STARTING A COMMUNICATIONS PLAN
Bringing it all together

The goal of a communications plan is to surface your organization’s strategicobjectives and plan for how to achieve these goals through communications and PR activities. We all face the challenge of trying to accomplish a lot with few resources and not enough hours in the day. A planhelps meet this challenge by makinglarge communications goals more attainable. And, with a plan, you’ll know that your day-to-day activities all connect to the larger strategic goals of your organization.

To get started, we’ve outlined some common terminology. Then, we pose a series of questions to help you surface the important information needed for a communications plan. These include the following:

  • The 5 Basic Questions of Communications Planning
  • Getting Down to Specifics for Your Organization

Finally, we provide you with a template communications plan that you can use to create your own plan. As you go through this process keep in mind that there’s no right answer or one single way to do a communications plan. It’s all about getting started and thinking creatively.

THE 5 BASIC QUESTIONS OF COMMUNICATIONS PLANNING

YOUR TURN – THE 5 BASIC QUESTIONS:

What are you trying to achieve for your organization? Can you make it SMART?

Who is your key decision maker? Who determines your success & who influences him/her?

What are you assets/challenges?

Given that – who is your target audience and what do they need to hear?

What tactics are in your toolbox (and one is social media) and what are your timings & milestones?

GETTING DOWN TO SPECIFICS FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN
Using your answers to the five basic communications above, think about how you might apply them to your current interactions when talking about your organization.
What’s your news?

  • What is your path to reach your vision?
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  • What is your “Solution” or “Call to Action?”

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Who should tell your news?

  • What voices can you access?

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  • You? Are you the right messenger?

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  • What “role” are you playing?

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What can you accomplish?

COMMUNICATIONS PLAN TEMPLATE
Use this format to lay out how you will accomplish your goals.

Introduction
Define your campaign and the need for your campaign.

Pathway to Change

What’s the end goal or impact for the kind of work your organization does?

Broad Goals/Outcomes for Organization

What specific impacts and goals is your organization working to make happen?

Key Messages (3 – 5)

What do you need to communicate to your audience?

Target Audiences

Who needs to hear your message? Is it your local community? Community leaders? Make it as narrow as possible.

Role of Board, Staff, Partners and Allies

Map out who will be taking part in your communications campaign.

Internal Scan of Organization
Think about:

  • Strengths and recent successes of your organization
  • Challenges facing your organization
  • Community Engagement Opportunities

Recommended Communications Strategies
Use the sections below for each strategy – or “media push” you want to accomplish.

  • Objectives
  • Target Audiences
  • Timeline/Workplan
  • Measurable Outcomes
  • Measurable Outputs
  • Possible Tactics to Execute Each Strategy

A Note on Tactics – in today’s shifting media landscape, there are more media tactics available than ever before. Today, you can aim to get your message out through traditional media outlets like TV, print, and radio news. You can also write opinion pieces and “Letters to the Editor” for the opinion section of print media. You have the option to create content on your platform such a blog on your website. And with the growth in social media platforms, you can create content for your Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Pinterest page, and more.

Think far and wide – it’s often a great idea to lay out media strategies for both traditional and nontraditional media that can work together and complement each other. For example, if you get traditional media coverage, you can post about it on social media or email it to your supporters in a newsletter, creating a “virtuous circle” of communications.