Having a strategic communications plan for your agency is a very important component of any successful business. Some might say it should be a requirement. Regardless of your industry, your business plan needs to have a very strong communications component. Some organizations prefer to hire a Strategy and innovation consulting company to help them develop a winning methodology for their company. Others prefer to create their plans on their own. Regardless of the approach you choose, you will want to study the steps needed to create an effective communications plan.
Establish Communication Goals
In business and in life it’s critical to set goals. If you don’t have goals, you don’t know where to go or how to tell when you’ve achieved them. It’s okay to start small and then reevaluate, but you need to have some goals.
Identify Your Target Audience
In order to communicate effectively, you need to know who you’re going to be communicating with. Identifying your target audience will help streamline your focus.
Develop Key Messaging
You want to start your communications plan by creating some core messaging. Ask yourself what the most important information is and build a plan around that.
Select Communication Channels
There are several more communication channels available today then there were ten years ago. Since you’ve already identified your target audience, you need to find out where those people get most of their information. It could be email, television, social media, print ads or a number of other platforms. Focus your attention where it will prove the most valuable.
Evaluate Your Plan
Although this is the last step, it could be the most important. If you don’t evaluate your plan you won’t know whether or not it was effective, which means you won’t know how to successfully implement future plans. You won’t want to start from scratch anytime you start a new communications plan, you want to build on the work you’ve already done and make improvements where needed.
Again, it’s okay to start small, but a small communication plan is better than no plan.