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How To Write A Good Communications Plan – Part 11 – Issues

08.07.12

You’ve planned-out your announcement to perfection – your objectives, your strategy, your tactics. Your communications plan is almost complete! But what if something goes wrong?

Be prepared

Issues management is all about catching problems before they become crises. Your communications plan should help you to prepare for that. It’s rarely possible to anticipate everything that may come up, but with some careful thought you can usually catch most things.

In the communications plan format I’ve recently worked with, the issues section is often used as the basis of your media Q&As when you draft your products later. As such, we usually wrote them in a Q&A format. This has the added benefit of making the issues easier for those further up the chain to understand:

Q: What about X?
A: Here’s our response.

Identifying issues

Think through your initiative and ask yourself a few questions:

  • What is changing?
  • Which parts are controversial?
  • Are any advocacy groups paying attention to this?
  • Who might not like it, and what might they not like?
  • Are any stakeholders expecting something different?
  • Have any aspects of this attracted media attention in the past?
  • Which blogs write on this topic? What have they said in the past?
  • Will this have an emotional impact on people?
  • Will anything you’re doing affect others directly? Have you (as an organization) talked to them about this?
  • Are any parts of this hard to understand? What might need explaining further?

That’s a lot of questions, but fortunately you’ve already done much of the work to answer them. Read back through the other sections of your plan – through the context, the environmental scan and the stakeholder analysis in particular – with those questions in mind. You’ll find many of the answers in there. Also talk to your subject matter experts – the people that are closest to the initiative – and ask them for their thoughts.

As with some other parts of the communications plan, you should think about your issues management section throughout your planning process and not just at the end. Whenever you think of something that might crop up, note it down for inclusion later.

Mitigating the issues

Once you’ve identified the potential issues, think about how you might be able to mitigate them.

Sometimes a simple Q&A will suffice for an issue. Other times you may want to revisit parts of your announcement (strategy, messages, audience, tactics etc) and tweak them. In some cases it may require more than just communications to resolve – you may want to go back to the subject matter experts and flag something for them to resolve before the announcement is made. Working issues management into your entire plan will provide you with a solid foundation to build on.

Your thoughts?

I’m a strategic communications guy, not an issues management expert. Fortunately I’ve been able to attend multiple courses on this and I’ve had some great colleagues to learn from, but I’m sure there are gaps in what I know.

What do you think? How would you approach the issues management section of your communications plan?

The “Communications Plan” Series

This is post number 11 in a series of 13 posts exploring how to create a good communications plan. To read more of the series, check out the other posts here.

(Image credit: nickobec)

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How To Write A Good Communications Plan – Part 10 – Tactics

08.06.24

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
- Peter Drucker

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?

Staged

It may help if you think of your announcement in three stages – pre-announcement, announcement and post-announcement:

  • Pre-announcement – how will you pre-condition stakeholders/shareholders/consumers/the media ahead of your announcement?
  • Announcement – how will you roll-out the initiative?
  • Post-announcement – how will you sustain coverage after the announcement?

Strategic

Chess pieces Just as all of the other sections of your plan fit together (your analysis flows into your goals and objectives, your stakeholders flow into your audiences, your strategy feeds off your objectives and so on) your tactics need to fit with your strategy.

If you’ve opted for a high-profile, proactive strategy, your tactics should clearly be very different to if you’ve selected a low-profile, reactive approach. Did you decide to communicate through the media, to/through stakeholders or directly to consumers?

Also consider your context and environmental scan – do you need to raise awareness of the topic in the media before you make your announcement?

If you follow the planning process properly, the process itself will help you to do this. By putting your tactics near the end of the process, you force yourself to consider the initiative from every possible angle. That means you’re less likely to default to a (possibly) inappropriate news release and/or media event without thinking it through.

Comprehensive

Make sure you address all of your plan’s audiences. Check and double-check that you aren’t missing an important group.

A particularly useful tip: create a table with your audiences down the left side and your proposed tactics along the top. Check-off which tactics hit which audiences. Make sure you address each audience with two or three tactics.

Tactics vs audiences

If you see that you aren’t addressing all of your key audiences, go back and consider how you can.

Tactical options

Here are a few options to consider for the various stages. Remember that many of these may require their own plans:

  • Story placements – proactive pitching; matte articles
  • Mentions in other announcements/events
  • Media event
  • Regional announcements
  • Speeches
  • Paper products – news release, backgrounder, fact sheet
  • Brochure, flier
  • White paper
  • Follow-up announcements – milestones, results, openings
  • Stakeholder consultations or events
  • Letters to stakeholders
  • Advertising – TV/radio/print/out-of-home/online
  • Social media outreach

How do you go about planning your tactics?

The “Communications Plan” Series

This is post number ten in a series of 13 posts exploring how to create a good communications plan. To read more of the series, check out the other posts here.

Posted in: 101, communications planning

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How To Write A Good Communications Plan – Part 9 – Messages

08.06.16

Your analysis is done, you’ve figured out your communications strategy and you know who you’re targeting. It’s time to craft your messages. But where do you start?

Message in a bottleYour key messages help you draft all your products down the road when you’re executing your communications plan. They’ll help you stay on track and make sure you’re communicating the right things to the right people.

The messages will permeate all of your communications, so they’ll also attract a lot of attention from decision makers. It’s important you spend the time to get this section right.

This is all about what you’re trying to tell people. If people take something away from your communications, you want it to be these messages.

Your key messages should:

  • Communicate what you’re doing and why you’re doing it
  • Communicate what will be different
  • Fit with your objectives
  • Speak to all of your audiences

What you’re doing and why

The first message you’ll usually draft is the main one that says what you’re doing and why. You’ve spent time researching the initiative (ideally you’ve been involved in the planning for a while) so you know what the organization is doing and why it’s doing it. Now you just have to get it down onto paper. Sounds easy but it can be surprisingly tough.

A few simple pointers:

  • Focus on the main points – you don’t need to get into detail here
  • Be brief
  • You’re human; write like one
  • Highlight the positive side of what you’re doing. Don’t mislead, though
  • Decide what you want the stories to be about. Focus on that.

What will be different

It’s much easier for people to understand what you’re doing if you can give some context. Are you doubling money for a government program? Producing a product that’s 50% better than its predecessor?

  • Use before/after examples if appropriate
  • Explain why people should care, in terms they care about
  • Support your messages with facts if they’re available

Consider your objectives

Think about the objectives you’ve set. Whatever they are, write your messages to reflect that.

Are you trying to raise awareness for a product? Are you trying to get people to change their behaviours? Maybe you’re trying to address a contentious issue. Make sure you don’t go off in a direction that ignores the reason for you doing all of this. It’s easy to do if you’re not careful.

Include all of your audiences

Some people like to write one set of messages for each initiative and tweak them for each purpose. Some like to create one long list that addresses everyone.

Personally, I prefer to look at each audience in turn and craft messages that meet their needs.

If you know one audience is going to have concerns about a certain aspect of what you’re doing, make sure the messages for them specifically address that issue. Likewise, if they’re looking for a certain feature in your new product then make sure that’s highlighted. If you do this, you’ll find you have much less resistance to your initiative from those parties.

Your approach to this part of a communications plan is one that your personal preference can heavily influence. My take on this may not match yours. What factors do you take into account when writing your messages? What tips would you offer?

The “Communications Plan” Series

This is post number nine in a series of 13 posts exploring how to create a good communications plan. To read more of the series, check out the other posts here.

Posted in: 101, communications planning

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How To Write A Good Communications Plan – Part 8 – Announcement

08.06.14

This is the eighth post in a series exploring how to write a good communications plan.

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.

Announcement

492409_microphone_grab In your written plan, the announcement itself is a pretty brief section. It’s effectively an executive summary of the plan – what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

The ‘announcement’ title can be a bit misleading if your objectives and strategy don’t indicate the need for a proactive announcement. If you’ve chosen a low-profile, reactive strategy, you’ll focus more on your issues management section. As such, while this is the earliest you can start to work on this part of your plan, you may need (or want) to get to it later. I personally find it useful to have this as a one-pager to refer back to occasionally when I’m thinking about messaging and tactics later on, but this really is a section you can just as easily work on last.

This is an important point to note – the structure of your communications plan is better if it’s not dictated by a rigid template. A good communications plan format will let the planner use the content they need to and not make them force unnecessary sections into the plan.

Summarize

Outline the nature of the announcement(s) you plan to make. You’ll flesh out the messages you want to communicate and the tactics you’ll use to carry those messages later. What’s more, you’ve done most of the work for this section already. You can pull much of the content for this from your earlier analysis.

Keep it simple

While you’ve waited until late in the planning process to identify the announcement you’re making, in all likelihood this will be the first thing that executives reading and approving your plan will read. As such, you need to capture exactly what’s going on succinctly. Try to identify the announcement you’re making and why you’re making it in one or two sentences and in plain language. Remember – the executives haven’t had the benefit of doing the background research you’ve done.

Make the links

You’ve already identified the context for this initiative; make sure you briefly summarize how it fits within your organization’s broader activities.

Be honest

Don’t “spin” yourself. There can sometimes be a temptation to sugar-coat what you’re doing in the plan, to try and give ‘good news’ , but you won’t do yourself any favours by doing that. Call a spade a spade and you’ll do better in the long-run.

Over to you

We’re over half way through this series on communications planning. What do you think of the series so far? What would you add to the pointers I’ve given? What have I missed?

The “Communications Plan” Series

This is post number eight in a series of 13 posts exploring how to create a good communications plan. To read more of the series, check out a summary of the posts so far or pick from the list below:

Posted in: 101, communications planning

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How To Write A Good Communications Plan – Part 7 – Audiences

08.06.05

This is the seventh post in a series exploring how to write a good communications plan.

At this stage we’ve finished our analysis of the situation, set our objectives and decided on a strategy. Now it’s time to decide our audience – in other words, who we’re speaking to.

Audiences

Think back

Audience at a theatreIt’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?

Remember to refer back to your objectives and your strategy. Are you looking to reach a few narrow groups or a broader selection?

Be thorough

Make sure there aren’t any gaps in your chosen audiences. What angles haven’t you thought of?

Think about why you’re considering each potential audience. Where do they stand on this issue? Are they so opposed that they’ll never be happy regardless of what you do (if so, maybe you should re-focus on the people who may be receptive to your actions)? How much do they know about this (that may affect your tactics later)?

You can draw your audience from a wide range of groups. Your stakeholder analysis is an easy place to start. Look back at what you came up with. Who are your targets within this?

Some other potential sources of audiences:

  • Opinion leaders
  • Professional/business groups
  • Governments (other jurisdictions if you’re working in the public sector)
  • Industry analysts
  • Your employees
  • Online audiences (bloggers, for example)
  • Media

Be precise

If you’re looking to speak to consumers (or, if you’re in the public sector, “the public”), do your utmost to break that down and identify specific niches. Whether that’s by demographics, by interest, by previous purchase habits or whatever means appropriate, never leave yourself with “the public” or “consumers” as an audience. It may not be easy but, hey, if it were easy they wouldn’t need us communicators, right?

Just as with “the public” or “consumers,” never use a general definition of “the media.” Break it down. Look back at your environmental scan (funny how this all fits together, eh? Almost as if people have thought it through) and see who has written about this in the past. Who is interested in this subject area? Not just publications, but individual journalists where possible (some publications, like the Economist, don’t identify their authors).

If you’re targeting bloggers, think carefully. Of course, you’ve already identified and engaged with the key bloggers in your industry, right? That means you also know who is interested in this particular topic and who is likely to be receptive to your approach. Don’t just blast your material out to every blogger you identify – just as you would with media, think about what they want, what their perspective is and whether you should even approach each of them. While positive reviews in the blogosphere can be a great thing, bloggers are far more likely to turn around and complain publicly if they don’t like your pitch than journalists are.

Think ahead

Throughout, consider whether you may be able to leverage the support of any of your audiences ahead of any potential announcement, in preparation for planning your tactics later.

Conclusion

Your audience selection is critical to the success of your communications plan. Gap-filled or imprecise audience selection leads to an unfocused, ineffective roll-out of your communications. Conversely, well-defined audiences let you craft your messages and tactics appropriately to achieve your objectives.

What have I missed here? How do you approach defining your audiences?

The “Communications Plan” Series

This is post number seven in a series of 13 posts exploring how to create a good communications plan. To read more of the series, check out a summary of the posts so far or pick from the list below:

Posted in: 101, communications planning

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How To Write A Good Communications Plan – Part 5 – Objectives

08.05.19

This is the fifth in a series of posts exploring how to create a good communications plan. The last post covered how to examine your stakeholders; this time we’re moving from analysis to planning, looking at your objectives.

Objectives

Photo of a target 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.

What Are You Trying To Do?

This section is where you lay out what you’re trying to achieve with this communications plan. Are you trying to educate your customers? Are you trying to build support or create demand? Do you want to get people to do something differently? Maybe you’re trying to defuse a situation. Whatever you want to do, this is where you define it.

Defining Your Objectives

To fall back on an old mantra from business school, your objectives need to be:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Realistic
  • Time-focused

In practice, I subscribe to the Manager Tools idea that if you hit two parts of a ‘SMART’ objective – the ‘M’ and the ‘T’ – you’re almost guaranteed to hit the others. Make sure your objectives are measurable and time-focused. The specific, achievable and realistic characteristics will emerge from there.

Vague objectives are a common pitfall. Ensure you can measure them and you will be forced to be “specific.” As for “achievable” and “realistic,” if your objectives don’t meet those two criteria you don’t deserve to be writing plans for anything.

Business Objectives Don’t Equal Communications Objectives

One of the hardest parts of this to get your head around is the difference between business objectives and communications objectives. It’s important not to confuse the two. Remember – you can’t take responsibility for the entire success or failure of the program.

In my view, it helps to include the business objectives for the initiative in your comm plan in addition to the communications objectives. Doing this helps you to make sure your plan supports the overall business goals rather than working on its own.

Use Your Analysis

The last three posts in this series were all about analysis. Don’t let this go to waste. Look at your anticipated stakeholder reactions. Consider previous media coverage. Base your objectives in reality.

What’s The Lasting Impression?

If there was one thing you want people to remember about this initiative, what would it be? This doesn’t have to be written like a key message, but it should capture the essence of what you’re doing.

I first encountered the ‘lasting impression’ idea in comm plans a couple of years ago. I like it. It forces you to boil down what you’re doing to one or two sentences that the ‘average’ person could understand. It’s a great way to let the plan’s reader know, in simple terms, what’s going on.

That’s an important thing to remember throughout your plan. You’re writing this to help you plan an appropriate approach to this communications activity but you’re also writing it to help others understand (and approve of) what you’re planning. Bear that in mind throughout your plan.

The “Communications Plan” Series

This is the fifth in a series of posts on communications planning. To read more of the series, check out a summary of the posts so far or pick from the previous posts:

Posted in: 101, communications planning

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What PR Pros Can Learn From Gamers

08.02.12

Can we get communications pointers from computer games?

Crysis features life-like graphics, but gamers want more than just realism The New York Times recently featured an article looking at how there’s a growing trend in computer gaming away from intensive graphics, complex storylines and immersive dialogue and towards simple games that allow people to interact with each other.

“Paradoxically, at a moment when technology allows designers to create ever more complex and realistic single-player fantasies, the growth in the now $18 billion gaming market is in simple, user-friendly experiences that families and friends can enjoy together.”

So what parallels can we draw between this and our communications?

Keep it simple

Gamers are shifting away from complex games like Crysis (pictured above, which I love by the way) and Bioshock and towards those with simple concepts like Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Halo 3.

From complex to simple. We need to remember that when we write for people. The general public isn’t interested in the minutiae of your product, service or policy. They’re interested in the simple story. What’s happening? How does it affect them?

Make it about the people

Only one of the top ten selling games last year was single player only. All the rest included extensive multiplayer features. World of Warcraft, the king of multiplayer games, has over 10 million paying subscribers.

We need to move from targeting individuals and towards letting our communities interact. By letting people share content, helping them to bookmark it, making it more accessible by removing layers of spin and even allowing comments on our announcements we can enable more social interaction around our stories. By moving away from venues that we control (our own websites) and towards those where users feel comfortable (social networks, for example), we can lower the barriers further.

Guitar Hero 3 We also need to move from one-way to two-way interaction with our communities. We can help members interact with each other, but it’s only when we also start to interact with them that we can realize the benefits of all this new technology.

Keep it interesting

This relates closely to my first point. Many of today’s new games place immense demands on your computer hardware. Games like Crysis require people to upgrade to the latest hardware just to play them. Meanwhile, the trend is moving towards games that focus on fun rather than perfection.

That’s key for communicators. Sure, a government can throw $100 million at something or an organization can release a technologically game-changing product. Unless you can make it interesting, though, no-one will care. $100 million is an abstract figure. I can picture $1,000 or maybe $10,000. Once you’re into the millions, you’re beyond what I’m likely to ever encounter in my life. I have no way to relate to it, so why should I care? A thousand more heart transplants, though (pulling the example randomly out of the air), is on the way there. Or producing enough power to light a city. I can relate to those things. It has to be relevant and interesting or people will switch off and move on.

Get the basics right

(Updated) You can have all the high-tech wizardry in the world, but if the fundamentals of a game aren’t right it will all be for nothing.

The same applies to communications initiatives. Before you worry about web 2.0 gizmos and whatever the new wonder app of the day is, make sure you get the fundamentals of your announcement right. You know, the old fashioned stuff. Things like well planned, written and executed tactics. If you don’t get that right, all the shiny stuff you layer on top won’t help.

Conclusion

There you have it. Three Four lessons communicators can learn from gamers:

  • Keep it simple
  • Make it about the people
  • Keep it interesting
  • Get the basis right

What other lessons do you think we can learn?

(Photo credit: ntwrock and me)

Posted in: pr

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