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Linking corporate communication to business goals: the planning process

Michelle ArchardSenior Consultant

CommOutwww.commout.com.au

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About CommOut

• Communications Outsourced

• CommOut consults to B2B companies on marketing and corporate communications and specialises in lead generation and online presence – websites, intranets, online marketing

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Why link your plans to business goals?

• Credibility – you are more likely to get resources

• Helps you prioritise and fend off service requests

• Positions Communications as a valuable service within the company

• Use the plan to make everyday decisions

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The process

Situation Analysis

Business goals

Develop communication objectives to support goals

Develop strategies & tactics to meet objectives

Prioritize objectives

Develop metrics, timelines and responsibilities

Put all the information into plans for each Business

Present, Implement and measure

Develop your department’s vision of success

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Step 1: Situation analysis – the ‘now’

• Get a picture of communications within the organisation today– strengths– weaknesses– operating environment– challenges

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Situation analysis – how

• Identify your stakeholders• Work out how many of each group you can

realistically reach• How are you going to reach them?

– 1-to-1 interviews– Focus groups (live or online)– Walk arounds– Surveys (paper and/or online)

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Situation analysis

• SWOT analysis of the communication function with your team– Strengths: what do you do well?– Weaknesses: what do you do poorly? – Opportunities: What developments represent

opportunities for future success?– Threats: What’s coming up that could make things

worse?

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Step 2: Business goals

• Gather information:– Annual reports– Other corporate reports e.g. Sustainability– Business plans – Major projects– Key business data e.g. profit, share price– Employee survey results– Customer survey results– Benchmarking data & Best practices

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Step 2: Business goals

• Interview your key stakeholders– If there is a business plan then clarify it with

them: what communications support do they need/expect for the elements of their plan?

– If there is no business plan then find out what the focus areas are going to be: what communications support will be needed?

– Ask them for the priority on the plan elements

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Step 2: Business goals

• Write up short descriptions of all the goalse.g. “Develop sales and marketing excellence across the

organisation” or “Expand into Eastern Europe by acquisition”

• List them in order of priority (usually according to the most influence on the bottom line)

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Step 3: Your vision of success

• What does success look like?– Work with your comms team to write down

statements of what success means e.g.• All employees understand the key goals of the

company and how they can contribute to those goals

• The Comms department operates as a well oiled service machine

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Step 4: Determining Comms objectives

• How will you move from the ‘now’ to ‘success’?

• What are you trying to accomplish?

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Step 4: Determining Comms objectives

• Using all the data you’ve collected, brainstorm with your team what the key objectives should be for the time period of your plan. Consider:– Content/materials Tools & vehicles– Structure Processes– Partnerships Reputation– Leadership communication

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Step 5: Prioritise objectives

SuccessIm

port

ance

Importance = How important is this to achieving your vision of success?

Success = How successful are we today at achieving this?

Critical: MaintainCritical: Improve

Non CriticalImprove value-add & performance or abandon

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Step 5: Prioritise objectives

• Aim to get 5-7 objectives

• If too many in top quadrants then ask each team member to score them 1-5 and choose 5-7 with most points

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Step 5: Linking the objectives to the corp goals

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Step 6: “How”

• Work out strategies and tactics for each objective

e.g. Objective =“Create and implement templates and processes to ensure consistent communications”

Tactics:

Create written procedures for common comms tasks

Create MS Office templates for common documents/presentations etc

Update style guide

Train all communicators outside of the Comms department

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Step 6: “Who, when and metrics”

• For each tactic, work out who is responsible, a timeline, deliverables and any metrics

Tactic Who When Deliverable Metric

Clarify departmental responsibilities between HR & Internal comms

Corp comm manager

Date Document listing who is responsible for what is placed on Intranet and announcement made

Reduction in the number of out-of-area enquiries that come to either department. Target is 100% reduction

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Sources of metrics

• Employee engagement survey

• Polls on Intranet

• Dedicated survey

• Phone, email & time logs

• New hire interviews/testing

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Metrics – measure of success, not completion

e.g. Strategy = “Convey the strategy of the new CEO to all employees”

Tactic = “Host a series of web meetings”

Metrics:• Basic metric – event occurrence• Medium – event feedback• High – awareness and understanding• Highest – Behaviour change

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Selling your plan

• You need to present your plan to your key stakeholders

• Use the mouse mat plan to show linkage between corp goals and your objectives

• Show the tactics for each objective

• Explain what didn’t make it onto the plan and why