reach, understanding and outcome measures, each with a baseline and target. Add a short section on how the strategy will be socialised with leaders and managers.

Who should own the internal communication strategy?

The head of internal communication owns the document, but each objective needs a business sponsor from the executive team who agrees the priority, speaks about it and accepts the outcome measure. Without named sponsors, the strategy reads as the communication team’s wish list.

Sources

• ajg.com

• mitsloan.mit.edu

• gallup.com