Communications Planning

It may seem like a lot of extra work, but having even a simple, clear communications plan can help your group ensure that all are clear on what needs to be done, and who your communications are aimed at.

There are really only a few key items required for a communications plan:

• Why do you want to communicate?
• What is the information/message?
• Audience you want to target?
• How are you going to communicate?
• Who is going to do what?
• When will it happen?

Basically: Why, What, Audience, How, Who and When.

Each need be only a short list or description - ideally 1-10 sentences. Keep it simple - that way your members may actually read and use it.

Note: a simple template is available for download at the bottom of this page.

Why

This needs to be short, clear and explain the reason behind the new/changed communications, to explain what your group hopes to achieve.

Is it increased awareness, broaden or increase customer base, attract new members, access different demographics, tell the story to a broaders audience, get an online presence, enable feedback, or just make is easier for the group to communicate, etc

What

What is the message or information you want to communicate? Is it a single, discrete event, project, or all group activities?

This will have an impact on how you communicate your message, so be clear on your objectives.

Audience

This is sometimes called a Stakeholder Analysis. Who are you trying to connect with? Break this down into key groups or demographics.

Remember, as a communication plan your audience may be based more on the tools they use, not the usual age or location demographics, eg paper based, web based, social media, broadcast media (paper, radio, blog).

Target your communications to suit the audience preferences, as this will achieve better results. You may need to break your audience into both demographics and communications options. Do your members prefer or use paper, mobile, social media?

A basic matrix may work well for this, such as the one below, identifying even if each audience has a high/medium/low preference for the particular medium

Communication Medium Audience 1 Audience 2 Audience 3

Paper

Website

Email

Email Newsletter

Facebook

Twitter

other

How

Based on your answers above, you should now be able to identify the preferred or higher value communications channels.

There are many systems available, particularly for online or social media style communications. Each has advantages, but each also will have a cost in time for your group committee to learn and use.

Most systems have the capability to have many people contributing - not just leaving it to one person. Use these.

Examples of effective and the commonly used systems include (but are not limited to):

• Email - ie group address via Gmail, Office Online etc
• Website (hosted or free), eg Wordpress, Blogs,
• Electronic Newsletters, eg MailChimp
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Instagram

Who

Whatever system your group is going to use, it must be sustainable. This means that if it is a paid system the group can afford to run this for the long term without funding, or that the time required to use and keep updated is going to be available in the long term.

As mentioned, many systems allow multiple users to manage online content. For example, many website systems, MailChimp, Facebook etc allow a number of Administration accounts to add and edit content.

A site or system that is not regularly updated or untouched for a long time will do more damage to a group reputation than one that does not exist online.

Note that for Community Groups, a regular update may only be once a month or quarter.

Your plan will need to identify who is either available or able to manage or contribute to the various channels, and if any training or recruitment is needed to enable this.

A plan which specifies that certain channels are unusable until either training or new participants are found (and how this will be done) is more useful than an unrealistic target.

When

Specify which system will be updated and what timelines are minimum required or preferred.

Some timing will be specific to the activity - such as notices of meetings, events, working bees etc

Some may be best to be regular - such as newsletters.

Some can be identified as opportunistic - but need to be ready to take advantage of these. Social Media will often provide these opportunities through sharing other group posts. Identify if this is a priority.

Resources

There are a wide range of resources for Community Groups on the Our Community Website.

In particular, a useful resource area is the Marketing and Communications Resource section.

Planning Template for Download

The following Doc is a template which can be downloaded to develop your own Communications Plan.

To use the template, place your cursor over the top right corners of the Doc below, and click on the Open link. When the Doc is open, use the File... menu to either

Make a Copy - if you are using Drive already, save a copy to 'My Drive'

Download as.. - to download your preferred editable format to your machine

Feedback?

Is this information useful, accurate or missing something?

Please use the Feedback Page to let me know.