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Planning
Planning is an essential part of any health communication program, no matter how big or how small your campaign.
Planning is an essential part of any health communication program, no matter how big or how small your campaign.
Key Tips
Key Tips
SIMPLICITY - Don’t overcomplicate it. Planning can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. The time you spend in planning should be in line with the outcomes you are expecting to get.
KEY STEPS - Addressing the key steps will help set up an effective plan: set goals, assess the situation, identify & understand your audience, set objectives, determine your strategy, and evaluate your campaign.
THEORIES - Explore health behaviour theories for insights into why people behave the way they do. Don't forget that theories are frameworks for thinking, not facts when it comes to humans and behaviours.
Let's plan!
Let's plan!
Whether you are using your communication to keep in contact with clients, engage new ones or are wanting to grow your audience, planning helps you make sure that you are making the best of the time you have to dedicate to communications.
You need to consider a few vital things in your planning, such as your goal, the cost to reach your audience, and how you will communicate the message.
Remember that planning can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be but should be proportionate to the impact that you are intending to have on your audience. If you are pressed for time, even just asking yourself “What am I trying to achieve from this post?” before you put something on social media, will help you ensure that your communication has purpose.
Steps in planning a communication program
Steps in planning a communication program
The main planning steps for effective communication are:
Set Goals
Set Goals
What do you want to achieve?
For example:
Encourage seniors to exercise
Increase vegetable intake among adolescents
Reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in young adults
Assess
Assess
Research and evaluate the situation
What is the problem and behaviour you want to change/instill?
What causes it?
Who is involved/affected?
Who are you targeting with your campaign?
What is currently going on in that same space?
What elements are within your area of influence?
What will it cost your audience (time, money, sacrificing/giving up something; see Using Social Marketing for more information)
Audience
Audience
Understand the target audience
Knowing who you are talking to is as important as what you are going to say.
Learn the motivations and behaviours of your audience and how their social system impacts these (see Understanding Your Audience for more on systems).
Remember that not all acts are conscious behaviours. Sometimes people do things without thinking or even processing that they have ‘acted’ at all.
Consider how you might ‘segment’ your audience to better understand their behaviour.
Refine Objectives
Refine Objectives
Decide on the specific objectives
Objectives need to be specific and measurable (see Evaluate for potential measures)
Are you trying to reach your audience with information, helping them understand it or do you want to encourage your audience to change or keep doing a behaviour?
Strategy
Strategy
Design an intervention or campaign that works within the situation
What will you do? - emails, social media posts, education sessions, videos, posters.
When will you do it?
Plan out your communication, the messages and the channels or platforms that you are going to use.
This Communicating Health Toolkit gives tips on how you can use social media as part of your campaign strategy.
Evaluate
Evaluate
How will you evaluate the success of the campaign or intervention?
How will you know that you have achieved your objectives?
Will you measure by:
number of website clicks
views of a video
hashtag trends
number of resource downloads
product or service 'sales' or requests
audience surveys
etc.
On the templates page, you'll find a downloadable template for Planning and another for Budgeting so you can fill them in to make them relevant for you.
Social marketing is a great communication planning tool. See our page on social marketing and also the table outlining the 12 steps of the Social Marketing Planning Process for more detail on planning.
Understanding some of the health behaviour theories can help you plan your campaign as theories help explain why people behave certain ways when it comes to their health, and the ways that we can impact this behaviour.
Explore the page on health behaviour theories if you’d like to know more.
Links & Resources
Links & Resources
Check out our templates to help you plan your communication
Publications
Publications
Social Marketing & Advertising in the Age of Social Media (book) - by Parker, L. & Brennan, L. (eds) (2020),
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