Get Your Communications Planning Worksheet

I love communications planning, and I am obsessive about how it’s done.

I sense an energy around launching new initiatives so wanted to share some tools that I frequently use. This is a communications planning framework I often use with clients and a quick primer on how it works:

1. Across the top, you first list out your 5-7 priority audiences - e.g., customers (different sub-segments or simply prospects and existing), influencers, media, analysts, investors, employees (prospects and existing), etc.?
2. Building from the top, you should start with audience needs and then and only then assert the key messages and what you want them to think, feel, do. I have found that this is a good forcing mechanism to keep everyone audience-centric and meet actual needs.?
3. The enablers at the bottom (how we do it) usually include channel and format and also can be expanded to include resources (what you need to succeed) and measurement (how you’ll know you’re succeeding).?

This framework works great in a workshop because you can walk in with it partially filled in with hypotheses, and the group can edit, fix, expand what’s there. My teams and I have used it repeatedly as a baseline, and I pass it off to others in the firm to use and adapt as well.

A following page (not shown) would have a calendar view in which you organize over a time horizon what you will do and when, plus there are other tools for investment, channel mix and program/experience views.?

Happy comms planning. Reach out to me or our team at Prophet if you need help with yours.