The beginning of any year presents a great opportunity to think about what we accomplished in the previous year and what we should be prioritising for the next. As the world contends with challenges and opportunities from the lower cost of oil, GCC countries continue to demonstrate resilience.

Despite this, it will be important to ensure companies have the right plan in place to communicate their successes — as well as any changes if conditions deteriorate.

Here are five resolutions for companies’ communications programmes during 2015:

• Check whether your foundation still matches your goals

As with any ongoing activity, sometimes we forget to stop and check that we are still using the right “map” — this is especially true when we feel like we are moving. Any movement is OK if your New Year’s resolution related to exercising, but forward movement is what is actually important to accomplish a business goal.

So confirm that your foundation is still appropriate for the desired outcomes, whether your programme objectives still align with the organisation’s objectives, your audiences are still prioritised appropriately and their interests and behaviours still identified correctly.

If you were starting your communication programme today, would you still be doing the same things? Essentially, have you created a unique, impactful platform to protect and enhance the company’s enterprise value?

• Focus on what your audience is most interested in

While you are probably very interested in what your company has achieved, audiences want to know how the company can be beneficial to them. Customers will want to learn a lot more about the company’s creative solutions for their industry’s biggest issue than they do about its historical timeline.

Your partners in government are more interested in how you will create 20 per cent more jobs in their country this year than about initiatives in other markets which have no impact on their homeland. And when communicating to employees, they certainly are most interested to hear about the direct effect a change in strategy will have on them today rather than what it will mean for other stakeholders in 10 years.

Check that your key messaging focuses on what your audience is most interested in.

• Require rigorous analysis

Your company’s reputation rests on the opinions of a wide range of stakeholders. Now that you are developing your messaging to fit each group’s specific criteria, don’t just guess what their greatest interests are.

Deploy analytical tools that are capable of measuring corporate reputation and confidence among the audience. Whether you are evaluating messaging about entering new markets, attracting employees, raising capital or maintaining credibility in crises, research serves as an independent filter for ensuring unbiased feedback.

• Engender confidence among your target audiences

To ensure that you are motivating stakeholders to become advocates for your brand, move beyond a programme’s foundation of building a good reputation to engendering confidence. A study by FTI Consulting found stakeholders are more likely to become advocates for a company if they have confidence in it rather than if they merely perceive it to have a positive reputation.

On average, companies have a 30 per cent better chance of achieving desired behaviours if stakeholders are confident than if they say the company has a good reputation. By increasing confidence, our study finds companies can turn stakeholders into advocates, something that a strong reputation alone does not accomplish.

• Align universal best practices with local market understanding to reach the right audiences

As the expectation for communications between the company and its audiences has evolved, a solid understanding of how, when and why to connect with key audiences is crucial. Because there are unique aspects to each market, check that you have united local knowledge with universal best practices to reach your audiences.

For example, most communications campaigns focus on communicating with hundreds, maybe thousands, of stakeholders that can directly or impact their business. In many cases, a more effective best practices approach is to identify those individuals with the most potential to influence a debate and to engage them on a consistent basis.

In order to narrow down to a small list of the most influential stakeholders, a very strong knowledge of the global, regional and local landscape will be required.

With these ‘resolutions’ in mind, your company will be well positioned to execute a creative and measurable corporate communications program in 2015, and you will be on your way to building advocates by creating confidence among your most important stakeholders.

The writer is the Managing Director and Head of Middle East Corporate Communications at FTI Consulting.