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The How-to of Communications Planning
Ten essential steps
Action:
Brainstorm a list of the tangible benefits you would like to see flow from your communications work: for example, more members; better take-up of services; more support for campaigns. Work the list up into concrete and measurable objectives that dovetail with your organisation's overall strategic or business plan.
Benefit:
Every part of your organisation will be working towards the same goals. You can save money by not chasing media coverage or disseminating information just for its own sake. And you'll have a benchmark to help measure your success.
Case study:
A conservation group wanted to make the most of their tiny communications budget. Analysis of their three-year strategic plan showed that communications played a key role in meeting 90% of overall objectives. By drawing up a list of communications objectives that related back to the strategic plan they were able to focus on the top priorities.
Action:
Look at your list of measurable communications objectives. Now think about who can make them happen: for example, members; funders; members of parliament; health workers; women in rural areas. List them as distinct interest groups or by profession, age or geography. Think about what you want them to do and what will encourage them to do it. What objections or barriers to change will you need to overcome?
Benefit:
You will get your message across more cost-effectively by identifying your target audiences as separate, manageable groups.
Case study:
An anti-racism campaign targeted at young people positioned the message as fashionable by using modern designs and fashion items and through using sports stars and other youth icons as campaign spokespeople.
Courtesy Les Robinson, from Making Reader Friendly Publications
Action:
Ask your most important stakeholders how effectively you are communicating with them. Find out whether they see you the way you would like them to; or whether the competition is communicating with them better. You are more likely to get your stakeholders' frank opinions if you use an objective outsider to do this research for you.
Benefit:
You will make decisions based on a realistic understanding of how well you communicate and how you compare to other similar organisations.
Case study:
An independent superannuation fund discovered that its members thought the super fund was owned by a well-known insurance company which supplied administration services for the fund. The misunderstanding was addressed and follow up research two years later showed it had been resolved.
Action:
Check if all your staff use the same definition when describing your organisation to the outside world. Make sure that they know about the latest campaign or business plan and how their work contributes to it. Find out their ideas for how to improve communications.
Benefit:
Staff, regional offices, board members and other advocates will all give the same consistent message to the outside world. Your switchboard operator and your standard letters will be supporting the work of your press officer.
Case study:
During interviews conducted as part of a review of a housing organisation, staff said that sending out standard photocopied letters offended tenants and made it hard to collect overdue rent. In the same round of interviews, the office manager revealed that the computer system could easily personalise letters to tenants. Using this facility was expected to reduce rent arrears.
Action:
Look at the press clippings that mentioned your organisation over the past six months. Do they put across the messages you want? Are they in papers and magazines which are read by the target audiences you identified earlier? Think about how contact with journalists could be improved.
Benefit:
Your organisation is seen as an authority in your field. And your messages are given credibility by coming from a third party.
Case study:
A media planning workshop held for an international aid agency identified a gap in internal communications that meant potential hard news stories were not passed to the press officer.
Action:
Assess how well each of your publications helps to meet your objectives. Think about whether any of the publications would do their job better if they were published electronically. See how they compare to your competitors' publications.
Benefit:
Get the right message across to the right person in the most appropriate format.
Case study:
A disability charity wanted to make sure it was getting value from its publications program. Each department now uses a simple, standard planning form to decide the content, readership, purpose and design standards of every publication before work starts.
Courtesy Les Robinson, from Making Reader Friendly Publications
Action:
Put yourself in the shoes of your readers. Think about what you can say that will make them do what you want. And how to position that message so that it is interesting and relevant to them. Then pre-test your message to make sure you were right.
Benefit:
People will absorb your information and act on it more readily.
Case study:
Readers of a membership magazine about financial services did not understand what the articles meant. Now the information is interpreted out of legalese into reader-friendly English, and the magazine has won two industry communications prizes.
Action:
Collect all the newsletters, leaflets and magazines produced by your organisation and put them on your desk. If they do not look as though they are produced by the same organisation, you know you have a problem. Is your logo used consistently on all your publications? Does your logo explain your work and convey what kind of approach you have?
Benefit:
Positive initial impressions of your organisation.
Action:
Develop a communications plan that maps out what message you will convey to each target group so they take the action that will make your objectives happen. Incorporate into your plan any improvements you need to make to your internal communications, media liaison or publications. Present your findings and suggestions to staff and other stakeholders and agree a timeframe to implement the work you decide needs to be done.
Benefit:
You will see the practical outcomes of your strategic thinking: better results and a more cost-effective use of resources.
Action:
Review your progress against annual work plans at three-month intervals. Issue a readers survey of your membership magazine, using the same questions to assess satisfaction, before and after any changes you make. Calculate the dollar value of your media coverage, in the cost of equivalent advertising space.
Benefit:
Regular evaluation will show you which changes are working well and what further steps you can take to save money and increase effectiveness.
Case study:
An international environment pressure group redesigned their membership magazine as part of a bid to stop members leaving. Evaluation showed that the new magazine had helped reduce the number of members leaving.
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