Public Relations professionals and consultants are often contracted by businesses and organisations to design communication strategies for marketing promotions and campaigns. Others are sometimes hired to write a communication plan for health and other interventions. This article presents the basic elements and steps involved in writing a good communication strategy.
Conduct a Thorough Situational Analysis
The first thing to be done in designing a communication strategy is to do a thorough situational analysis and environmental scanning. This should be aimed at clearly identifying the purpose of a strategy. The situational analysis should also help point out the exact issues or problems to be addressed in a campaign. For example, a good situational analysis can help marketing communication consultants identify why a product is having low sales or why a brand is not doing well in the market. An environmental scan which may involve evaluation of market research findings, finding out what competing companies and brands are doing or not doing should also be carried out. This will provide communication strategists with the right information to be able to put out a good strategy.
Formative Research and SWOT Analysis
After identifying the purpose of a campaign and the issues to be addressed, there is a need for a formative market research. Through the formative research, the key audience and stakeholders who need to be communicated to would be identified. In their book, “Marketing Public Health” published in 2007 by Amazon Books, Michael Siegeland and Lynne Doner asserted that formative research can be effectively used to develop and test product offerings, delivery systems, promotional strategies and messages.
The research should also include identifying the strengths of a product, a brand or a corporate firm; the weaknesses of a brand or product; opportunities available; and potential threats to a commodity or organisation such as the emergence of new competitors. Analysing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organisation, product or issue is what is commonly referred to as SWOT analysis.
Doing Audience Segmentation
The target audience for a marketing communications campaign often have different demographic characteristics and interests. Some of them may be consumers or potential clients of a product or service. Others may be policy makers whose decisions can affect the market positioning a brand that a campaign seeks to project. A single communication approach cannot have an effective and equal impact on all groups within the target population of a campaign due to differences in characteristics and interest.
After obtaining information on the population, there is therefore the need to classify the people into different groups of identical interest, positions or even demographic features. This process of classification is known audience segmentation. In the article “Media Planning Strategy,” published in The Media Gazette, an environmental education and media tool kit, it was emphasised that classification of target audiences in a communication strategy is one of the best ways of achieving results in campaigns and promotions.
Writing Key Campaign Messages
Good communication strategies should always have key messages to be used in a campaign. The messages have to be short but at the same time capture the essential themes of a promotion or an intervention.
Selecting Appropriate Communication Channels
Based on the audience characteristics and segmentation, the appropriate channels of communication have to be spelled out. The channels may include radio, television, posters, billboards, community durbars, interpersonal communication, among others. Depending on the objectives of a promotion particular channels may be appropriate. Sometimes a combination of channels has to be used is what is called Media Mix.
Management of Communication Strategy
The budget for implementing a strategy has to be indicated. There is the need to set timelines for implementation as well as indicating the roles to be played by partners. The last is to have monitoring and evaluation strategies.
Readers may also read: Writing a Good Corporate Communications Strategy
