Hello!

Unfortunately, I was due to some oversleeping not able to participate in our opening trigger last Friday. However, I had a look at the video provided and what problem and learning objects the rest of the team was able to find during that class! Now I'll give my own contribution by doing some research for these objectives. Here's what I found out:

LO 1: What are the elements of good corporate stories?

A corporate story should always be something the audience is able to relate to. A good story will be remembered, so keep that in mind. The storytelling should not be about Your company, Your product and Your something. Great stories have a beginning, a conflict and an ending where everyone's happy after beating the conflict.

As seen in the video made by Google - it starts with a character many people can relate to. Someone that has lost his friends years ago and is missing him, then there's problem solving and finally, the Grande Finale, the reunion of two once great friends.

In between, the story should include something new, something that everyone's not familiar with. Something that intrigues the audience to keep following the story. In the example video: Simple usage of Google's service's helped finding the lost friend, booking flights, seeing the local weather etc. Everything done with one website, isn't that handy? And I'm sure not all people knew it can be, that's the "wow" in the video and the new thing, one product that solves the problem(s).

Sources for LO 1:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-5-elements-of-a-good-company-story-2011-4?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
http://www.corporate-eye.com/main/5-key-elements-of-a-great-brand-story/
http://www.womensbusinessinitiative.net/storytelling-in-business/

LO 2: What are the most effective corporate communication channels?

For this I have my own opinion: It depends highly on the target audience. For elderly people it might well be newspapers, radio, TV, call centers (calling the potential customers), face-to-face sales/marketing. For younger generations social media, mobile devices, websites, TV, radio, fairs. Newspapers aren't that attractive to us "youngsters" anymore. Especially mobile commercials have seen huge growth in the last years.

In addition to these, PR is important. It's a channel that the corporation might not have as big possibilities to have an effect on than other channels. Articles about a company, in both good and bad, can have huge effect on the perception people have when they next time hear the company's name. Of course, the smaller the company, the bigger the effect.

Employees: Treat your employees well and they'll do the same for you, you wouldn't want your employees to talk smack about your company because you didn't give a sh*t about them when they worked there? If you're a company that sells products in physical stores, the employees there can be the first and only way of contact for many customers.

Product: Good products can, in a way (in my opinion), also communicate your clients that you care about their needs and not just your profits.

Sources for LO 2:
My own experience
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-external-business-communication-19304.html

LO 3: What is the target audience of the corporations?

Again, depends. It depends on your products and/or services. It depends on who you are selling to, is the end user buying directly from you, or do you sell your products to other companies who then sell the products further to the end user? There are endless possibilities to give an answer to this question.

It starts by looking at you as a company, who do you want to serve? What areas are you an expert on? What are your goals?

But the important thing is that you as a company have to define this target audience. If you do it wrong, you'll probably notice it in your sales. You have to understand what problems your product/service solves. Make a list on what kind of customer is the typical user for this product/service. Where do these people search for this product, is it online, magazines or something else? If you have particular knowledge of a specific geographical area, why not go there? Or are you better with specific kinds of people? Identify substitutes, inferiors and complementary products.

Sources for LO 3:
http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/your-target-market/six-steps-to-defining-your-target-market
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2013/08/27/6-steps-to-decoding-your-target-audience/2/#533820f51274