What is stakeholder mapping?
Stakeholders are the people, groups, or organizations that affect—or are affected by—your organization, project, or work. Stakeholder mapping is the process of identifying these groups and analyzing their interests, needs, and influence—plus how they relate to your goals.
What is stakeholder mapping for internal communications?
In internal communications, stakeholder mapping helps communicators understand who a messaging campaign will affect—and how those stakeholders could influence its success. Common stakeholders may include the board of directors, executive leaders, people managers, individual contributors, HR and other business partners, vendors, and investors or donors.
Creating a stakeholder map helps you define what matters to each stakeholder group and determine how best to communicate with them. For example, executives may need a concise overview of how your comms might impact the business, while managers may need practical talking points to share with their teams.
What’s a common stakeholder mapping framework or template?
One of the most common stakeholder mapping frameworks is the power-interest grid, also known as the influence-interest grid. This four-quadrant model organizes stakeholders based on two primary factors:
- Power or Influence (y-axis): How much influence does the stakeholder have over the campaign?
- Interest (x-axis): How closely are they affected by the initiative, and how invested are they in its success?
Using these two attributes, stakeholders are divided into four groups: the group you need to manage most closely, the stakeholders you need to keep informed, the folks you need to keep satisfied, and the group you simply need to monitor.
What’s a stakeholder mapping template?
A stakeholder mapping template provides space to map each person or group’s current levels of power and influence, as well as their level of interest.
As you consider your stakeholder groups, you can note each group’s specific communication needs. In a power-interest grid, here’s how that usually shakes out:
| ↑ POWER | Keep Satisfied High-power but lower-interest stakeholders may not need frequent updates, but their influence means they should remain informed and satisfied. If someone from this group objects, it can quickly create a bottleneck. This group might include a board of directors or legal and compliance. | Manage Closely High-power and high-interest stakeholders require the most attention. Comms teams should involve them early, understand their concerns, and keep them engaged. This group might include executive leadership, HR, and people managers. |
| MONITOR Lower-power, lower-interest stakeholders may only need occasional updates or access to general information. This group might include vendors, contractors, and less-impacted employees | KEEP INFORMED Low-power but high-interest stakeholders should receive relevant, timely information and opportunities to provide feedback. Even though they don’t get the final say, they can influence how a message is understood, received, and shared in your organization. This group often includes impacted employees. | |
| INTEREST → | ||
Using a stakeholder mapping template to identify these stakeholder groups can help your comms team determine who needs to be informed, consulted, engaged, or actively involved—and how much time and attention each stakeholder group requires.
What’s the value of stakeholder mapping?
Stakeholder mapping can help internal communications teams:
- Make more informed communication decisions
- Frame messages around what matters most to each audience
- Select the most appropriate channels, messengers, and timing
- Focus time and resources on the stakeholders who need the most attention
- Identify potential supporters, blockers, and communication gaps
- Measure how communication influences stakeholders over time
Stakeholder mapping can also help internal communicators navigate potential blockers, bottlenecks, and competing opinions that come with getting a message out the door. When you understand who holds influence, what they care about, and where concerns may arise, you can involve the right people earlier, anticipate pushback, and keep a campaign from getting delayed.
How does PoliteMail support stakeholder mapping and management?
PoliteMail can help with stakeholder mapping in several ways.
1. Understand stakeholder behavior. PoliteMail gives internal comms teams data on how different stakeholder groups engage with their messages. Communicators can compare readership, attention, clicks, and other behaviors instead of relying on assumptions.
2. Build targeted stakeholder lists. Once you identify your stakeholder groups, you can create segmented lists by role, department, location, or business unit.
3. Tailor content by stakeholder group. With your lists in place, you can adapt messages based on each group’s priorities, responsibilities, and communication needs. You can use dynamic content to send relevant information to different audiences without writing a separate email for each stakeholder group.
4. Test stakeholder preferences. A/B testing and message comparisons can help you understand which subject lines, content, and approaches work best. If you want to test the likely effectiveness of a subject line before you even send a message, you can also use PoliteMail’s Ai/B testing feature.
5. Track engagement over time. Stakeholder maps should evolve as your organization changes. PoliteMail can help you monitor trends and see where your comms strategy is working—and where it might need adjustments.
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