Within a ClimateSmartAdvisors workshop, project partners tested an approach for tailoring messages to different stakeholder groups at national and European levels, while also training Climate Smart Coaches to apply and pass on this knowledge in their own contexts. The challenge addressed is that climate-smart farming results, training activities, and project outputs do not create impact automatically. To be useful, messages must match the needs, interests, and level of engagement of the target audience, since the same content does not work equally well for all groups, sectors, or countries.
A first step is to understand the target audience. The workshop distinguished between key actors, influencer actors, interested actors, and passive actors, each requiring a different communication objective and action. Key actors need collaboration and regular updates, influencer actors should be informed and consulted on specific interests, interested actors need clear benefits highlighted to spark engagement, while passive actors may need only light-touch communication through broad channels such as newsletters.
The workshop also highlighted the importance of defining a key message for each role. While Climate Smart Coaches and Thematic Leaders may share a common strategy, their communication focus differs, for example between innovation-related messages and training-related messages.
At European level, participants identified project outputs, target groups, and channels where synergies could be created. At national level, they found that one single strategy was not appropriate, since each country has different constraints and needs its own approach.
In practice, advisors should adapt both the message and the communication channel to the stakeholder group and context to improve relevance, clarity, engagement, understanding, and measurable outcomes.
The workshop also used a concrete scenario in which a Climate Smart Coach (advisor) organizes training workshops on sustainable agricultural practices in a rural area, leading to increased crop yields and reduced water usage through new irrigation techniques. From one result, different communication products can be developed for different audiences, such as documentation and reporting, testimonials and case studies, or a policy brief. This shows that tailoring is not only about wording, but also about choosing the right format, level of detail and purpose for each stakeholder group. The workshop highlighted several benefits of role-specific messaging, including relevance, productivity, professional growth, clarity, synergy, understanding, innovation, engagement, measurable outcomes, efficiency and collaboration.
