Welcome to the 2022 summer hacks series! These are really short ‘food for thought’, bite-sized episodes, so you can dive in when you have a moment.
I decided to focus on planning tips over the summer. Why? Because when people think about comms planning, they often focus on what they are going to say. You have a great product or service and you want to tell people about it. Focusing on the message seems the logical first step. But before you start typing, let alone promoting your offer, there are some vital actions you need to take.
I’m going to give you an overview of the 7 steps to effective comms planning over this summer hack series. I use this process with all my clients, whether it’s a brand new product or we’re marketing a built environment project.
First up is purpose and goals.
Let’s dive in!
Links mentioned in this episode
My FREE Seven Steps Webinar – https://mailchi.mp/henbe.co.uk/free-webinar-7-steps-190722
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Full Transcript (unedited)
Welcome to the 2022 summer hacks series! These are really short ‘food for thought’, bite-sized episodes, so you can dive in when you have a moment.
I decided to focus on planning tips over the summer. Why? Because when people think about comms planning, they often focus on what they are going to say. You have a great product or service and you want to tell people about it. Focusing on the message seems the logical first step. But before you start typing, let alone promoting your offer, there are some vital actions you need to take.
I’m going to give you an overview of the 7 steps to effective comms planning over this summer hack series. I use this process with all my clients, whether it’s a brand new product or we’re marketing a built environment project.
First up is purpose and goals.
Let’s dive in!
I talk about the “why” quite a lot on the podcast in terms of how businesses talk to their customers and how they explain what they do in a way that resonates with people. But it’s actually … The “why” is about understanding what your purpose is I think. This purpose can translate well into external marketing and comms plans. In terms of what is it you are ultimately trying to achieve? If you’re a council, what’s your purpose, and how does that inform your communication goals? This takes some thought to make sure that your messages and activity align.
What would a successful campaign look like to you? You know what you want to achieve but how will you know when you’ve done it? Without an overarching purpose, this is really hard. Purpose is outcomes driven and can also be a much higher organising thought around climate or diversity. A lot of people are aligning ESG to purpose, for example. It also is a good way of aligning comms within the business so that the role is critical to success or failure and it’s therefore seen as a strategic function, not about words and pictures.
This is something you need to decide early in the comms planning process. No one likes working with shifting goalposts. Knowing what success looks like ultimately at the start also affects how you are going to go about your comms activity.
For example, you want to increase the take-up of a particular product or service. This is the purpose of your activity but ultimately you are trying to be a more profitable business by providing the right types of products and services that customers in your sector want and need. You need skilled people to do this and great processes and customers journey etc. This all ultimately aligns with your comms messages.
Communication goals are slightly different. A very simple example is that you have a page about this service on your website and you want to increase awareness of that page and the information on that page. That is a communication goal that will support the overall purpose of your comms. Now you know what you want to achieve so you can tell if you have succeeded by monitoring that page.
Another example would be that you want to recruit more specialists into your business and so you want to reach out to recruitment consultants and you need to create more awareness with that group of people. Your communication goal might be how many people you can reach with information about your company or how many conversations you end up having as a result of reaching out.
Whatever action you take you need to look at whether that contributes toward your communication goal, and ultimately fits with your business purpose. This may seem like it will take longer – but the results will be much richer.
If you like this summer hacks series I am running a free webinar in the autumn on this topic so ask me questions. This is also where you can find more information and find out about my masterclass which is a deep dive to help you plan, write as well as execute your communication strategy.
You can register your interest in the free webinar here:
If you want 1:1 advice and insight on how to be more strategic with your plans, get in touch to see how I can help you. I added a link in the show notes today to my cheat sheet for you which covers the 7 steps – give it a go. I would love to know how you got on.