Do I actually need “Comms Planning?”

I’ve been doing Communication Strategy, aka “Comms Planning,” for 13 years and have seen the space evolve at a rate even I am struggling to follow. So, if you’re wondering why you continue to lose the plot on Comms/Communications Strategy/Comms Planning/Connections, or wonder if you need it within your marketing ecosystem, you’re totally normal. 

An analogy for Communication Strategy 

Here’s the easiest way I have found to describe it. Communication Strategy is like an orchestra. The comms planner/comms strategist is the conductor,  the channels are the instruments.

When you conduct one instrument, it feels easy, beautiful and controllable (think broadcast TV or radio back in the day). It has a singular, easy-to-follow story. Then, you add more instruments (email, website, social media, etc.) and all of a sudden, it requires more thought around how those all have to work together to create the most beautiful sound. 

With all the channels, all the content and all the money – our orchestras have become deafening. If our brand is experienced as the sound our orchestra creates, we all need more thoughtful conductors, i.e., thoughtful Communication Strategy.

How to know if you need it? 

If you answer yes to 3 or more of the following, you could likely benefit from some rigor and thinking around Communication Strategy.

  • You have more than 4 marketing channels 

  • You see redundancy in your marketing collateral 

  • You don’t feel like your full body of marketing communication is consistent 

  • You don’t think people can feel the brand’s purpose in your marketing efforts

  • You are blasting people with messages instead of being relevant with messages 

  • Your marketing channel teams are siloed and not communicating with each other 

  • You put the same content in every marketing channel

  • You don’t have individual channel strategies

If you answered yes to 3 or more of those questions, here are a couple scenarios to help you customize how to get started for your organization. 

Scenario 1: You don’t have any Communication Strategy

The first best step you can take is to connect your larger communication objectives to your larger business objectives. You will either need to create communication objectives on behalf of your business objectives or connect them if they feel disjointed. Once you’ve done that, you can ask your channel teams to create individual channel strategies - using the strength of their channel to support both the business and communication objectives. 

Next, you’ll want to set a communications planning cadence - I typically recommend these to be done quarterly or yearly if you’re able to swing it. I strongly suggest having a Brand Idea to guide all communications.

Taking your planning cadence, you’ll want to break down your business objectives and communication objectives even further, aligning them with cultural relevance and individual channel strategies using more timely, often quarterly, goals.

Taking these nuanced objectives, you can create a quarterly Communication Plan that allows all your marketing efforts to ladder up to your larger goals, utilize channels for their strengths and allow your customer to feel your brand in symphony. Easy, right?

Scenario 2: You have some Communication Strategy but you think it might be broken 

Most Communication strategies are broken to some extent. There are too many musicians and far too few conductors in marketing atm. The major cause of broken Communication Strategy is siloed channels. Therefore, the easiest way to fix it is to tear down these silos and create a unified plan to ensure a beautifully unified sound. Here’s how to break down silos:

  1. Understand how each silo operates, mining for what is working and what is not. This could include channel silos, vertical silos, product silos, etc.

  2. Create a team to build a cohesive Communication Strategy that transcends channels, products, etc. and also ladders up to the broader goals mentioned above. Pull people in from each silo to make it feel functional for that team. Make. people. feel. heard. The more you pull people in, the higher likelihood it will work across the organization. 

  3. Develop a structure and a process to ensure that the communication strategy is truly being applied. This could include frameworks, tools, presentations, how-to-guides, monthly meetings, etc. Keep people engaged. Communication Strategy is a process and practice that won’t just ‘happen’ overnight.

  4. Find and create accountability. Appoint people within each silo to monitor that silo for consistency and connect with other silos for consistency against the strategy. 

  5. Don’t just measure it, practice it. Organization-wide Communication Strategy isn’t easy and can’t just live on paper. Find ways to collaborate on it, evolve it, and make it truly work for your organization. 

Need help, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

Want more on Communications Planning? Read, Reinventing Your Approach to Comms Planning? Consider these.


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