Communications Planning Guide - Communications plan for [audience name]

As you map out your communications strategy, use this template to help you:

Determine the appropriate set of communication activities based on the relationships among the communication, buying, and selling processes.

Outline the use of messages and other communication tools throughout your selling process.

Determine the appropriate communication vehicles you should implement for each audience, whether that audience is a customer, a channel member, or a partner.

Determine implementation timing and the budget for each audience.

Create a new planning guide for each of your target audiences.

To insert the appropriate information for your plan, click a word enclosed in brackets and then type the correct information, such as the name of the audience or the name of your company.

You might need to modify the buying or selling process to reflect your companys or your audiences process.

As your company moves through the communication process, you must evolve your messages to map to the information requirements of your audience. In general, as you move through the communication process, your messages should provide more detail and substantiation about your business and products. Understanding the messages that are required to support the later stages of the buying and selling processes makes it possible for you to create better messages in the earlier stages of the process. The following table summarizes how and when you can evolve the essence, or the net takeaway, from your messages.

The types of communication vehicles that you use to support different stages of the buying and selling processes are dictated by the corresponding communication objectives. In the row beginning with Awareness, the following table outlines the key communication vehicles that support each communication objective. Not all communication vehicles are required for you to relay your message to the market effectively. Use the Target Audience Profiling Questionnaire to understand fully how your audience finds information and to select the most appropriate communication vehicles based on your audiences preferred sources for information.

In conjunction with the preceding table, which outlines the evolution of messaging throughout the communication process, marketing communications specialists can use the following table to determine how best to focus messages in each communication vehicle.

Use the Target Audience Profiling Questionnaire to get a detailed breakdown of your audiences demographics and psychographics. This will help you understand how your audience finds information, and it will help you select the most appropriate communication vehicles based on your audiences preferred sources for information.

In the following table, for each communication objective listed in the row starting with Awareness, list the communication vehicles that are most appropriate for your audience. By assigning vehicles to communication objectives, you get a sense of the timing and order in which you should implement your communication vehicles.

In the following table, list all your communication vehicles in the first column. Add rows if necessary. Change the month headings to correspond to actual month names. Place an X in the column for the month in which you want the communication vehicle to be delivered to your audience. In most cases, the delivery month will be different from the production month, which youll need for step 6.

In the following table, list all your communication vehicles in the first column. Add rows if necessary. Change the month headings to correspond to actual month names. Place the cost of each vehicle in the month during which you expect to pay the expenses for production of that vehicle. Total each column to determine your monthly budget. Note that for some vehicles, production will take more than one month, and in many cases installment payments will be required over a series of months.

Repeat the preceding six steps for each additional audience.