How to Develop a Strategic Communications Plan
It is important to note that creating a workable strategic communications plan is useful for every organization, business, brand or entity that aims to achieve results through communications, especially a positive stakeholder relationship. A strategic communications plan helps this process and ensures that important aspects of a communications framework are not ignored. However, a strategic communications framework should be flexible to adapt to different communications needs (as it varies from brand to brand) maintaining the overall objective.
With insights from best practices, this article will guide communications professionals who seek to create a strategic communications plan.
Strategic Communications Plan
A strategic communications plan serves as a roadmap for your communication efforts. It outlines the elements and steps that convey your message to the target audience effectively. When communications is strategic, it helps align your message for the best result.
Click here to download our comprehensive communications strategy template that can be used in communications planning.
Using a template for strategic communications simplifies the planning process and ensures that critical elements are not overlooked. A template provides a consistent framework or guide that can be tailored to meet the needs of a specific organization. It is also a structured way of planning communications. Typically, our strategic communications template helps to set objectives, craft the message, determine communications channels that work and set metrics to measure the communication result.
The first step in creating a strategic communications plan involves understanding your goals, identifying your audience and determining the best channels and tactics. A solid plan sets the foundation for all your communication activities. You will find this resource very helpful.
Steps to Create a Communications Plan
Determining the answers to the following questions as they pertain to the brand or entity you are working for, is very important in creating a strategic communications plan.
- What are the objectives? Be clear on what the communication effort should achieve for the organization, business or brand.
- Who is your audience? When the objective is clear, you can easily determine the target audience. Are they students, entry-level professionals, business leaders, out-of-school youths, etc.?
- What channel can help your message get to them? Determining the communications channel to use is very important to your strategic communications plan. It will help your message get to your target audience.
- What is the key message? In this stage of your communications planning, you will develop a compelling message that achieves your objective.
- What metrics or goals will determine if your communication was successful? It is necessary to set metrics from the call-to-action in your communications. Do you want to have more social media followers, do you want to be seen by investors, do you require partnership/sponsorship? When the metric is set, you can measure if the communications effort achieved its goal and what can be done better for future communications strategies.
An effective communication plan requires a careful analysis and an understanding of the goal, target audience, messaging and the channel to use. For communication to be effective, it must be strategic.
A strategic communication plan can include the following sections:
- Introduction or objective
- Audience
- The message
- Communication actions to be carried out
- Timeline for activities
Strategic Communication Framework
Many communications professionals make the mistake of paying less attention to research before planning and evaluation. When using a communications framework, understand the client’s needs and the previous communications strategy employed. This research helps you identify a problem and solve it with communications. A strategic communication framework outlines the approach a communication activity needs to take and will be a reference point in developing comprehensive communication strategies for different industries and clients.
In our upcoming strategic communications course, we will share strategic communications frameworks that have worked over the decades from Sola Abulu’s extensive work experience with high-level multinationals. You can sign up now.
Strategic communications is useful in crisis management, building trust and driving engagement in today’s digital world and gaining mastery of it keeps you on the edge in your career.
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Sola Abulu & Associates is a strategy and communications consulting and training firm committed to enabling businesses, brands and organizations to achieve their objectives through strategic communications, organizational effectiveness and reputation risk management.
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