Every organization needs a strong Strategic Communications Plan. This plan should exist as a living document that is dynamic in nature. You can learn more about the concept here. The list of how a Strategic Communications Plan impact an organization is almost endless.
THE PLAN CONTRIBUTES TO A LOT OF AREAS
This Plan should (just to name a few):
- Drive communications projects (internally and externally)
- Clarify priorities of the organization
- Inform which audiences to target
- Drive messages to be communicated
- Identify and prioritize communications channels
- Provide a framework for media engagement
- Help determine resource and human capital needs
- Help build budgets
- etc. (there’s a lot more!)
Bottom line: The Strategic Communications Plan directly supports the goals, vision, and mission of the organization.
Every organization needs a strong Strategic Communications Plan
Click To Tweet
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLANS ARE AN ASSET
Organizations need to spend the time and resources necessary to make sure this is a quality product. This plan, if well designed, will be strategic asset. It can elevate your brand, grow your reputation, and improve your communications departments efficiency and effectiveness. I’ll go into more detail on how to build a Strategic Communications Plan step-by-step in a later post.
THERE ARE SOME RISKS TO AVOID
With all the work you have put into your Strategic Communications Plan it would be a shame to render it ineffective (or useless) by making a classic error. Here are 5 common mistakes to avoid that can sink a Plan:
- The plan is tactical and not strategic – Be careful to keep your plan above the execution level. Organizations often make the mistake of planning on such a granular level that the overall strategy gets diluted. Put good people on your communications team, build their skills and experience, then trust them to carry out the plan. Good tactical execution plans are rarely made by committee…unless it’s a committee of one or two.
- You have no brand guidelines – Standards for your brand must be in place. Without usage and content guidelines, people tend to use whatever they think looks or sounds good to them. Even when some of these projects are effective you run the risk of diluting your brand and presenting an incoherent, disconnected appearance to the public. Over time this has significant consequences.
- It isn’t connected to your organization’s outcomes – Many still see communications as a support group within the organization. This is outdated and short-sighted. Communications activities are more than just brand awareness or message delivery mechanisms. With proper leadership and resources, communications can build relationships and enhance value to your stakeholders which can, in turn, help to achieve your tactical goals.
- It was created without local and cultural knowledge – Sometimes plans are developed more to please the CEO than advance the organization’s mission. This is particularly risky when you completely turn over your Strategic Communications Plan development to an outside entity. An advertising agency or consultant will give you a plan (and it might even be a pretty good one) but it will almost assuredly have some self-serving component for the developing entity. Am I saying you shouldn’t use outside people? Absolutely not. Outside experts can give you critical advice and expertise that you probably don’t have in-house. But they should work with you to develop the plan, not develop it themselves. A red flag here would be any requirement or system designed that requires everything go through them before action. Use outside people to advise, educate, and evaluate during the process but in the end your plan is exactly that…your plan.
- It is kept Top Secret – Some organizations not only create the plan in a vacuum but choose to keep it secret outside of a few directors or C-suite executives. I’m not sure why people still do this but I see it all the time. Your employees are often some of your best ambassadors. Training and educating your people about your strategy can be another communication channel altogether. Most of them have contact with the public and all of them will have informal conversations with others in the course of living life. Get your people on board by showing them that they are part of the plan. The morale boost this provides will be thrown in for free.
Any one of these mistakes can cause you problems and two or more can sink a plan. Spend the time and resources needed to put together a solid Strategic Communications Plan and you have taken the first step toward reaching your goals. Don’t waste the precious time and resources by making any of these critical errors.
What are some other ways you have seen Strategic Communications Plans fail?
The post 5 Ways To Make Your Strategic Communications Plan Fail appeared first on Scott K. Wilson.