June 26, 2025

With the financial year wrapping up, there’s a natural pause. A point in the calendar where businesses take stock, sort the books and try to tidy up strategy before things kick off again. While you're reviewing budgets and performance metrics, here’s a question: when was the last time you gave your communication strategy a proper look-over?

Let’s be honest, a communication audit often gets pushed to the side.

In 2025, that’s a missed opportunity.

With AI creeping into every channel and ESG reporting under the microscope, it is risky to assume your messaging is just ‘fine’. A communications audit helps you check whether your content, tone and delivery still make sense in the real world, not just on a whiteboard.

Done right, a communication audit can tighten your messaging, help you connect better with stakeholders, stay ahead of compliance issues, and reflect who you are today - not who you were a few years ago.

So what is a communications audit?

‍It’s a structured but practical look at how we are communicating internally and externally. The goal isn’t to make things look pretty but to see what’s working and what’s outdated, revealing the gaps.

A solid audit gives us visibility over:

1. What you’re saying and how often.

2. Which channels are doing the heavy lifting (and which aren’t).

3. Whether your messages land the way you think they do.

4. How your tone, timing and tools are helping (or hindering) your goals.

5. How stakeholder relationships are being supported through communication.

Whether your team is doing this in-house or working with a specialist, here’s a five-step approach that works.

1. Be clear on why you're doing this.

Before diving into emails and decks, set the scope. Are you trying to fix internal communication silos? Bring consistency to your brand messaging? Clean up automated communications that feel robotic?

List what you want to achieve, who you want to hear from, and what you’ll include in this process, be it emails, reports, social posts, web copy, even Slack announcements. Don’t overcomplicate it but do be deliberate.

2. Start looking at internal communication first

Start with internally. Emails, intranet updates, internal social posts, are they clear?

If your team’s spread out across cities or time zones, how’s that being reflected in your messaging? Are you relying too much on auto-generated updates or AI summaries? Ask yourself if people are actually reading what you're sending or just skimming and deleting.

3. Alignment of external channels

Next, go through your public-facing material: your website, LinkedIn posts, media coverage, investor presentations and review how they still reflect who you are and where you're going?

Are you using jargon out of habit? Does your messaging feel authentic, or like it was pasted from a template? Is your brand voice being maintained across platforms, or does it shift depending on who’s posting?

Also: check your use of automation. AI scheduling tools and templated comms can save time (but not if they flatten your tone or make you sound like everyone else).

4. Stakeholders: Who’s listening and who’s not?

This is where you look at how you talk to clients, partners, investors, regulators or whoever matters most to your business.

Ask:

• Are your updates relevant and regular, or sporadic and scattered?

• Do your stakeholders know what’s going on before they have to ask?

• Are you responding to them or just talking at them?

This is also a good moment to reality-check your communications playbook for if things go wrong. Can your team get a clear message out quickly in a crisis? Or would it take 12 people and a last-minute rewrite?

5. Ask people what they think

You can’t audit communication without talking to the people who receive it. Please conduct surveys, interviews, quick check-ins or any format that works.

What you want to know:

• What messages are landing well?

• What feels irrelevant or confusing?

• Do people feel informed or out of the loop?

You’re not fishing for compliments. You’re trying to learn what’s useful and what’s noise.

Now is the time to pull together what you’ve learned. Prioritise what needs fixing right now versus what can wait. Create a plan that’s practical, not a 40-page strategy no one reads, and set a few benchmarks you can actually measure.  

Need a hand?

At Capital Outcomes, we’ve been working in this space for over 20 years. Our communications audit program is designed to be sharp, relevant and rooted in experience - not just buzzwords.  

If you’re ready to get your communication strategy into shape for FY26, let’s talk.

By Rachael White.