Let’s move beyond tactics and think strategically

Throughout my career, I have had staff members come to me and say something along the lines of, "I would like to do a social media post or a press release to improve program registrations or raise overall awareness about an initiative." And, each time they come to me, I encourage them to step back and follow the four step process to developing a communications plan.

Tactics are fun, but, when developing a communications plan, you cannot skip steps. Or, let me rephrase that, you can skip steps, but, you won’t be as successful as you would if you hadn’t. My role as a communications practitioner is to advise and counsel staff/clients. It’s a role I enjoy and take seriously and I believe in being strategic and thoughtful in how you communicate. I have seen how good, solid, well-thought out communications can solve business problems.  It is my job to anticipate, analyze public opinion and research and evaluate communications to achieve an informed public. It is difficult to do these things well, if I only consider tactics.

Just as a mechanic would not begin work on a car without determining the root cause of a problem, neither should a communications professional. In order to ensure the viability of the organizations we work for, we have to carry the flag for communicating well. There have been times when internal clients that I have worked with have not wanted to take the time to think strategically and move beyond tactics and output measures and it is in those instances that I have worked harder to show the value that comes from being more methodical. Time after time, proper planning has improved response/registration rates, event attendance and resulted in increased funds raised.  I can go on and on. I also understand that there may be times when you have to run through the steps quickly, but, I encourage communications professionals to always follow the four step process which includes:

• Research/analysis of the situation
• Planning, goal/objective setting
• Implementation
• Evaluation

This usually looks like setting a meeting with myself/members of my team to discuss the business problem. So, in the program registration example, we would gather all of the information regarding who is registering for the particular program. We would also look at who isn’t and why they are not registering for the program. We would check our assumptions and ask ourselves if they are correct. We would determine if we have the background information to support those assumptions. So, sometimes a staff member may assume that program registrations are down because of the cost of a program, but, we would look at qualitative and quantitative data to determine if that was in fact the case.

From there, you can move on to step two which involves planning. In this step, you can determine your goals. In other words, goals are longer term, broad, future statements. Here, you would also determine objectives which should be SMART or specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented and time-specific. From there you move on to strategies and lastly, the tactics.

With a clear framework of what the problem is and what you are hoping to accomplish, you can then implement your plan.  Following implementation, you can evaluate your success. I can't stress enough how important these steps are. So, don’t skip them. Think strategically and move beyond tactics and more importantly, do great work. After all, that’s what they pay us for, right.