The Strategic Communications Planning eBook is an introduction to effective strategic corporate communications planning. It features all of the posts from the original communications planning series of posts, edited to reflect feedback I’ve received and with some additional content added throughout.
Your goal in your evaluation section is to lay out how you will measure your communications success. In a high-profile initiative this may be through the various stages of your announcement; in others, it may have a smaller scope.
When someone asks you to help communicate an initiative, what do you do? Do you immediately find yourself coming up with cool ideas about how to gain attention and generate coverage? If you do that, you’re doing your clients a disservice. You’re guilty of failing to plan - of putting tactics before strategy.
Unfortunately, even the most basic communications approach comes with costs attached. In a corporate communications plan, the budget section details these.
Issues management is all about catching problems before they become crises. Your communications plan should help you to prepare for that.
You know your goals; you know what you’re saying; you know who you’re talking to. You need to decide how to say it.
How are you going to reach the audiences you’ve selected?
By now we’ve set the stage, established our objectives and strategy and chosen our audiences. Now, at last, it’s time to think about our announcements.
It’s time to decide who you want to reach with your communications. Analyze the key groups or people you want to reach and what their needs are. Which stakeholders are key to this initiative? Who else do you need to consider?
As the old saying goes, you need to know where you’re going before you can know how to get there.
Likewise, before you can plan out your strategy… before you even start to think about your media products or event… you need to nail down your objectives.
