Strategic Communications Planning

All successful communications initiatives start with strategic communications planning. The question is which planning system to use?

There are as many different planning processes as there are organisations.

The system I use to this day was originally a complex system created by a former employer after considerable research of its own – and other’s – best practices in communications planning. Over time, it was shortened and simplified. After I began working with other agencies, I kept adjusting it until it finally settled into the six basic steps and questions.

There are lots of good systems out there. It’s interesting to see many similarities beyond the clever names and diagrams of arrows, boxes and circles. The same questions came up, although some systems (no surprise) were paraphrased to fit a specific organisaton or industry.

One point however, the best models of strategic communications planning have a clear evolution from strategy to creative problem-solving. To have a great strategy, but lousy ideas, does not work.

The Order of Planning

My preferred system is shown at right. It works in this order:

Goal – What are we trying to do?
Problem – What is (or may) prevent us from achieving the goal(s)?
Audience – Who do we want to change their attitude, opinion or behaviour?
Mindset – What do these audiences think now, and why do they think what they do?
Messages – What are we going to tell them to convince them to change?
Action – What are we going to do?

As you can see, each sequential step is matched with one broad question. All six are supported by a series of additional questions. (See below.) This puts the emphasis on the answers, which is where you’ll find the real value of any strategic planning model.

This is a general model, it’s not an inflexible system. It’s a framework which should be adapted to the:

Organisation
Internal situation (resources, products, services, compliance)
External situation (such as the cultural or business environment, competition, laws and regulations among others)
Audiences involved, both real and prospective
Resources available
Department or team members

While this system was created for an agency to use with its clients, it works fine as an organisational tool without an agency or consultants. But again, as with any methodology in business, adapt it to suit.

If there’s one “adjustable” part, I’ve found flipping #2 and #3 around sometimes works. If you do, just consider the external environment before you jump to the audience. Yes, you can focus on this audience, but at the expense that the audiences also live in the real world,’ not just within your organisation’s product or service. What problems do your audiences have, regardless of you? For example, at MasterCard, we couldn’t just talk about credit card usage without considering cost of living, wages, monthly income and expenses. Don’t communicate in a vacuum.

A good follow-up to this post focuses on creative briefs. The model outlined in that article aligns with the steps and questions to my preferred model.

Finally, before I review the model, I thought I’d include a good definition of strategy, by Jeffrey Harrison, chair of Strategic Management at the Robins School of Business, University of Richmond:

A strategy is a plan that integrates goals, policies, messages, and action sequences into a cohesive whole in support of the organisation’s mission.

Six Questions to Map Your Communications Strategy Planning

1. Goal: What are we trying to do?

What is the vision and mission of the organisation?
What are our business objectives? Are they ?
What role will communications play to help the orgranisation achieve its business objectives?
Why are these our objectives? (Is there anything about recent past history we should know?)
What is the revenue risk and priority?
How are we going to measure our success, both quantitatively and qualitatively?

2. Problem: What is (or may) prevent us from achieving these goals?

What’s going on in the world which might prevent us from achieving these goals?
What are the communications problems or issues we need to address now? (‘Fire fighting’)
What are the problems or issues we need to address in the future? (‘Fire prevention’)
Which issues can communications influence or prevent? Which are ones we can only monitor and evaluate?
What issues are directly attributable to our competition, either real or perceived?
Does our executive suite realise these problems are important issues?
Have these problems been translated into a formal business strategy?
What is the source of our concerns?
Where is this a problem?
When is it a problem?
Who is involved, or affected? (See Step 3)
How do we quantify that we know these are problems? Has it changed in recent times?
Are there intelligence gaps, and if so, what kind of research or analysis is required to fill these missing areas?
What are our assumptions?
What is the risk of ignoring these issues?
Is our competition already addressing these issues, and how? If so, what is our positioning to these activities?

Note: People often want to add ‘Opportunities’ here, which is fine – as long as you aren’t using the opportunities to mask or minimise significant problems. Tools like a or are ideal to sort and organise information to extract insights.

What opportunities might help us address, eliminate, neutralise or minimise these issues?
What business aspects, products or services do we have on our side?
What areas of trust are we strong?

3. Audience: Who do we want to change their attitude, opinion or behaviour? (Audience)

Primary Audiences are the specific single audience which must change their attitude, opinion or behaviour so we might achieve our objectives? Think strongly about whether the primary audience is the media. Generating media without achieving the business objective is not an effective campaign.
Secondary Audience are groups of people who influence the attitudes, opinions or behaviour of the primary audience.
Media are traditional, digital or social outlets to convey the key messages to all relevant audiences.

What do we know about the communications consumption of the primary and secondary audiences? How has it changed, and do we see it changing in the future?
In this campaign, how much (money, resources, times, energy) should we spend on reaching each group?
Are we reaching one group – media or social influencers, for example – but not the primary audience?

4. Mindset: What do these audiences think now? Why do they think what they do?

What’s the current mindset of each audience? Is it true? What is false?
How does one group influence the other with these opinions?
What do we expect them to do – realistically – as a result of a campaign?
What’s the little voice in the back of their heads telling them?
What past experiences, events, issues, history, perceptions (right or wrong), or personal attitudes do they have?
What macro influences are shaping public thought (environmental, societal, economic)?
What are outside groups or organizations telling them to believe? (rivals, competitors, neutral parties who can’t pick sides)

5. Messages: What are we going to tell them to convince them to change?

What messages will change their minds?
Facts What rational points do we need to convey to the audiences? (Rational reasons persuade.)
Feelings What emotional points do we need to convey to the audiences? (Emotional reasons motivate.)
How do we organize the messages for maximum delivery?
Who will be our effective spokespeople?
Can we leverage our employee base to help deliver messages?

6. Action: What are we going to do?

Is there a singular focus to changing perceptions? (e.g., a big idea, a core concept, a theme)
What creative tactics can we develop to:
- Deliver our messages?
- Address the issues?
- Convey our good news?
- Reach the appropriate audiences?
- Achieve our objectives?
What other areas of the organisation do we need involve?
What levels of sign-off do we need for implementation?
What evidence do we have that shows our focus will work? Can they reflect our proposed measurement plan?
How will we implement this plan?
Do we have internal support (other departments) or external support (agencies of record, consultants, free-lance individuals)?
What is our budget and time-frame? Is either flexible?
Is there a priority order for implementation?
How will we keep track of our objectives and measurement as the campaign progresses? How will we adapt the program as time goes on?

I’d love to hear any additional questions – or even phases – that you may use in developing a communications strategy. Feel free to comment below.