Reaching Underserved Communities: Why Better Communications Start with Better Relationships

By Amanda Pearce, Director, Diva Creative

Every organisation serving the public shares the same ambition: to improve lives. Whether encouraging take up of services such as stop smoking, supporting active travel, tackling health inequalities or promoting environmental action, success depends on one thing above all else, people trusting the message enough to act on it.

Yet as we continually find, many of the communities that stand to benefit most from public services remain the hardest to reach.

We hear phrases such as hard-to-reach, seldom-heard or underrepresented. Whilst well intentioned, these labels can unintentionally shift responsibility away from organisations and onto communities themselves. The question should not be Why aren't communities engaging? It should be What can we do differently to earn individuals and communities’ trust and participation?

At Diva we’ve spent more than two decades working alongside NHS organisations, local authorities, charities and public sector partners to develop campaigns that inclusively engage diverse audiences and encourage meaningful behaviour change. Learning consistently emerging from this work is that the most successful campaigns are built on relationships and not simply communications.

Underserved does not mean uninterested

As communications professionals we all face a familiar challenge. A campaign is carefully planned, evidence-based, creatively executed and delivered across multiple channels, yet uptake remains low among the audiences it was designed to support.

The instinctive response is most often to increase marketing activity, which often leads to more tactical delivery through social media ads or printing and distributing more leaflets. Sometimes this works, but often we’re not looking at why people may not be engaging.

People rarely lack information. More often, they are navigating barriers that communications alone cannot overcome; historical mistrust, cultural assumptions, inaccessible services, digital exclusion, language differences, financial pressures or competing priorities.

Behaviour change starts long before someone sees a campaign. It begins with whether people targeted through a campaign, believe the organisation behind the campaign understands them.

Trust is the most valuable communications asset

Across our work we’ve frequently observed that we get better outcomes when we can meaningfully engage with the communities we’re trying to reach, not during the campaign, but in the discovery phase.

We need to involve communities long before the messages are written and the creative thought about.

Building trust is central to this to ensure that people feel comfortable, supported and respected when we engage with them. This often means working with community organisations, local advocates and through stakeholder groups encourage people to meet with us in safe inclusive spaces to have conversations, explore what barriers we can address, and listen to people who are often simply not asked.

The opportunity for organisations today

The challenges facing public services are becoming increasingly complex.

·   Health inequalities persist.

·   Climate adaptation requires public participation.

·   Digital transformation risks widening exclusion.

·   Communities expect and deserve greater transparency and involvement.

Marketing and communications should never be viewed as the final stage of programme delivery. Increasingly we are seeing that they are becoming central to organisational strategy which is a very positive step.

So what have we learnt over the past 25 years about engaging meaningfully with communities?

Behaviour change begins with understanding people rather than persuading them by providing information.

Sustainable change is rarely achieved through loud communications that inform or attempt to educate – this leads to low engagement because the messaging is wrong.

We can greatly improve the likelihood of a campaign landing if we apply some very simple rules.

Get deep insights and avoid over reliance on desk research.

Creating the right settings to get those insights needs a multi stakeholder approach

Valuable insights come from engaging people in safe and inclusive settings, good listening, and a foundation of respect underpinned by an understanding of exchange. We value people’s contributions and recognise their support

We need to apply creative thinking throughout the process from discovery to delivery, and creative solutions that are tested and validated for relevance and resonance.

Fundamentally this isn’t a checklist for how to design communications that will change people’s behaviour. It will only work with strong and consistent leadership, and a commitment to working to get it right from the beginning.