| Drawing up a communications strategy
is an art, not a science and there are lots of different ways of approaching
the task. The advice provided below is only a guide. Whether your
communications strategy is designed for a specific project or for
the same period as your organisational strategy, it should establish
the following:
Objectives
Your objectives are the key to the success of your communications
strategy. They should ensure that your communications strategy is
organisationally driven rather than communications driven. Your
communications activity is not an end in itself but should serve
and hence be aligned with your organisational objectives. Ask yourself
what you can do within communications to help your organisation
achieve its core objectives.
Aligning your communications and organisational objectives will
also help to reinforce the importance and relevance of communications
and thereby make a convincing case for the proper resourcing of
communications activity within your organisation.
Audiences
You should identify those audiences with whom you need to communicate
to achieve your organisational objectives. The best audiences to
target in order to achieve an objective may not always be the most
obvious ones, and targeting audiences such as the media may not
always help achieve your objectives. Everyone would like a higher
media and political profile, yet activities aiming towards this
may ultimately be self-serving and only communications driven, with
no wider impact. They can even have a negative effect if you dedicate
resources towards this that would otherwise be put towards communicating
with key stakeholders.
Messages
Strategic targeting and consistency are key to your organisation's
messages. Create a comprehensive case covering all the key messages,
and emphasise the different elements of the case for different audiences.
To maximise impact you should summarise the case in three key points
which can be constantly repeated. Remember that communications is
all about storytelling: use interesting narrative, human interest
stories and arresting imagery.
Tools and activities
Identify the tools and activities that are most appropriate
to communicating the key messages to the audiences. These will be
suggested by your audiences, messages, or a combination of the two.
For example, an annual report is a useful tool in corporate communications
whereas an email newsletter lends itself well to internal communications.
Ensure that you tailor your tools and activities to the level of
time and human and financial resources available.
Resources and timescales
The key rules to observe are always to deliver what you promise
and never over promise. Use your resources and timescales to set
legitimate levels of expectations and outline the case for more
dedicated resources.
Evaluation and amendment
Consider performing a communications audit to assess the effectiveness
of your strategy with both your internal and external audiences.
You should use open questions with appropriate prompts and benchmarks
and, if possible, get someone independent to do the work. Consider
and discuss the results carefully and use them to amend your strategy.
Example audiences to consider are your staff, funders, key political
targets and media. Questions you should consider asking are:
- What do you read/see/hear?
- What works/doesn't work?
- What do you want to see more of?
- What information do you need that you are not currently supplied
with?
- How often do you want us to communicate with you?
While drawing up your strategy, you should involve your team, and
on a smaller scale, the entire organisation. Feed the communications
strategy into the organisational strategy to ensure maximum alignment
and efficiency.
Source
Further Resources
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