Who is a Corporate Communications Manager?
CCM shapes a company’s image both for the public and its employees. It can be seen as a combination of PR and HR roles, where PR focuses on external communications and HR on internal communications.
In practice, CCMs help company leaders communicate with key audiences such as employees, partners, customers, investors, and journalists. Their primary task is to increase the loyalty of these audiences to the company.
Other titles for CCM include PR manager, marketing communications manager, communications specialist, and communications manager.
Key responsibilities
Monitor public opinion on your company. Those working in marketing know that potential customers form their opinion of the company based on:
- outdoor and online ads;
- how the media and publicity describe the company;
- how they feel after direct contact with the company representative.
Those are the fields where CCM should be a keen observer. Even one negative mention in media or an untimely social media post can cause a lot of harm to the company’s image. In such cases, they should react immediately to resolve the issue.
Read also: Media Monitoring In 2024: Best Practices And Trends
Develop strong media relations. Regular mentions in the media can increase brand awareness and improve website SEO metrics. Additionally, positive media coverage proves invaluable when addressing reputation issues.
To achieve this positive image boost, companies should maintain good relationships with media representatives, such as journalists. CCMs can contribute to this by sending journalists newsworthy pitches, offering exclusive content, and inviting them to press conferences. All of these efforts increase the chances of securing positive media coverage.
| How do we keep a media presence? Pitching journalists remains one of the CCM’s key tasks. While building relationships can lead to consistent media coverage over time, the time investment can be significant. Especially for smaller companies, outreach attempts might go unanswered, similar to many journalists’ experiences daily. One alternative strategy includes using sponsored content services to secure placements in business publications. These services can connect companies with media outlets efficiently, potentially saving time. However, it is crucial to choose reputable services that prioritize ethical practices and ensure alignment with your company’s values. |
Develop internal company image. It’s cool when employees are happy with their working environment and are proud of the company’s achievements. In such cases, they are less likely to quit their positions and are more engaged in the working process. Moreover, the internal image is often used to attract promising job seekers to join the team.
To create a well-built image, CCM conducts research on employee’s attitudes towards the company, organizes team building and other events, and works on internal content marketing e.g. writing news about the company for coworkers and highlighting its achievements.
Prepare press releases, newsletters, speeches, and presentations. Writing content could also be one of CCM’s responsibilities. Marketing skills are needed here since the specialist should understand how to draw and maintain the reader’s attention, how to deliver the proper message, and how to receive feedback.
Represent the company at events, conferences, etc. CCM could be one of the public faces of the company, along with sales managers and marketers. To succeed in this specific field, the specialist should know how to present a company to the audience and how to communicate with different types of people.
Salary expectations
The most common salaries of Corporate Communications Managers in February 2024
Usually, CCMs work in either large or middle-sized companies (with 100 employees). The reason is, that smaller ones need fewer resources to work on their reputation and media presence. One may assume this may cause difficulty finding a job, however, CCMs’ relevance by the end of 2023 remained steady and surely wasn’t affected by AI or any other technologies.
The majority of CCMs work in digital services, banking, medicine, and fashion, according to data from recent job openings on Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. Their responsibilities in these fields remain the same, though: creating content for internal and external communications, monitoring media and social media for relevant news, pitching stories, and creating PR strategies.
| Entry-level | $49,000 — $72,000 |
| Mid-level | $75,000 — $95,000 |
| Senior Level | $99,000 — $130,000 |
CCM’s responsibility area grows along with the salary. While juniors commonly handle only specific fields like media presence, social media, and recruitment, the seniors may represent the company at events, develop the overall PR strategy, and do crisis management. Being in charge of a company’s reputation is a risky play, and so is highly rewarded.
Read also: How To Safeguard Your Brand With Reputation Risk Management
Which soft skills a CCM requires?
Research skills allow one to find promising collaborations with brands and media, stay tuned to spot informational occasions, and write newsworthy releases to pitch them to the media.
The ability to find an approach to people or communication skills are quite important as well. CCM should understand the needs of the people they get in touch with: journalists, partners, customers, or coworkers. The specialist should find a way to draw these people’s attention and deliver his message.
Stress tolerance. When the company is facing reputational harm, the CCM should remain calm and steady. They should remember that their task is to resolve the situation as soon as possible by creating a crisis management plan and executing it.
Which education should a novice CCM get?
The most common degrees that employers require from a candidate in 2024
Any of the listed above fit perfectly the most job openings. Even though the employer may require a Communications or Public Relations degree, a Marketing one may be acceptable as well. There are no strict requirements in the field of education.
Higher education is required in the majority of the vacancies. However, in some cases the employer may consider valuable experience (2-5 years) as a substitute for education.
Having other specific job-related qualifications also is an advantage. For example, if you apply for a corporate communications role in a medical company, your science degree or experience in this field will be a significant advantage that highlights you among other candidates.
Is it worth becoming a Corporate Communications Manager?
Corporate Communications Manager is an interesting role for those who are keen on media — on getting coverage in magazines, telling a story that will go viral in public, engaging journalists, presenting the company on the events, etc. If that is what drives you, then you probably should consider it.
Communicative people with a pinch of creativity in their minds are highly demanded in this field. Stress tolerance is also quite important while working with an ever-wavering reputation. But if one is ready to take such a risk, the reward would be grateful.
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