What are the key elements and steps of developing a communication strategy and plan?

The most important factor in developing a communication strategy is understanding the overall business strategy. The communication strategy needs to be aligned with the overall business strategy. If the business strategy is to build the brand, the whole communication strategy and plan will revolve around "branding" and brand awareness. If the business strategy is to maximize sales, the communication strategy shall revolve around sales and customer engagement for conversion. If the business strategy is focused on becoming the market leader with certain expertise, the communications strategy has to work around to establish the expertise of the business and its key personnel.

When making a communication strategy and plan, these are the main steps: 1. Goals: Decide what you want to achieve. 2. Audience: Figure out who you're talking to. 3. Message: Decide what you want to say. 4. Tools: Choose ways to communicate, like emails, press release, or social media. 5. Timing: Plan when you'll share the messages. 6. Feedback: Find ways to hear back from the audience. 7. Check: After a while, see if the plan worked and what you can do better. It's all about knowing what you want, how you'll do it, and always trying to improve.

A successful communication strategy must start from what the business really needs. By tuning into what’s happening within and setting goals accordingly, the strategy becomes tailored for real impact. Every step, from goal-setting to action, must link back to these needs. Instead of just checking off steps, this approach integrates communication into the company’s big plan, ensuring each activity and each action contributes to achieving business goals.

I think of a communication strategy as the ability see the end from the beginning, being able to articulate the vision of your communication. What's the end state of the world once you've communicated? To whom will this end state hold true? And what will be the glue that holds all the pieces in your communication together, defining the voice of your communication, the style, the places you where and where you don't play. Think about it more like when you go through a strategy, and you do a SWOT analysis of the situation but from a communication perspective.

A communication plan (external and internal) involves both product and corporate (brand) initiatives. In 2024, the focus is on specialised and quality content for all platforms. Whether it is Google, YouTube, Instagram, Print or X- communicators must clearly define the results they're expecting. One must remember that each activity may not be suitable for all platforms. One must focus on the core platform to spread their message. The communication plan must be supported by the peaks you'll get and what message will get established when. It must also contain the challenges, competition analysis, budget and resources required. The end result is a successful year wherein your efforts help align with the company vision and aid segment growth.

How do you ensuring clear goals and expectations in your communication plan? A successful communication plan requires more than just a list of activities; it needs clear goals and expectations for each initiative. Carefully assess whether the planned actions can truly achieve the overarching goals of the communication strategy. Ensure each activity contributes to the desired effect and that collectively they can create measurable impact within the established evaluation timeframe. This strategic approach ensures your communication plan is more than just execution; it's a key component in achieving your communication goals.

On a communication plan, you are bringing your strategy to play. I would advise that one starts with a strategy, follows it with a policy and then translates the policy into a plan. It's easier to make a jump in this way.

Here I would borrow from the PESTEL tool while doing an external communication scan. Politically, what are the salient issues when it comes to communication. Are you a multi-national? How do you synergize across these different political jurisdictions? Economically, what's the situation?

Context is essential for a?successful communication strategy. Context not only provides a good communication strategy and plan, but it also serves practical purposes. A situational analysis provides?a foundation for comprehending the context. It may also identify issues, define prospective audiences and views, and assess the state of communication. Situational analyses may include interviews with key stakeholders, surveys, an environmental analysis using PESTEL/EPISTLE, a competitive environment examination, a SWOT analysis, or an audit of present communication approaches (strategy and tactics).

One way to develop this audience map is to create a table with audience categories as the rows and the following columns or descriptors for each: -current belief/knowledge/action -desired belief/knowledge/action -who influences them most -where/how do they consume their info -what are their awareness gaps -what degree of influence do they have over your ability to achieve your goals

Identify and prioritize?your audience based on their attitudes, interests, influence, and power. This mapping will come in handy when deciding on communication channels and creating key messages.

SMART objectives are essential in developing communication strategies, catering to organizations ranging from global corporations to local businesses. However, conflating broader business aims with communication-specific goals is common. For every SMART goal, it's crucial to ask if it's solely linked to communication. Goals must be clear, jargon-free, and confined to the communication sphere. Straying into general sales or personnel targets can obscure strategy evaluation. True adherence to communication-centric SMART goals leads to precise success measurement.

SMART objectives will write themselves if you have taken the time and out adequate effort into listening and analyzing root causes. 1) first listen to a mix of stakeholders: understand their needs, ideas, feedback, experiences and expectations of your organization. Listen closely to your fans. Listen closely to your critics. Listen carefully to your competitors. 2) group common themes 3) develop problem statements for each unique theme: what is the problem, for whom, when and why is it a problem for your organization 4) now figure out why the problem exists. Look to Lean or Six Sigma practitioners for proven tools like fishbone or visual process mapping/identification of pain points. My favourite is 5 whys.

Depending on the scope of communication strategy you’re writing, a need for an overarching theme or narrative might arise. This theme should become the needle that threads all key messages together into your communication fabric. The key messages and narrative should always be tethered to your stakeholders desired business outcomes and your SMART goals.

Ensure key messages reflect both corporate objectives AND audience needs. I've observed that many communicators often try to pack enormous amounts of information into a few key messages (or pages of them), essentially rendering the messaging unusable. Write in plain language, be concise and - most of all - make the messaging memorable. Key messages should be adaptable enough to be easily inserted into social media, speeches and prep notes for panel events/interviews. Ideally, they are so memorable that the audience repeats/remembers them. This is particularly important when communicating climate change and sustainability issues. Tie key messages together, as others have noted, in an overall narrative. This also assists in drafting process.

Make sure that you know what change you want to create and who will be able to do it. Then envision the key messages as the tools to create that. Too many will draw them down. Too few will leave them vulnerable. Consider shaping them to create concversations afterwards. Change - whether brand, behaviour or other - is often not created by us directly, but in the interacton of our messages and the reality of our audience afterwards.

Key messages must be short, easy to understand and free of jargon. If they include figures, these must be up to date and well referenced. If the key messages are for a speech, it can be helpful to provide the background to figures, in case of enquiries. Contextualise the key messages, if at an event try to strike a balance between the overall objectives / msgs of the event and those of the speaker / organization you are writing for.

In this stage, I like to use the M-A-O model from consumer psychology. Here's how this might work for a new product launch: Motivation: Create messages that connect emotionally, getting people excited and willing to engage. For instance, share success stories of early adopters who can inspire potential customers. Ability: Equip the audience with essential resources. Develop user-friendly FAQs and tutorials to help consumers understand the product. Opportunity: Ensure your campaign has the reach and frequency to hold attention. Host live webinars, offer exclusive previews to critical clients, and provide detailed release notes and tutorials across communication platforms.

In my experience, establishing specific time frames to measure has proven pivotal to find success standards. For example, an email campaign can be measured by open rates upon receipt the day of, engagement through the first 48 hours and call to action (CTA) engagement through the first week after release.

The evaluation?plan should be centred around research (formative, process, and summative), as well as well-developed KPIs and metrics that are?determined by the objectives.

The most important thing is to be flexible. The priorities can be changed as the challenges on the market can deeply affect the company or the organization. So regardless of plans and goals that are so nicely made, be prepared that things sometimes don't go as smoothly as you think. In fact if we reflect on the past couple of years we should acknowledge that we should expect the unexpected, and that our communication plans can be totally changed.