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How to Write an Effective Communication Plan [+ Template]

Published: June 05, 2024

Guess what’s common among the top organizations like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon? An effective communication plan.

Be it the content strategy, a product launch, a campaign announcement, or a customer escalation, a robust communication strategy holds every part of your organization firmly.

A survey by The State of Business Communication revealed that 72% of business leaders credit effective communication for their team’s productivity.

Without an organized communication plan, even the strongest strategies can fall apart, breaking your business. Writing an effective communication plan isn’t a tedious process if you have pre-made internal communication plan templates in place.

In this post, you’ll learn how to create an effective communication plan that prepares you and your company for any situation — and I’ll provide some templates to help you in the process.

Table of Contents

What is a communication plan?

How to write a communication plan, communication plan templates.

A communication plan enables you to effectively deliver information to appropriate stakeholders. The plan will identify the messages you need to promote, to whom you're targeting those messages, and on which channel(s). communication plans can be used in times of crises, but they are also used when pitching new initiatives or launching new products.

A descriptive business communication plan answers the where, why, and how of your campaigns. From product launch to advertising, running social media promotions, or addressing a crisis, a communication strategy details the messages to deliver, to which audiences, and through which channel.

For instance, if I were to create a communication plan for a data breach crisis in an IT company, I’d need to create an immediate crisis plan to communicate with the crisis team. The plan will outline the goals, stakeholders’ comments, plan of action, communication medium, and due date.

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It’s also important to name the person or a team responsible for the specific issues and include the customer problems within.

In my opinion, it’s impractical to use one type of communication template for various communication types. A social media communication plan, for example, will have the key components as campaign objectives, communication channel, frequency, audience type, and date of posts.

For the same organization, a product launch template will have a different layout — consisting of product launch type, deliverables for clients, leads, stakeholders, and social media. This also requires a public relation, so you’ll need a tab for covering the media news.

I’d also consider different formats for different communication plans. While a social media or a product launch communication plan looks more organized in the table format, a strategic communication plan is understandable in a horizontal text format.

Need a free, easy-to-use communication plan template? HubSpot has 12. Check out this toolkit for everything you need to build your own.

This is part of a template offered in the toolkit. For this particular template, the organization is separated into phases, a description of that phase, and who needs to complete that action.

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Now that we’ve gone over how a communication plan can be helpful, let’s learn how to write one that will be effective.

• Use pre-built communication plan templates.
• Conduct an audit of your current communication materials.
• Set SMART goals for your communication plan based on the results from your audit.
• Identify the audience to whom you plan to deliver your communication plan.
• Outline and write your plan, keeping your audiences in mind.
• Determine the channel(s) on which you need to deliver your messages.
• Decide which team members are responsible for delivering the message.
• Estimate a timeline for how long each step should take.
• Measure the results of your plan after presenting to stakeholders, and determine successes and areas for improvement.

1. Use pre-built communication plan templates.

If I had to write a communication plan for a social media campaign, a crisis management message, or a public relations campaign, I would consider using different layouts for each.

For each of these communication plans, it is essential to stay consistent with the structure and layout. There are a multitude of communication plan apps and tools to write effective communication and automate the plans — but that comes with a catch.

The tools can’t be a suitable pick for large teams with a multitude of objectives and goals. Also, the technicalities within these tools aren’t suitable for every team member or manager at various levels.

Instead, the pre-built templates can be a good starting point for writing an effective communication plan. These templates can be downloaded in various formats — Excel, Word, PDF, or any editable format.

From time tracking to goal planning, from conducting regular meetings to complying with regulations, the business templates can be a great time-saver for large project teams.

These business templates by HubSpot , for example, offer free downloadable templates for various communication plan types — action plans, annual reports, business proposals, business cases, etc.

2. Conduct an audit of your current communication materials.

Renowned U.S. retailer John Wannamaker once said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted and the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

If you’re sailing on the same boat, you might need a thorough communication audit. A communication audit analyzes the current communication material and provides relevant data and insights on future plans.

For example, I’d need to perform an audit on brand messaging, intended effects, and product progress before starting a product launch communication plan.

The audit will help me identify the major gaps in the marketing materials and a topic that is discussed but aligns well with the new product. Hence, the communication audit upfront will let me know what to include in the communication plan.

To conduct an audit, you’ll need to carefully gather and interpret data on your current marketing plan performance and build a path forward based on those results.

It is also imperative to host focus groups or send surveys to the audiences to find gaps in the current communication materials.

Of course, you’ll want to have the goal of your communication plan in mind when conducting an audit.

For instance, if you’re launching a new email marketing tool and you notice you’re lacking content on Google Ads, this might not be relevant information for your communication plan.

However, if you’re missing content on email marketing best practices, that’s important information you can use to tailor your communication plan appropriately.

The following template considers the five Ms for a successful communication audit. The top leadership and the head of the project can leverage elements to understand the current communication scenario.

This example from Smartsheet is a nine-step roadmap that includes space for a mission statement, executive summary, situation analysis, key messages, and more.

The key components of this three-page communication template are:

• Executive summary.
• Target audience.
• List of stakeholders.
• Communication medium.
• Competitive analysis like SMART goals.
• Budget plans.
• Situation analysis, including the PESTLE and SWOT analysis.

Documenting details like PESTLE analysis and SWOT analysis will give your internal stakeholders a clear picture.

What I like: I like this template because of its comprehensive communication elements such as key messages, tools, and tactics for communication, budget, and a milestone chart. This chart lists all the tasks, the owner, and due date, which brings transparency to the communication.

6 . Crisis Communication Plan Template

This communication checklist below, by Prezly , gives a great overview of the details of a crisis plan from beginning to end. It can be used as an effective guide when drafting a crisis management strategy.

A crisis communication plan lays out the actions that you need to take before an unlikely event. These actions include scrutiny and legal issues, compliance with regulations, and the necessary escape.

The template also includes the representative who should be a spokesperson for this crisis with additional resources such as press releases or announcements on social media or email.

The template stands out for its simplicity and accessibility in the Excel format, making it customizable. This Prezly crisis template has tabs that segment different phases of crisis: pre-crisis, live crisis, and post-crisis.

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How to Start a Communications Agency

• September 21, 2013

A communications agency is involved in a variety of issues, including helping companies communicate effectively for improved business operations. A communication agency will, thus, engage in issues such as logo designing, branding and brand communication . Here are steps on how to start a communications agency.

1. Carry Out a Market Research

A research will help you identify and understand your competitors, the available opportunities, and other market forces. You will be able to select the best market niche and the type of communication agency after carrying out a market research. Market research helps you identify the real demand of the business and what clients are looking for. A market research also helps you identify the best strategy you need to adopt to beat your competitors and establish your business. An elaborate market research helps you to identify different communication strategies needed by different companies in your niche, at different situations. These may also vary depending on the type of business and the research should help you identify the best type of businesses to deal with depending on your professionalism and experience.

2. Write a Business Plan

A business plan helps you to see what your objectives are and how to accomplish them. It will help you understand what number of employees you need, the office space and the amount of start up capital. You may also have to specify the type of clients you will be dealing with, for instance, depending on the type of business they do. A business plan, together with a market research helps you identify legal obligations that need to be met while starting and carrying out the business. A business plan helps you to have financial and other forecasts, in order to ensure that it has a good basis for future stability and growth.

3. Source Out for Funds

You may need to source for funds from different sources in order to ensure that you have enough. This amount of capital depends on the plans and resources outlined in the business plan. The office equipment and premises are organized after getting funds. You may need to decide how capital is raised and how profits will be shared if it is a partnership business, and how duties will be shared. Such issues are settled in an elaborate business plan.

4. Reach Out for Clients

After setting out an office, you can start advertising your business by reaching out to prospective clients. You may need to use modern methods of advertising such as the internet. With good market research, you should identify the best advertising options suitable for your targeted clients and what competitors are using. It is also necessary to look out for other methods that may yield results in the future, for instance use of email advertisement and Yellow Pages.

5. Strengthen Your Business

Building a communications agency is not a one-time effort but a continuous process that requires strategic planning, adaptability, and a proactive approach. To ensure the long-term success and growth of your communications agency, consider the following steps:

• Stay Agile and Adaptive: As the business landscape evolves, it’s crucial to stay agile and adaptive. Keep abreast of industry trends, technological advancements, and changes in consumer behavior. Embrace flexibility in your communication strategies and be prepared to pivot when necessary.
• Invest in Professional Development: To maintain a competitive edge, invest in the ongoing professional development of yourself and your team. Attend industry conferences, workshops, and training sessions to stay updated on the latest communication tools, techniques, and best practices. Continuous learning ensures that your agency remains at the forefront of innovation.
• Cultivate Client Relationships: Building strong and lasting relationships with clients is fundamental to the success of a communications agency. Regularly engage with clients to understand their evolving needs, challenges, and goals. Implement feedback mechanisms to assess client satisfaction and make adjustments accordingly. Satisfied clients are more likely to become long-term partners and advocates for your agency.
• Embrace Technological Integration: Leverage technology to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your communication services. Explore innovative tools and platforms that can streamline processes, improve collaboration, and provide data-driven insights. Stay informed about emerging technologies in the communication industry and evaluate their relevance to your agency’s operations.
• Implement a Robust Marketing Strategy: Keep your agency visible and relevant in the market by implementing a robust marketing strategy. Utilize a mix of traditional and digital marketing channels to reach your target audience. Showcase successful case studies, client testimonials, and the unique value propositions that set your agency apart. Consistent and strategic marketing efforts will contribute to brand visibility and attract new clients.

6. Monitor and Analyze Performance Metrics

Implement a system for monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your communication agency. Track metrics such as client retention rates, campaign success, and employee productivity. Regularly analyze this data to identify areas for improvement and optimization.

7. Foster a Creative and Collaborative Culture

Cultivate a work environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Foster a culture where team members feel empowered to contribute ideas, share insights, and collaborate on projects. A creative and collaborative culture can lead to innovative solutions and a more dynamic agency.

8. Expand Service Offerings Based on Market Trends

Stay attuned to market trends and evolving client needs. Consider expanding your service offerings to align with emerging trends in communication, such as immersive technologies, interactive content, or sustainability-focused campaigns. Diversifying your services can open new revenue streams and attract a broader client base.

In the ever-evolving landscape of communication, establishing a successful agency is just the beginning of a dynamic journey. The outlined steps provide a strategic foundation for launching a communications agency, emphasizing the importance of thorough market research, meticulous business planning, financial foresight, client outreach, and continuous business strengthening.

The fifth step, “Strengthen Your Business,” encapsulates the essence of enduring success. However, it is not a static achievement but a continuous, adaptive process. As the industry advances, so must the agency. Staying agile, investing in professional development, cultivating client relationships, embracing technology, and implementing robust marketing strategies are crucial components of this ongoing journey.

Moreover, monitoring performance metrics, fostering a creative and collaborative culture, and expanding service offerings align the agency with industry trends and client expectations. These additional steps contribute to the agency’s resilience, ensuring it not only survives but thrives in the competitive communication landscape.

In conclusion, the path to success in the communication industry demands more than just a blueprint; it requires a commitment to growth, innovation, and client satisfaction. By integrating these principles into the fabric of your agency, you not only launch a business but embark on a sustainable journey toward becoming a dynamic and influential force in the world of communication. May your agency continuously adapt, innovate, and exceed expectations, solidifying its position as a leader in the ever-evolving realm of communication.

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How to Write a Business Plan for Integrated Communications Success

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Launching a successful Integrated Communications Agency requires meticulous planning and preparation. Before diving into your business plan, it's crucial to cover 9 essential steps that will set the foundation for your venture. From conducting thorough market research to ensuring compliance with industry regulations, this comprehensive checklist will guide you through the pre-planning phase and position your agency for long-term growth and profitability.

Steps Prior To Business Plan Writing

Conduct Thorough Market Research and Competitive Analysis

Crafting a successful business plan for an Integrated Communications Agency requires a deep understanding of the market landscape and the competitive environment. This crucial first step lays the foundation for making informed strategic decisions that will shape the agency's growth and long-term sustainability.

Begin by conducting a comprehensive market research to gain insights into the industry trends, target audience preferences, and the evolving communication needs of potential clients. Analyze industry reports, consumer behavior data, and market projections to identify emerging opportunities and potential pain points that your agency can address.

• Leverage online surveys, focus groups, and interviews to gather first-hand feedback from your target audience.
• Explore social media platforms to monitor industry conversations and identify emerging communication trends.
• Utilize web analytics tools to analyze the online behavior and engagement of your potential clients.

Alongside market research, it is essential to conduct a competitive analysis to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and unique positioning of your competitors. Identify the leading agencies in your local and regional markets, analyze their service offerings, pricing structures, and marketing strategies. This information will help you differentiate your agency's value proposition and develop a unique competitive edge.

• Examine the online presence and digital footprint of your competitors to understand their branding and customer engagement tactics.
• Reach out to industry peers and professionals to gather insights into the competitive landscape and identify potential collaboration opportunities.
• Attend industry events and conferences to network with peers and stay updated on the latest trends and best practices.

By investing time and resources in comprehensive market research and competitive analysis, you can develop a deep understanding of the Integrated Communications Agency industry, identify your target audience's evolving needs, and position your agency as a trusted partner that delivers tailored, impactful solutions. This foundational knowledge will be instrumental in crafting a compelling and strategic business plan that sets your agency up for long-term success.

According to a recent industry report, the global integrated communications market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.2% from 2021 to 2028, reaching a market size of $ 436.8 billion by 2028 . This presents a significant opportunity for Integrated Communications Agencies to capitalize on the growing demand for integrated, data-driven communication strategies.

Identify Your Target Audience and Their Communication Needs

Identifying your target audience and understanding their communication needs is a crucial step in developing a successful business plan for your Integrated Communications Agency. By thoroughly researching your potential clients and their preferences, you can tailor your services and messaging to effectively address their pain points and deliver maximum value.

Begin by conducting market research to gather insights into your target audience's demographics, psychographics, and communication habits. Analyze industry trends, consumer behavior, and the competitive landscape to gain a comprehensive understanding of your audience's needs and the current market landscape.

• Use a combination of primary research (e.g., surveys, focus groups) and secondary research (e.g., industry reports, market data) to gather in-depth information about your target audience.
• Segment your audience based on factors such as company size, industry, geographic location, and communication preferences to create personalized strategies.
• Regularly update your target audience research to stay informed about evolving trends and changing needs.

Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, focus on identifying their specific communication needs. Understand the communication challenges they face, the channels they prefer, and the type of content that resonates with them. This insight will help you develop tailored service offerings and messaging that effectively address their pain points and position your Integrated Communications Agency as the preferred solution.

• Conduct surveys or interviews to gather direct feedback from your target audience about their communication preferences and challenges.
• Analyze the communication strategies and content of your competitors to identify gaps in the market and opportunities for your agency.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest communication trends and technologies to anticipate and address your audience's evolving needs.

By thoroughly understanding your target audience and their communication needs, you can create a more compelling and effective business plan for your Integrated Communications Agency. This foundation will enable you to develop a unique value proposition, tailor your service offerings, and establish a strong competitive advantage in the market.

According to a recent study by the International Association of Business Communicators, 78% of successful communications agencies attribute their growth to a deep understanding of their target audience and their specific communication requirements.

Determine Your Unique Value Proposition and Service Offerings

Developing a strong and differentiated value proposition is crucial for the success of your Integrated Communications Agency. In a highly competitive market, it's essential to identify how your agency can uniquely address the communication needs of your target clients and stand out from the competition.

Begin by conducting a thorough analysis of the existing communications agencies in your local market and the services they offer. Identify the gaps in the industry, the pain points of your potential clients, and the unique capabilities your agency can leverage. This will help you craft a value proposition that truly resonates with your target audience.

• Analyze at least 5-10 competing agencies in your market to understand their service offerings, pricing, and unique selling points.
• Conduct in-depth interviews with 10-15 potential clients to uncover their communication challenges and preferences.
• Identify 2-3 core competencies or specialties that your agency can excel at and offer as unique services.

Once you have a clear understanding of your competitive landscape and client needs, you can start defining your agency's unique value proposition. This should articulate the specific benefits you provide, the problems you solve, and the unique way in which you deliver your services. Your value proposition should be concise, compelling, and easily communicable to your target clients.

Based on your value proposition, you can then develop a comprehensive suite of service offerings that cater to the diverse communication requirements of your clients. This may include services such as strategic planning, brand development, public relations, digital marketing, content creation, and event management, among others. Ensure that your service offerings are well-aligned with your agency's core competencies and the evolving needs of your target market.

• Offer at least 5-7 core service offerings that align with your unique value proposition.
• Clearly define the scope, deliverables, and pricing for each of your service offerings.
• Continuously monitor industry trends and client feedback to refine your service portfolio.

By establishing a strong and differentiated value proposition, and developing a well-rounded suite of service offerings, your Integrated Communications Agency will be well-positioned to attract and retain high-value clients, and ultimately drive sustainable growth in a competitive market.

Assess your financial capabilities and resource requirements

Determining your financial capabilities and resource requirements is a critical step in the pre-planning phase for an Integrated Communications Agency like CommuniHub Solutions. This assessment will help you understand the financial viability of your business idea and ensure you have the necessary resources to turn your vision into reality.

Start by conducting a thorough analysis of your startup and ongoing operational costs. This includes factors such as office space, equipment, software, employee salaries, benefits, and marketing expenses . Carefully estimate these costs to create a realistic budget that will serve as the foundation for your business plan.

• Utilize industry benchmarks and data to validate your cost estimates. For example, the average cost to start a communications agency in the U.S. ranges from $30,000 to $100,000 , depending on the scale and scope of services offered.
• Research the typical profit margins for communications agencies, which can range from 20% to 40% of gross revenue, to ensure your financial projections are realistic.

Next, assess your available financial resources, such as personal savings, investments, or potential funding sources like loans, grants, or investor capital. Determine how much of your own capital you are willing to invest and how much external funding you will need to secure to launch and sustain your Integrated Communications Agency.

It's also crucial to consider the ongoing financial requirements of your agency, including cash flow management, billing and invoicing processes, and financial reporting . Develop a comprehensive financial plan that accounts for these operational aspects and ensures the long-term viability of your business.

• Explore options for securing a line of credit or business loan to provide a financial buffer during the early stages of your agency's growth.
• Invest in accounting software and financial management tools to streamline your agency's financial operations and ensure accurate, timely reporting.

By thoroughly assessing your financial capabilities and resource requirements, you'll be well-equipped to create a robust business plan that accurately reflects the financial realities of operating an Integrated Communications Agency like CommuniHub Solutions. This foundational step will help you make informed decisions, secure the necessary funding, and set your agency up for long-term success.

Develop a Brand Identity and Positioning Strategy

Establishing a strong brand identity and positioning strategy is a crucial step in the development of an Integrated Communications Agency. Your brand serves as the foundation for all your communication efforts, shaping how your target audience perceives and interacts with your agency. By carefully crafting your brand identity and positioning, you can differentiate your agency from the competition and effectively communicate your unique value proposition.

Begin by conducting a thorough analysis of your target market and competitors. Understand the landscape, identify gaps, and determine how your agency can provide a distinct and compelling offering. This research will inform the development of your brand's personality, tone, and visual identity, ensuring it resonates with your intended audience.

Crafting a distinctive brand identity involves several key elements, such as your agency's name, logo, color palette, typography, and overall visual style. These elements should work together to create a cohesive and memorable brand that reflects your agency's core values, expertise, and the experience you aim to provide for your clients.

• Tip: Consider conducting focus groups or surveys to gather feedback on your brand concept and ensure it aligns with your target audience's preferences and expectations.

Alongside your brand identity, it is crucial to develop a clear positioning strategy that differentiates your Integrated Communications Agency from the competition. This involves identifying your agency's unique value proposition, highlighting your core competencies, and articulating how your services address the specific needs and pain points of your target clients.

Your positioning strategy should be reflected in your agency's messaging, marketing materials, and overall communication approach. Consistently communicating your unique value proposition and positioning across all touchpoints will help to build brand awareness, trust, and loyalty among your target audience.

• Tip: Regularly review and refine your brand identity and positioning strategy to ensure they remain relevant and effective as your agency grows and the market evolves.

By investing time and resources into developing a strong brand identity and positioning strategy, you can significantly enhance the visibility, credibility, and competitiveness of your Integrated Communications Agency. This foundation will serve as a powerful tool to attract and retain clients, as well as to foster long-term relationships and drive business growth.

Establish Strategic Partnerships and Networking Opportunities

As an Integrated Communications Agency, establishing strategic partnerships and networking opportunities is a crucial step in building a successful business. By collaborating with complementary organizations and leveraging industry connections, you can expand your reach, access new client bases, and stay ahead of the competition.

One of the key benefits of strategic partnerships is the ability to offer a more comprehensive suite of services to your clients. By aligning with specialized providers in areas like digital marketing, public relations, or event planning, you can provide your clients with a one-stop-shop for all their communication needs. This not only enhances the value you provide but also strengthens your position as a trusted, full-service agency.

Networking, on the other hand, allows you to stay informed about industry trends, identify potential clients or partners, and position your agency as a thought leader in the communications space. Attend industry events, join professional associations, and actively participate in online communities to build your reputation and expand your network.

• Tip: Leverage online platforms like LinkedIn to connect with industry peers, potential clients, and strategic partners. Engage with relevant discussions and share your expertise to showcase your agency's capabilities.
• Tip: Prioritize building relationships with complementary service providers, such as graphic designers, web developers, or content creators. These partnerships can lead to valuable cross-referrals and collaborative opportunities.

When evaluating potential partnerships, consider the alignment of your agency's values, service offerings, and target audience. Ensure that the partnership will bring tangible benefits, such as access to new markets, enhanced credibility, or improved operational efficiencies. Establish clear communication channels, define roles and responsibilities, and regularly review the partnership to ensure it continues to deliver value for both parties.

According to a recent industry report, 82% of successful communications agencies attribute their growth to strategic partnerships and networking initiatives. By proactively building these connections, you can position your Integrated Communications Agency for long-term success and stay ahead of the competition.

Outline your operational processes and management structure

Establishing a solid operational framework and management structure is crucial for the success of your Integrated Communications Agency, 'CommuniHub Solutions'. This step lays the foundation for efficient service delivery, effective resource allocation, and seamless collaboration within your organization.

Begin by mapping out your key operational processes, from client onboarding and project management to content creation, media relations, and performance tracking. Clearly define roles and responsibilities for each team member, ensuring that your agency operates like a well-oiled machine.

• Implement project management tools and workflows to streamline your operations and improve team productivity.
• Establish clear communication protocols and reporting structures to foster transparency and accountability within your agency.
• Invest in robust project management software to help you manage client projects, track deadlines, and monitor budgets effectively.

Next, consider your management structure and leadership team. Determine the key roles and responsibilities, such as the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Creative Director, and Account Managers. Ensure that your management team has the necessary expertise, experience, and decision-making capabilities to guide your agency towards its strategic goals.

Allocate resources for ongoing professional development and training to keep your team's skills and knowledge up-to-date. This will not only enhance the quality of your services but also foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation within your agency.

• Encourage your team to attend industry conferences, workshops, and webinars to stay informed about the latest trends and best practices.
• Implement a mentorship program to facilitate knowledge sharing and skill development among your team members.
• Regularly review and update your operational processes and management structure to adapt to changing market conditions and client needs.

By outlining your operational processes and management structure, you'll create a solid foundation for your Integrated Communications Agency, 'CommuniHub Solutions'. This step will enable you to deliver high-quality services, optimize resource utilization, and foster a collaborative and innovative work environment that drives your agency's long-term success.

Ensure Compliance with Relevant Industry Regulations and Standards

As an Integrated Communications Agency, it is crucial to ensure compliance with the relevant industry regulations and standards. This not only protects your business from legal and reputational risks but also demonstrates your commitment to ethical and professional practices, which can be a significant competitive advantage.

One of the key regulatory frameworks that communications agencies must adhere to is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) . This EU-wide regulation sets strict guidelines for the collection, storage, and processing of personal data, which is a critical aspect of many communications services. Failure to comply with GDPR can result in hefty fines and damage to your agency's reputation.

• Familiarize yourself with the GDPR requirements and implement robust data protection policies and procedures within your agency.
• Ensure that your team is trained on GDPR compliance and that all client data is handled in accordance with the regulation.
• Consider appointing a dedicated Data Protection Officer (DPO) to oversee your agency's data privacy practices.

Another important consideration is the Code of Ethics established by industry associations, such as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) or the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) . These codes outline the professional standards and ethical principles that communications agencies and their employees should adhere to, including honesty, transparency, and respect for client confidentiality.

• Review the relevant industry code of ethics and incorporate its principles into your agency's policies and practices.
• Encourage your team to familiarize themselves with the code and to uphold its standards in their day-to-day work.
• Consider seeking accreditation or certification from industry associations to demonstrate your agency's commitment to ethical practices.

In addition to regulatory compliance, it is also important to ensure that your agency's services and processes adhere to relevant industry standards. This may include standards for web accessibility , brand identity guidelines , or media measurement and analytics . Adhering to these standards not only ensures the quality and effectiveness of your work but also helps to build trust with your clients.

• Research the industry standards relevant to your agency's services and incorporate them into your operational processes.
• Invest in training and professional development for your team to ensure they are up-to-date on the latest industry standards and best practices.
• Regularly review and update your agency's processes and procedures to maintain compliance with evolving industry standards.

By ensuring compliance with industry regulations and standards, your Integrated Communications Agency can demonstrate its commitment to ethical and professional practices, which can be a significant competitive advantage in the market. This not only protects your business from legal and reputational risks but also helps to build trust and credibility with your clients.

Allocate Resources for Ongoing Professional Development and Training

In the highly competitive world of integrated communications agencies, investing in the continuous growth and upskilling of your team is a critical component of long-term success. As you embark on your journey to establish CommuniHub Solutions , allocating resources for ongoing professional development and training should be a top priority in your business plan.

The communication industry is rapidly evolving, with new technologies, strategies, and best practices emerging at a breakneck pace. To stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional services to your clients, your team must be equipped with the latest knowledge, skills, and expertise. By dedicating a portion of your budget and resources to professional development, you can ensure that your employees have the tools they need to thrive in this dynamic landscape.

• Encourage your team to attend industry conferences, workshops, and certification programs to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices.
• Provide access to online learning platforms, e-books, and industry publications to foster a culture of continuous learning.
• Consider implementing a mentorship program where experienced professionals can share their knowledge and insights with junior team members.

Furthermore, investing in training can have a direct impact on the quality of your services and the overall efficiency of your agency. When your team is well-trained and equipped with the latest tools and techniques, they can deliver more effective, innovative, and impactful solutions for your clients. This, in turn, can lead to increased client satisfaction, higher retention rates, and a stronger reputation within the industry.

According to a recent study by the Association of Talent Development, companies that invest in employee training and development report 24% higher profit margins compared to those that do not. Additionally, a survey by the International Federation of Accountants found that 93% of organizations believe that continuous professional development is essential for their employees' success.

As you develop your business plan for CommuniHub Solutions , be sure to allocate a meaningful portion of your resources towards ongoing professional development and training. This investment will not only empower your team to deliver exceptional services but also position your agency for long-term growth and success in the dynamic integrated communications landscape.

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Integrated Communications Business Plan

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Aero Technologies

Executive summary executive summary is a brief introduction to your business plan. it describes your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights.">.

Today the world is defined by the term ‘Information Age.’ All businesses, both large and small, require effective and efficient business communication solutions in order to continuously meet their customer expectations and attain a competitive advantage, and therefore be successful. Whether a company is large or small it is realized that, the right amount of financing, materials, talent, and experience are not enough to succeed without a good communication system in place that enables smooth transaction sealing. Communications is at the heart of regional and international integration, with the development of an efficient, cost effective and technologically advanced communications infrastructure essential to Botswana’s success in the global market. With the economies of most countries becoming increasingly sophisticated and knowledge-intensive, there is a greater need for the existence of an efficient network that will enable decision-makers to have access to timely and accurate data to facilitate decision-making and transaction sealing.

We are on the brink of penetrating a lucrative market in a rapidly growing industry. The current increase in the number of entrepreneurs, and competition among existing companies presents an opportunity for Aero Technologies to penetrate the market. Our services/products will be positioned very carefully. They will be of extremely high quality to ensure client satisfaction, supported by impeccable customer service. Aero Technologies will offer the expertise that a proactive oriented and market-opportunity seeking company needs to develop and maintain a good communications system. We intend to provide a number of necessary services the business community and to the public. Initial plans are to introduce five main lines of services, with the primary focus on Multimedia, Call Centre facility, Data Communications and IT, Financial Services, and Knowledge Consulting.

We realize that, for us to prosper, there is need to be flexible and responsive, to delight clients by providing them what they want, when they want it, and before the competition can offer it. The company intends to achieve this through a systematic approach that is customer-centric, and in which the customer’s business objectives enjoy top priority. This involves not only skill and depth of knowledge, but time devoted to studying a customer’s needs. Aero Technologies will view the provision of value-added services over the entire scope of our customers’ requirements as not only essential, but as a competitive advantage which the company protects as a key asset; from service concept to service provision, the intention will be to ensure that every policy and procedure, system and process has the objective of improving the flexibility and response of the whole company. There is a need for interaction between all functional areas, particularly between marketing and service logistics, if the project is to realize its full potential, with marketing being employed as a strategic weapon.

Once the needs and processes are understood and described, leading edge products and best-of-industry skills will be applied to design and develop a fitting solution to satisfy the need and enable the client’s business in the most cost effective way.

Our marketing strategy will be based mainly on ensuring customers know what need the service(s) is able to fulfill, and making the right service and information available to the right target client. We intend to implement a market penetration strategy that will ensure that our services are well known and respected in our respective industry. Our marketing strategy will convey the sense of quality and satisfaction in every picture, every promotion, and every publication. Our promotional strategy will involve integrating traditional advertising, breakfast seminars, events, Internet marketing, personal selling, public relations, and direct marketing, details of which are provided in the marketing section of this plan.

We intend to build our project management team correctly. We need the right people in the right place at the right time if we are to ensure optimum growth. We intend to develop our team so that our people can grow as the company grows — a mutually beneficial relationship.

The intention is to go into partnership with NNN Limited, a company registered in QQQ, and provide financial, IT, and data communications consultancy services to industries in the application and use of latest technologies such as data communication and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), enabling cellular telecommunications.

In a nutshell, we don’t just intend to market and sell our service, but to market and provide a service that will ensure our client’s customer satisfaction, ease of communication, improved corporate logistics, and cost savings on transactions ensuring a total-quality environment. This will ensure we establish and maintain a reputable corporate image. However it should be noted that timing and information provision will be of the utmost importance and significance in terms of the project’s introduction onto the market. In addition we are appreciative of the fact that entering such a market is not a bed of roses, particularly as it is still a relatively new concept needing to be implanted in people’s minds in terms of the benefits it may bring to them, as well as the number of ‘laggard’ firms who often do not easily appreciate the need for change, be it to their benefit. In such a case the need will exist to aggressively market the concept to these organizations and individuals through various means. Hence the intention is to utilize the technical and business know-how of technical partners in order to implement and attain our business objectives.

NOTE: All currency values in this plan are expressed in Botswanan Pula [P].

1.1 Objectives

Our business strategy will revolve around the need to provide quality service and products to our various target clients, in the process fully satisfying their needs. This shall be undertaken through recruitment of a professional telemarketing, sales and technical team and the provision of good quality custom-designed services, catering for the clients’ particular needs.

With time our marketing campaign will increase the knowledge of our services to the various market segments we shall be targeting. This is particularly so with organizations looking at establishing a competitive advantage(s) on the market due to increased competition, hence providing them with the opportunity to focus on their core activities whilst procuring increased business from new and existing customers. Marketing material shall be professionally done so as to be reflective of our intended image and reputation. We shall position ourselves as a quality total communications solution service provider that strives to provide effective and efficient communication solutions. We intend to establish a good rapport with all the relevant stakeholders.

In summary we intend to attain the following objectives:

• Continuously provide professional quality services on time and on budget.
• Develop a follow-up strategy to gauge performance with all our clients.
• Implement and maintain a quality control system and assurance policy.
• To continuously formalize and measure cross-functional working communication so as to ensure that the various departments work harmoniously towards attainment of company objectives.
• To instill a culture of continuous improvement in beating standards of customer satisfaction and efficiency.
• We are fully committed to supporting growth and development in the economy.

1.2 Mission

Internally we intend to create and nurture a healthy, creative, respectful and enjoyable office environment, in which our employees are fairly compensated and encouraged to respect the customer and the quality of the service we provide. In addition follow-up will be mandatory so as ensure customer satisfaction and make any improvements as recommended by the customers in future. We seek fair and responsible profit, enough to keep the company financially healthy for the short and long term, and to fairly compensate investors for the money and risk.

1.3 Keys to Success

The keys to this project’s success will undoubtedly be effective market segmentation through identification of several niche markets and implementation strategies. Along these lines the company intends to implement personal selling and direct marketing strategies to the target markets. Hence the key success factors will include the following:

• Excellence in fulfilling the promise: Completely confidential, reliable, trustworthy expertise and service(s) through the provision of an uncompromising service. This dictates that we have in place the latest technology, hardware and software, and well-trained personnel so as to fulfill the aforesaid.
• Timely response to clients’ orders: We cannot afford to delay our clients for whatever reason, as this will have a negative bearing on our image and reputation, including future business. Hence we need to be continually communicating with the client ensuring we provide needs-based solutions.
• Skill and depth of knowledge: Considering the nature of our services and their relative infancy on the market, the skill and depth of knowledge of our personnel shall be of utmost importance in determining the provision of the service(s) to the end-users.
• Marketing know-how: In a relatively volatile market there will be a need to aggressively market our business and the services we provide so as to be continuously at the top of our prospective and current clients minds. This will also act as a temporary deterrent for companies contemplating entering our market. Advertising shall be one of our competitive advantages.
• Leveraging from a large pool of expertise: The company’s various alliances with technological partners shall prove invaluable considering the skills and intellectual capacity these partners will have in the fields of design and system integration, implementation and execution, lifecycle support and understanding, and in the application of new technology. This has the potential of proving to be an important differentiator on the market.

Company Summary company overview ) is an overview of the most important points about your company—your history, management team, location, mission statement and legal structure.">

Aero Technologies, Ltd. was founded in November 1999 as a Private Limited Company through the foresight and vision of the three directors. It was formed as a division of TTT with the directors having identified a large potential market for their products and services. For most of its initial existence, the company intends to utilize the large database and experience of its directors in obtaining orders, with the intention of establishing close relationships with its clients.

2.1 Company Ownership

Aero Technologies is a company incorporated at the Registrar of Companies by XXX, YYY, and ZZZ. Though relatively new, the directors realize their company’s vast potential market and opportunity for growth given implementation of the appropriate strategies, aided by the necessary finances. Aero Technologies was established with 3,000 shares equally distributed amongst the directors.

2.2 Start-up Summary

Total start-up expenses covered (including legal costs, logo design, stationery and related expenses) came to approximately P1,192,000. Start-up assets required and utilized included personal computers, vehicles, office furniture, and other office equipment.

Products and Services

Aero Technologies offers the expertise a proactive oriented and technologically inclined company needs to perform its operations efficiently and effectively, through allowing it to concentrate on its core activities whilst deploying the latest communication implements. Its wide range of solutions will incorporate and embrace customer contact centres, technology enabled relationship management, technology enabled marketing and technology enabled selling solutions, multi-service data and voice networking as well as Individualized Customer Relationship Management centres, integration services and Knowledge Management Consulting. Hence we intend to provide a number of necessary services to the business community, primarily the upper echelons, as well as the public. These can be summed up in five main areas:

• Call Centre Facility
• Data Communications and IT
• Financial Services
• Knowledge Management.

Hence we intend to offer the expertise a high-technology company needs to develop new product distribution and new market segments in new markets. However it should be noted that the Knowledge Management Centre will invariably incorporate the functions of the other divisions.

3.1 SWOT Analysis

We are presently in a highly lucrative market in a rapidly growing economy. We foresee our strengths as the ability to respond timeously to the market dictates and to provide custom designed technological services. Our key personnel will have a wide and thorough knowledge of the technological services we intend to provide, and expertise, which will go a long way towards penetrating the market. Below are the summarized strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

3.2 Macroenvironment

Research indicates that the younger more ambitious market presently in the executive and overall business sector, being more educated and aware of the global environment, assesses and implements its core activities to a much higher degree than past trends have indicated. This is exacerbated by the increase in competition in all industries. Therefore with the emergence of this generation of individuals, the appreciation of quality services and business communication solutions/recommendations that provide for and enable company growth, dictates that our service lines will be popular.

The current drive by the government towards a more diversified economy presents an opportunity for our business to propel and excel in our intended markets, benefiting from the support of the concerned institutions and trade bodies. In addition with the country increasingly becoming an economic hub, we foresee a demand for high quality business communication solutions. Through undertaking our business activities professionally, we foresee that it should not be too difficult to gain market acceptance if we deliver the final service timeously and of good quality, at competitive rates.

3.3 Sales Literature

We also intend to have well designed posters, table tents, T-shirts, mouse pads, keys-holders, and mugs distributed at strategic points and procured through reputable manufacturers so as not to compromise on quality. Potential strategic points for our literature include hotels, lodges, computer hardware and software distributors amongst others.

3.4 Technology

Aero Technologies will strive to maintain the latest business communication hardware and software capabilities so as to ensure we are continuously at the forefront in our market arena. The one certainty in our industry is that technology will continue to evolve and develop, changing what we market as well as how we market it. Our aim will be to be aware of the implications of this new technology and utilize it in our existing framework where possible. Complete presentation facilities for preparation and delivery of multimedia presentations on Macintosh or Windows machines, in formats that include on-disk presentation or video presentation are also possibilities that still are being looked into. We also intend to have the latest and most efficient software in place to enable smooth operations. Please see the capital equipment for further details.

3.5 Future Products and Services

In putting the project together we have attempted to offer enough services to allow us to always be in demand by our clients. However, technological developments have provided us with a new era of opportunities for the various organizations in which we can only guess at the needs. For example, current rapid innovations/ development of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) technology, which is seeing a new service being introduced almost on a fortnightly basis overseas, presents an opportunity to be realized, particularly focusing on WAP enabled cellphones that enable individuals to access or send their email messages over the cellphone. There is also the possibility to introduce video-conferencing, as we will have the necessary infrastructure in place. Applications such as banking by cellphone, online telephone directories and delivery of breaking news headlines are also future services to be utilized. However, the most important factor in developing future services will be market need. Our understanding of the needs of our target market segments will be one of our competitive advantages. It is critical to our effort to develop the right new services.

Market Analysis Summary how to do a market analysis for your business plan.">

We are today experiencing a rapid growth in the economy of unsurpassed nature. This has been brought about by, amongst other things, the relaxation of foreign exchange policies and macroeconomic policies geared towards attracting foreign investors into the country. The fiscal and monetary policies of the government geared towards maintaining growth with social justice have largely contributed towards this, evidenced by our economy averaging a growth rate of 7% since 1990 — very high by international standards.

The current drive and emphasis by the government on diversification of the industrial base away from the minerals sector presents an opportunity for Aero Technologies to make a valuable contribution towards achieving this goal. This will result in implementation of modern Information Technology services and techniques, and transfer of knowledge.

Aware of the fact that we will be operating in a predominantly infant market we intend to ensure that our marketing strategies are considerate of the importance of the fit between our services capabilities and benefits, and the target market, so as to develop a strong sustainable competitive position in the market. As a result we intend to implement a niche marketing strategy, focusing on certain target markets.

It should be appreciated that entering such a market is not a bed of roses, particularly considering its infancy and hence the intention will be to implement an aggressive marketing strategy, well supported by the other business functions. The above prognosis influenced our decision to enter the IT business communication service provision/consultancy industry.

4.1 Market Segmentation

We will be focusing on proactive, market seeking organizations, who want to sell into markets in the region and overseas. These are mostly larger companies, and occasionally medium-sized companies.

Our most important group of potential customers are business executives in large, medium and small corporations. These are marketing managers, general managers, sales managers, sometimes charged with international focus and sometimes charged with market or even specific channel focus. They do not want to waste their time or money looking for bargain information or questionable expertise. As they go into markets looking at new opportunities, they are very sensitive to risking their company’s name and reputation. Hence the need to professionally market our services and business as a whole, offering impeccable expertise. Our intention will be to offer an attractive development alternative to the company that is management constrained and unable to address opportunities in new markets and new market segments due to technological shortfalls.

4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy

Our marketing strategy will be based mainly on making the right service(s) available to the right target customer. We will ensure that our services’ prices take into consideration organizations’/peoples’ budgets, and that these people appreciate the service and know that it exists, including where to find it. The marketing will convey the sense of quality in every picture, every promotion, and every publication. Our intention will be to target those innovative or proactive companies contemplating transferring a part of their marketing activities on the Internet, in order to benefit from the advantages offered by this unique system of communication. We realize the need to focus our marketing message and our service offerings. We need to develop our message, communicate it, and make good on it.

4.2.1 Market Needs

Aero Technologies intends to provide customers with the necessary systems and services to provide cutting-edge customer service, by essentially offering a certain spectrum of communications solutions, primarily the interaction applications.

We understand that our target markets need more than just continuous communication and information from their various stakeholders, but communication and information that will enable them to make more informed decisions and transactions at the earliest opportunity. We don’t just intend to provide a service(s), but to provide one of unparalleled nature relative to the market. Our target market are not businesses that want to make decisions solely on the basis of price, but instead are mainly concerned with having reliable providers of expertise and a good communications network in place.

4.2.2 Market Trends

In summary, the range and volume of products sold online are likely to increase vastly in the future, expanding the size and value of the electronic market. However, encouragement may be obtained from the fact that in its pursuit of diversification the Government of Botswana would very much encourage an additional player in the e-commerce market, provided they are of the right caliber and beneficial to the economy as a whole.

4.3 Service Business Analysis

A general market study about the benefits of wireless technology undertaken by Ovum Research, an international research company, was conducted on the use of cellular data communications and other conferencing facilities. The study notes that with the provision of wireless technology to various sub-Saharan countries, telecommunications systems could be profitably established.

The art of m-commerce relies on the convergence of Internet technologies, mobile devices, cellular phones, band-width and a whole lot of companies champing at the bit of m-commerce. M-commerce is about being able to transact business through any portable intelligent device and some of the greatest growth in the m-commerce arena is coming from the development of the cellular phone. The one wireless standard uniting and gaining momentum in the use of personal digital assistants (PDA) is the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). This protocol uses wireless means to connect any mobile device to specific Internet information. The computing device has to be WAP enabling and only a few Internet sites have been set up to cope with WAP transactions.

It is an obvious fact that the wireless revolution will have a positive impact on the economic and social development of Africa. Africa’s critical requirement is to build infrastructure. Wireless technology overcomes infrastructure costs of setting up fixed lines. International research has projected that wireless portals will become a US$42 billion revenue opportunity by 2005 as mobile users, including those in Africa, increasingly shift their businesses and other transactions from PCs to their handsets. Banking, email, surfing the Web, and even shopping will now be done anywhere and at any time.

There is a significant demand for WAP, with the prime candidate being small businesses, sales forces, and field support engineers as well as growing numbers of mobile managers equipped with PCs and cellular phones. In this way WAP is an important step toward third-generation mobile networks.

New WAP enabling phones provide the user with email, personal organizer and the ability to check bank accounts, time schedules, restaurant menus and more. All these online interactive services are especially written and formatted to be accessed on cellular phones. The growing popularity of WAP phones (currently 25,000 in South Africa alone) has meant that a number of companies are developing Internet sites with the content to service the WAP devices on the market.

The above analysis indicates how the wireless technology will revolutionize African business and particularly the small businesses run by individuals that may not be able to afford the luxury of a PC but will always need a phone and acquire the same services offered by the PC through their mobile phones. It should also be noted that the IT industry is an environment where small niche players and developers can compete with the larger groups and corporations. An individual can have the vision or development skills to deliver a meaningful concept, product or service, but the weak links in this process are the focus to end-user requirements, financial support in the development stages and the effective channels to market for the finished product or service.

4.3.1 Competition and Buying Patterns

The key element in purchase or subscription decisions made at the company’s client level is trust in the professional reputation and reliability of the firm. The most important factor in this market will be the quality of the service. This is particularly so considering the potential impact e-commerce will have on organizations meeting their bottom lines. The very nature of our services dictates that occasionally the pricing of our projects and billing rates will be variable, as different clients require different needs to be fulfilled in variable industry environments.

In our line of business clients rarely compare service providers directly, looking for two, or more, possible providers of a proposed project or job. Usually they follow word-of-mouth recommendations and either go for the job or not, rather than selecting from a menu of possible providers.

The most important element of general competition, by far, is what it takes to keep clients for repeat business. It is worth making concessions in any single service to maintain a client relationship that brings the client back for future services — realizing customer-lifetime value.

4.3.2 Main Competitors

In identifying competition in this new concept market, we find few companies currently offering services similar to ours. There are numerous providers of the older established ancillary services including traditional call centres. Hence there will be a need to strongly differentiate ourselves from these other businesses and market the benefit of utilizing our service(s). However on a broader scale our competition comes in several forms:

• The most significant competition will be the traditional communication systems currently in place within the respective organizations, particularly considering advances in technology enabling these organizations (potential clients) to better handle their calls, inquiries, and transactions. Many organizations are currently investing in technological instruments that will enable them to better handle their customers. This is particularly so considering the advances that have been made in terms of customer relationship management and all its related hardware and software programs, many of which have not yet been fully exposed on the local and African markets. The current onset and wave of customer relationship management overseas does pose a serious challenge for Aero Technologies’s intended services, as they are bound to infiltrate into the region in the form of software programs and hardware components.
• The increasing investment in training by organizations also represents competition in the area of intent. With organizations striving to instill a performance culture through training there will be a need to market the benefits of utilizing our service in conjunction with these organizations’ respective communications systems. This is due to the fact that these same organizations may feel that there is no need to utilize our service(s) as they would have invested large amounts into hardware and customer handling training of front office personnel.
• Major potential competitors will include all those service providers that offer Internet, email, e-commerce, and other related services to the market. Examples include (Discussion omitted). These companies already have a firm footing in their Internet businesses and are carefully analyzing the prospects of e-commerce.
• Though currently not engaged in e-commerce, numerous other IT, marketing and advertising companies are also contemplating entering this market. They are seeking to utilize or focus on their core competencies in their respective markets, whilst taking advantage of the technological revolution in conjunction with strategic partners who are well versed in the technical aspects. The recent installation of a top-of-the range computer network (with Internet) system by FFF is one case in point, as they seek to tap the vast opportunity presented by e-commerce. The majority of these have alliances with international firms.

However, upon closer analysis of the above competitors it may be observed that several of these potential competitors also represent client opportunities to be realized by us.

4.3.3 Distributing a Service

Service provision and consulting will be sold and purchased mainly on a word-of-mouth basis, with relationships and previous experience being, by far, the most important factor. In this regard we intend to provide a service that exceeds customer expectations so as to ensure they refer us to potential clients through word-of-mouth. New business shall be developed through industry associations, business associations, and in some cases, social associations such as country clubs.

As our services are relatively new on both the Botswana and regional markets we intend to host breakfast seminars and workshops primarily for senior managers and decision-makers, who may benefit from our services. This function will involve a considerable amount of networking on our part, as these individuals often do not have a lot of spare time.

Strategy and Implementation Summary

Initially, Aero Technologies will focus on the local and regional markets in the previously mentioned services. The target customers will include key decision-makers in the large, medium, and small-sized organizations, be they in a start-up, stable, or growth period.

Our marketing strategy will emphasize focus. This will be the key. We are a relatively new company on the market and must focus on certain kinds of services with certain kinds of clients. The project will focus on the local and regional markets, expanding into the international markets as time progresses, and as we gain the necessary experience. The form of growth that shall be initially pursued will be that of organic growth mainly due to limited resources and the need to instill awareness and confidence in our services. The target customers will include key decision-makers, sales and marketing personnel involved in decision-making and transaction sealing.

• We intend to build image and awareness through consistency and distinctiveness in our service provision.
• We intend to focus on delivering quality services and end products that in turn produces good referrals, which can then generate revenue.
• We intend to always have a relatively heavy personal selling component to our marketing.

Our strategy is to (Discussion omitted).

Through the implementation of a fair, effective and competitive remuneration policy we intend to optimize our human resource output and advancement. We need the right people in the right place at the right time if we are to ensure optimum growth. We intend to develop our team so that our people can grow as the company grows — a mutually beneficial relationship. As a result we intend to vigorously search and find the right people for our organization.

5.1 Competitive Edge

A key factor to the future success of this project is the background and experience of the management team and strategic partners, and their ability to work the market based on an innate understanding of both the business processes and market structures. The delivery of whole, end-to-end solutions will have a significant impact on gaining commitment from the market at all levels. Therefore, the company believes in partnering with its customers to bring the future in communication and information technology into the customer contact zone. Inevitably this shall involve constant liaison with the client, a customer-centric approach that is need-based.

5.2 Marketing Strategy

One core element of our strategy will be that of differentiation from our competitors. In terms of marketing, we intend to sell our company as a differentiated strategic ally, not just our services. In price, we intend to offer reasonable and competitive prices in comparison to competition and we need to be able to sustain that. Market penetration through lower prices shall be undertaken where need be whilst premium pricing in the case of high quality services targeted at the upper-end of the market. Our service marketing will strive to ensure that we establish long-term relationships with clients. Our primary intention will be to sell a relationship more than services.

Our service marketing will emphasize the benefits of speed, interaction and flexibility to be gained from utilizing our services. The approach will be entirely needs-driven and a thorough understanding of the business requirements, business processes and technology strategy of the customer being the basis on which an Aero Technologies solution will be built. Once the needs and processes are understood and described, leading edge products and best-of-industry skills will be applied to design and develop a fitting solution to satisfy the need and enable the customer’s business in the most cost effective way.

5.2.1 Positioning Statement

Aero Technologies intends to be uniquely positioned to help customers apply communication and information technology products and skills to meet the challenges facing their businesses today. Our competitive edge will be our dominance of the market as early entrants, customer orientation and traditional hard work. Though our clients might range from large corporations to medium or even small businesses, what is important to the client irrespective of the size or industry is total satisfaction with the end product matched to their capabilities and resources.

5.2.2 Pricing Strategy

Aero Technologies will be competitively priced in relation to the dictates of the market. The pricing fits with the general positioning of Aero Technologies as providing high-level quality service and expertise. Due to the introductory nature of the vast majority of our services we intend to implement a penetration pricing strategy which will ensure that potential clients are not frightened away by our prices up until our services are appreciated and fully operational. However this will dictate that our costs are prudently kept so as to ensure our financial goals come to fruition. Once development of the online applications is completed it is our intention to charge a monthly/six-monthly, or whichever the client prefers, recurring fee which will be charged to their account. This fee will be worked out in such a way that it covers for operating expenses as much as possible (Discussion omitted).

We will make sure that we charge for the service, expertise and any delivery with our aim being to achieve a gross profit margin of at least 60%. Naturally services targeted at the higher end of the market will have higher mark ups as these clients are less price sensitive. All in all we intend our prices to be extremely competitive on the market.

5.2.3 Promotion Strategy

Aero Technologies intends to utilize an aggressive promotional campaign to introduce its business units to the market. The intention will be to take advantage of several media sources in announcing the services and in the process reinforcing awareness of its existence. It should be stressed that these promotional campaigns shall be designed in such a way that they do not undermine the organization’s current corporate image but instead enhance it.

Our promotional activities shall be focused towards driving the organization’s overall strategy relentlessly, developing internal consistency and preparing it to confront any radical changes that may arise. This strategy will be based primarily on informing potential customers of the existence of our services and making the right information available to our target customer. The intention will be to highlight the benefit of utilizing our service(s) which will include:

• Ease of communication
• Improved corporate logistics
• Cost savings on transactions
• Chance to maintain if not improve the corporate image
• Improvements in the operations of the value chain
• Chance to improve corporate visibility regionally as well as globally, and develop niche strategies.

In such a market we cannot afford to appear in or produce second-rate material with poor labels that make our services look less than they are. We intend to leverage our presence using quality brochures and other sales literature, including promotional material such as pens, complimentary slips and pads. We intend to spread the word about our business through the following:

• Advertising (Discussion omitted)
• Personal Selling (Discussion omitted)
• Public Relations (Discussion omitted)
• Events (Discussion omitted)
• Direct Marketing (Discussion omitted)
• Internet Marketing (Discussion omitted).

In all the above we intend to communicate our ability to deliver a service of uncompromised nature and high quality that will satisfy the clients needs. Hence our messages will influence the decisions of prospective clients by emphasizing our unique selling proposition and, persuade prospective clients that we are different from our competitors. All the above promotional tools shall be well integrated and utilized in concert so as to maximize their effect.

5.3 Sales Strategy

The sales forecast monthly table is included in the appendix. The annual sales projections are included here. It should be noted that as we become established and known on the market we project sales to increase at a faster rate than during the initial year.

5.3.1 Sales Forecast

Aero Technologies will receive its revenue streams from a combination of licensing agreements, royalties, sales commissions, monthly subscriptions, registration fees, network access charges, service fees, transaction charges, marketing fees, promotional incentive programs, etc. From this one can see the heavy service orientation nature of the project. The derived value of Aero Technologies will come from the key partnerships established and developed in order to deliver a service provision of transactionally based activities, providing opportunity to build brand and loyalty, around which relationship marketing will play a key role.

5.4 Strategic Alliances

In today’s volatile and competitive environment it is becoming increasingly essential for organizations to concentrate on their core activities so as to gain and maintain a competitive advantage. This brings out the advantage of undertaking strategic alliances with organizations that the firm may benefit from and visa versa. The solid partnerships the company intends to entrench with several companies will ensure that its solutions are world-class, best-of-breed products and systems. They will also reassure our customers that they are investing in “winning” technology and service that is maintainable, flexible and scalable enough to meet future demands.

At this writing, strategic alliances with several firms are possibilities, including JJJ and KKK given the content of existing interest and discussions. By going into strategic partnerships with suitable organizations we intend to benefit from being able to concentrate on our core activities in the delivery of our service(s) to the end-user, whilst ensuring that we do not have to compromise on quality of execution or the number of services we are able to deliver.

Management Summary management summary will include information about who's on your team and why they're the right people for the job, as well as your future hiring plans.">

The human resources element shall be an essential component in the delivery of the total service. By encouraging all employees close to our clients to think tactically about what the projects’ service offerings should be, and by having enthusiastic, capable and empowered people interacting with our clients, we intend to build the competitive advantage of being able to comprehensively meet our clients’ needs. We also intend to give our teams enough leverage in decision-making (empowerment) in order to ensure that clients are handled promptly and to reduce lead-time in actual delivery of the service.

There will be a need to evaluate jobs and remuneration packages against market benchmarks to ensure they are competitive. These principles extend to accident, medical, death and welfare benefits such as (but not limited to) support for housing finance, education and training. Consonant with its efforts to create added value by employees, Aero Technologies seeks to negotiate the provision of incentive pay delivery mechanisms against achievement of agreed targets relating to accomplishment in the areas of customer satisfaction, service provision, and other specific successes, that is, the implementation of an effective performance management system.

6.1 Organizational Structure

The organization structure the business units shall take will be that of a matrix structure where staff reports into a functional structure but are grouped together in project or product focus teams when necessary. A project focus team will typically be headed up by a project manager or supervisor, while a service/product focus team will typically be headed by another supervisor. In a highly volatile industry and environment, with increased competition and market entry, we recognize the need to be constantly changing so as to adapt to the prevailing environment. Hence we intend to have in place a highly flexible structure allowing for the above to be undertaken swiftly and smoothly. It shall be noted that the customer will be the focus in all instances as we strive to provide the ideal custom-designed service(s).

The following main functional groupings are to be recommended:

• Sales & Marketing
• Professional Services
• Customer Service
• Logistics 

6.2 Management Team

Management style will reflect the participation of the shareholders. The company intends to respect its community and treat all employees well. We will develop and nurture the company as community. We do not intend to be very hierarchical. Management’s ongoing initiatives to drive sales, market share, and productivity will provide additional impetus (Discussion omitted).

6.3 Personnel Plan

The detailed monthly personnel plan for the first year is included in the appendix. The annual personnel estimates are included here. We believe this plan is an acceptable compromise between fairness and expedience, and meets the commitments of our vision and ethos. We do not intend to be a large organization or “top heavy” as our industry does not require our doing so. We want the company to stay lean and flexible so that we can respond to a client’s needs quickly. However as we expand and increase in size (increase in our client base) we do expect to increase our personnel.

We intend to compensate our personnel well, so as to retain their invaluable expertise and to ensure job satisfaction and enrichment through delegation of authority. Our compensation will include health care, generous profit sharing, plus a minimum of three weeks vacation. Since multifunctional teams have to be established there is need to establish a support system that will enable members to easily work together effectively, meshing well with each others’ activities. This will also allow members of a team to appreciate the implications of the concerns and issues that may be expressed by their colleagues. All the above point to the fact that there is need to instill a good corporate culture that nurtures a fruitful working relationship amongst all individuals/team members.

In-house training shall be continuous with regular external training being undertaken particularly following any new developments in the market. This is so as to ensure that we are continuously able to anticipate our markets needs — a proactive approach, which is so essential if we are to gain and maintain a competitive advantage (Discussion omitted).

Financial Plan investor-ready personnel plan .">

We want to finance growth mainly through cash flow and equity. We recognize that this means we will have to grow more slowly than we might like.

The most important factor in our case is collection days. We can’t push our clients hard on collection days, because they are in larger companies and will normally have marketing authority, not financial authority. Therefore we need to develop a permanent system of receivables financing, using one of the established accounting systems. In turn we intend to ensure that our investors are compatible with our growth plan, management style and vision. Compatibility in this regard means:

• A fundamental respect for giving our customers value, and for maintaining a healthy and congenial workplace.
• Respect for realistic forecasts, and conservative cash flow and financial management.
• Cash flow as first priority, growth second, profits third.
• Willingness to follow the project objectives and contribute valuable input to strategy and implementation decisions.

With sufficient working capital the forecasted revenues and sales should be within the forecasted market demands for the company’s services. From the second year onwards, the various divisions should be able to bring in adequate sales revenues. It is assumed that by then the objective of investing in computer equipment and retraining will have taken effect, the trained technicians will have become adept at their crafts and new service offers for corporate clients will be added to the company’s product line on a regular basis.

7.1 Important Assumptions

The financial plan depends on important assumptions, most of which are shown in the following table as annual assumptions. The monthly assumptions are included in the appendix. From the beginning, we recognize that collection days are critical, but not a factor we can influence easily. At least we are planning on the problem, and dealing with it. Interest rates, tax rates, and personnel burden are based on conservative assumptions.

Some of the more important underlying assumptions are:

• We assume a strong economy, without major recession.
• We assume, of course, that there are no unforeseen changes in economic policy to make our clients’ products immediately obsolete, though we do forecast technological changes.

7.2 Key Financial Indicators

We foresee a slow initial growth in sales, though operating expenses will be relatively high, and a bump in our sales and revenue generation as we spread our services during expansion.

Collection days are very important. We do not want to let our average collection days get above the client’s actual subscription period under any circumstances. This could cause a serious problem with cash flow, because our working capital situation is chronically tight. However, we recognize that we cannot control this factor easily, because of the relationship we wish to create with our clients.

7.3 Break-even Analysis

Our Break-even Analysis will be based on running costs, that is, costs we shall incur in keeping the business running, including salaries and wages, rent, computer maintenance costs, water and electricity, and insurance amongst others. Hence many fixed costs shall be included in these costs. We will thus ensure that our sales levels are running comfortably above break-even.

The following table summarizes our break-even analysis.

7.4 Projected Profit and Loss

The following table presents the profit and loss information for Aero Technologies.

Initial marketing and training expenses will be relatively high as we seek to become known on the market and staff get trained in provision of our services. This will be brought about by the development of sales literature, advertising expenses, function expenses including lunches and dinners with interested stakeholders. As our market share increases and capital is generated, further marketing programs and the expansion of those in existence at the time will be undertaken, to ensure market development. However with time these programs will start generating revenue for the business, which we shall in turn reinvest.

7.5 Projected Cash Flow

The chart and table below provide details to the company’s cash flow situation. The chart shows a monthly breakdown while the table shows a year-end statement.

7.6 Projected Balance Sheet

The Balance Sheet below highlights the important numbers for the company.

7.7 Business Ratios

The following table presents important business ratios for Aero Technology. These figures come from the communications services industry, as determined by the Standard Industry Classification (SIC) Index.

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How to write a communication plan (with template and examples)

Communication is one of the product manager’s primary responsibilities. After all, a PM can’t do their job without effectively communicating risks, dependencies, and changes.

In small companies, communication is somewhat more intuitive and often easier to manage. The problems begin to appear when the company grows.

A bigger company means more teams, more stakeholders, more initiatives, and more of everything. Beyond scale-ups, communication often becomes either too chaotic or too infrequent.

In cases like that, having a robust communication plan can be a life saver. In this guide, we’ll demonstrate how to write a communication plan in six easy steps. You can also use our free communication plan template , which contains both a blank spreadsheet for you to fill out and a practical example to help you get started.

What is a communication plan?

A communication plan is an inspectable artifact that describes what information must be communicated as well as to whom, by whom, when, where, and via what medium that information is to be communicated. In addition, a communication plan outlines how communications are tracked and analyzed.

A communication plan can take various forms. For example, it might take the form of a(n):

• Weekly checklist
• Spreadsheet
• Automated Trello board

In general, a communication plan should be whatever works for you and your team, as long as it allows you to inspect and adapt your approach to communicating with others.

Benefits of a communication plan

Investing time in creating and maintaining a communication plan brings many benefits. A communication plan serves as a(n):

Checklist and reminder

Inspectable artifact, alignment with stakeholders.

Who hasn’t forgotten to inform some critical stakeholder about a recent change/discovery?

Product management is such a fast-paced and dynamic profession that it’s very easy to let small details slip. Unfortunately, it’s these small details that often matter the most.

A written communication plan serves as a checklist that ensures minute details don’t slip too often. Whenever something relevant happens, you can easily refer to your communication plan to double-check whether you’ve connected with everyone who needs to be in the loop.

A tangible communication plan allows product managers to slow down, inspect, and adapt their current processes.

Whenever there’s a communication mishap, they can review what led to it and adjust their approach to communication. A concrete plan makes a vague and sometimes intimidating term such as “communication” more tangible.

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A communication plan, when done well, brings alignment and facilitates input from other stakeholders. It also lays out expectations of how communication is being handled and executed.

If stakeholders feel they aren’t getting all the relevant information, they can quickly check the communication plan to see what they are missing and what is lacking in the communication process that is causing them to miss that information. If they find the communication inadequate, they can share their feedback with the communication plan owner.

It’s easier to facilitate feedback and alignment when something is on paper.

How to create a communication plan in 6 steps

As mentioned above, there are various ways to create a communication plan.

A simple way to write a communication plan is to answer six questions:

• What type of information do you produce?
• Who should receive that information?
• How often should they receive it?
• What channels are most appropriate for this type of information?
• When is communication done for that type of information?
• Who should make sure it happens?

1. What type of information do you produce?

Start by reviewing what information you produce and process.

If you manage roadmaps , you probably produce a lot of information regarding roadmap changes, delays, and anything else that may relate to roadmaps.

If you manage releases, you also produce information regarding the release progress, stage, and anything else that related to releases.

Capture it all.

To make it easier, start with the broader, more general concepts. And if you notice the need for more precision, split them into more detailed communication positions.

2. Who should receive that information?

For a given type of information you produce or process, who should receive it? These are usually people who are:

• Direct stakeholders
• Dependent on the initiative
• Contributing to the initiative

Investing some time in defining the receipts has two main benefits.

First, it ensures you don’t miss a critical person in your communication flow, but it also helps you answer the question of who is not interested in certain information. Over-communication creates noise and should be avoided.

3. How often should they receive it?

You should identify the frequency of updates being sent out depending on the information being shared and which stakeholders are included. Should it be daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly?

You probably won’t nail it at first, but that’s OK. What’s important is to search for a sweet spot between over-communication and under-communication.

Although it might seem excessive at first, finding the right balance will be increasingly important as the amount of and need for communication grows over time.

4. What channels are most appropriate for this type of information?

What medium is most suitable for a given type of information?

For example, it would be silly to inform someone about a mission-critical dependency in a comment under a Jira ticket. At the same time, you shouldn’t spam other people’s Slack with every minor change.

Before sending out an update, ask yourself:

• Where would people seek such information?
• How fast should it reach the audience?
• How critical is it?
• Is it a one-sided update or a potential conversation starter?

The answers to these questions will help you find the best channel for the given information piece.

5. When is communication done for that type of information?

Many people fall into the concept trap that once you send out a message, your communication responsibility is over. This is not always the case.

If you send a company-wide FYI update, then yes, your job is probably completed when you press send, but what if you have roadmap changes that impact multiple teams. Shouldn’t you be making sure everyone on those teams are informed?

In cases like that, you can’t say you are done just because you’ve sent a message. You should chase all key stakeholders and ensure that they have read and understood your message to avoid any misconceptions.

Let’s face it: messages sometimes slip. Your job isn’t to send messages, but to ensure everyone is on the same page. It’s not the same thing.

I’m a fan of having a simple definition of done for communication items. Sometimes, it’ll just mean pushing an update. Other times, it might mean getting a signature of approval from another stakeholder.

6. Who should make it happens?

Last but not least, if it’s everyone’s responsibility to make sure communication happens, then it’s no one’s responsibility.

Although the whole team should be responsible for ensuring effective communication, I believe in having a dedicated owner for a given communication stream. The owner can be permanent or rotate every sprint.

If you have communication owners in place, the chance of communication actually taking place increases dramatically.

Communication plan example

Let’s take a look at an example of a communication plan created using the framework I just outlined:

This communication plan can now serve as an artifact for alignment, process improvement, and double-checking if everything is communicated as needed.

Since some of the items in the communication plan happen as needed, it’s imperative to review the artifact on a regular basis. Otherwise, details are bound to slip sooner or later.

Communication plan template

To make it easy to get started with creating your own communication plan, we’ve created a communication plan template for you. Click File > Make a copy to customize the template.

When you start, ask yourself:

• What you want to communicate
• By what channel
• When you consider the communication as done
• Who should own the given communication item

Although it may lack in the beginning, use it as an inspectable artifact to improve your communication approach every sprint. I promise you, it’ll make your job as a product manager significantly easier.

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Crafting a Winning Communication Plan (With Templates)

Learn the key elements of a successful communication plan and explore various communication strategies suited for different organizational needs.

Kiran Shahid

Last Updated

October 31 2023

A company’s communication binds teams together and helps ensure everyone works towards the same goals. On the other hand, a lack of communication results in disoriented teams, demotivated employees, and costly mistakes.

When internal communication fails , it affects the entire business. The same employees, who are unclear about the company’s vision and objectives, are expected to collaborate with external stakeholders. Unsurprisingly, the result is poor customer service and low returns on investments.

That’s why crafting a robust communication plan is essential. The right strategy allows you to create a common understanding of goals and objectives within each team and across departments. In this article, well discuss strategies for creating a winning communication plan and provide a template to get you started.’

The Cost of Poor Communication + The Need for a Better Approach 

A staggering 48% of employees and HR professionals identify insufficient communication as the primary source of workplace stress. In 2021, a mere 21% of the global workforce reported feeling engaged in their jobs. This lack of engagement or active disengagement resulted in a colossal $8.8 trillion loss in productivity , equivalent to 9% of the worldwide GDP.

In 2022, 56% of organizations adopted hybrid or fully remote work arrangements. However, without a structured communication strategy, employees struggle to adapt to these changes. Remote teams commonly experience trust issues, misalignment with company goals, and challenges in comprehending their colleagues' perspectives. As a result, 32% of individuals feel that communication with coworkers and clients has become more difficult over the past year.

Inefficient communication negatively impacts various aspects of an organization. The following overview from a study by Project.co highlights the key areas affected:

Key Elements in a Successful Communication Plan?

With only 4% of companies describing themselves as efficient, the need for a communication plan that everyone follows has never been more urgent. A communication plan is a living document that guides an organization’s internal and external communication. 

The communication plan outlines who needs to communicate what information, when you should communicate it, and how you should communicate it. Here are the key elements of a successful communication plan:

1. Objectives

Why is the communication plan necessary? What goals does it help achieve?

Describe the purpose and objectives of the communication plan. For example, if you’re launching a new product, the communication plan could be to announce the launch, build buzz around it, and drive sales.

2. Target Audience

Who needs to be aware of communication? Are you targeting internal stakeholders, external customers, or both? Describe different target audiences for each type of message. For example, the product launch message could target internal stakeholders like employees, customers, potential customers, and investors.

3. Key Messages 

What do you need to communicate? What language should be used?

For example, you could include key messages like product features and benefits, customer testimonials, or special offers. Make sure the language is consistent across all channels for maximum impact.

4. Communication Channels

 The choice of communication tools is crucial for both internal coordination among employees and external engagement with customers or the public. Will it be email, social media, blog posts, or video content? Or perhaps a combination of these? Moreover, how frequently should the communication occur to maintain engagement without overwhelming the recipients?

Internal communication platforms like emails, intranet systems, and project management software like Slack or Trello can be instrumental. They facilitate the sharing of information, updates, and feedback among employees, teams, and departments. For instance, emails can be used for official announcements, while platforms like Slack can host real-time discussions and quick updates.

On the other hand, external communication aimed at customers, investors, or the public may leverage social media, blog posts, video content, and email newsletters. For example, you could use emails to announce a new product launch to your internal teams while simultaneously launching a social media campaign to create buzz among customers. Video tutorials on how the product works can be shared both internally for training purposes and externally for marketing and customer education. Blog posts highlighting the features and benefits of the product can also serve dual purposes: educating both your employees and your external audience.

By carefully selecting and utilizing a mix of communication channels, you can effectively bridge the gap between internal stakeholders and external audiences, ensuring everyone is well-informed and aligned with your company's goals and initiatives.

5. Timeline and Frequency

What is the schedule for implementing the communication plan? When will each message be sent out, who will receive them, and what will be the frequency?

Establishing distinct timeframes for distributing communications is crucial to any communication plan, as it guarantees prompt and orderly delivery of messages. Additionally, determining a suitable frequency aids in sustaining engagement without inundating the target audience.

For instance, outline the timing for releasing the product launch announcement, sharing video tutorials, and publishing blog posts. Afterward, provide a comprehensive timeline that includes anticipated dates and times for each communication event.

6. Roles and Responsibilities

Who will be responsible for each communication task?

For example, the product launch team could include the marketing manager, customer service manager, and content writer. Define what tasks each person is responsible for and the timeline.

How to Write and Develop an Effective Communication Plan

In a survey by Gallagher, 74% said internal communication supports culture and belonging. A communication plan breaks silos and encourages collaboration. It bridges the gap between departments and improves employee communication and engagement.

Here’s how to write and develop an effective communication plan:

Understand where you are, and what you need to do. Many companies start off with a communication plan. Identify gaps and challenges, analyze the current situation, and define what to do.

Is communication all over the place? Are team members sharing important updates on Slack where they can get lost? Do you have a team newsletter to keep everyone in the loop? Audit these communications, determine what needs to be improved, and outline your communication plan.

2. Define Clear Goals and Objectives

What outcomes do you want to achieve with the communication plan? For example, do you want to increase employee engagement, save time on meetings, or build a better customer relationships?

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Define your objectives in terms of SMART goals so you can track progress throughout the communication plan. For example, “Increase employee engagement by 10% in the next six months.”

3. Develop Clear, Concise, and Engaging Messaging

Ensure your messaging aligns with your goals and objectives, and maintain conciseness, consistency, and appeal. Adhere to brand standards, such as tone of voice and visual identity, to create a cohesive message across all channels.

Steer clear of jargon and simplify complex topics. Utilize stories, visuals, and videos to aid your audience in grasping the message. Gather feedback from colleagues and customers to confirm its resonance.

Recognize that each target audience has unique motivators and obstacles, making a one-size-fits-all approach to messaging ineffective. Regardless of your audience, prioritize clarity, brevity, personalization, and jargon-free language.

Craft captivating messages by customizing four essential elements for each audience:

• Key message : The central idea you wish to convey to your audience
• Secondary messages : Supplementary information that reinforces the key message
• Proof points : Verifiable facts that support your claims
• Calls to action : The desired actions you want your audience to undertake

4. Select Appropriate Channels

Determine the appropriate communication channels for each type of message and ensure that they are user-friendly and accessible to all.

For instance, utilize email for official announcements, Slack for brief updates, project management tools like Trello for task-related discussions, and video conferencing platforms like Zoom for brainstorming sessions. By organizing communication in this way, you can easily locate relevant information and enhance collaboration.

5. Assign Rules and Responsibilities

Define the circumstances under which each type of communication should be used. Set expectations for frequency and response time. Monthly project updates, for example, may be suitable for email, while daily check-ins are better for Trello, Asana, or other project management tools.

Also, assign roles and responsibilities for each communication task and determine who reviews the content before it’s sent out. Set individual deadlines and ensure everyone is accountable for the tasks they’re responsible for.

6. Monitor and Evaluate

Does your communication plan align with the goals and objectives you’ve set? Track metrics, such as employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and response time. Identifying teething issues helps you refine and improve your communication plan.

Review the communication plan regularly to ensure it’s up-to-date with your company’s objectives and existing channels. Adjust the deadlines and roles as necessary to ensure everyone agrees.

Communication Plan Examples + Templates

Companies can create various communication plans, from simple email and video chat schedules to more detailed project management reports. Here are some examples of communications plans that you may want to consider creating. Additionally, you can download the templates and edit via Google Docs to suit your needs.

• Crisis Communication and Management Plan  
• Internal Communication Plan  
• Marketing Communication Plan  
• Project Communication Plan  

Change Management Communication Plan

Crisis communication and management plan.

Google Docs

A crisis communication plan prepares you for adverse situations. It outlines how to respond quickly and effectively in a crisis, including the roles and responsibilities of team members and external stakeholders. For example, the plan might include strategies for addressing negative press and restoring public trust in a PR crisis. Who handles media inquiries? Which channels will you use to communicate with customers?

Internal Communication Plan

An internal communication plan helps you keep employees informed about company news and decisions. It includes details about who will deliver the message and how, as well as strategies for encouraging employee engagement and feedback. For example, should staff meetings be virtual or in-person? Do you need a dedicated newsletter or intranet?

Marketing Communication Plan

A marketing communication plan guides how to promote content and products. It includes tactics for engaging your intended audience, such as launching campaigns across multiple channels, understanding customer preferences, and leveraging social media influencers. What type of content should you share? How often should you post? What kind of budget do you have?

Project Communication Plan

A project communication plan outlines how everyone involved in the project communicates. It sets expectations for delivering updates and progress reports and specifies who manages each task. 

It defines the communication methods that should be used—for example, which types of messages are sent by email or text. Additionally, by incorporating a well-defined change control process, the communication plan helps in avoiding scope creep , ensuring that any alterations to the project scope are thoroughly vetted and communicated to all stakeholders. 

The goal is to prevent miscommunications, provide a clear timeline for the project, and maintain adherence to the defined project scope, thereby ensuring a smooth and successful project execution

A change management communication plan helps you manage the transition of introducing a new product, procedure, or system.  This plan delineates the communication and coordination strategies necessary for engaging stakeholders throughout the changes being made in your organization. 

As an example, when rolling out new software, a change management plan specifies the individuals responsible for training employees, identifies any special resources required for smooth adoption, and outlines the approach for addressing customer feedback and complaints. This enables the change management process to be streamlined by ensuring that all stakeholders are well-informed and prepared for the impending changes.

Tools for Distributing Communication Plan

A multi-faceted approach focusing on different channels gets the best results. Here are some tools and channels you can use to distribute your communication plan:

Knowledge Base Software

A centralized repository makes it easier for employees to find answers. Knowledge base solutions such as Helpjuice provide an intuitive platform for storing documents, FAQs, and tutorials—saving time, eliminating errors, and reducing customer support costs.

Capital City Bank, for example, witnessed a decrease in errors on certain reporting by 20% since using Helpjuice. Associates also spend less time searching for information, allowing them more time to complete tasks.

“Helpjuice allows us to centralize our information and job aide resources. The search feature is so powerful that our associates are often able to find the content they are looking for before they even finish typing the search term.”

Social Media Management Tools

Social media management tools like Hootsuite help you coordinate your messaging across multiple social networks. You can schedule and monitor posts, measure engagement rates, and generate detailed analytics reports. 

With these insights, you can adjust your strategy to meet customer needs. Social monitoring features also help you detect sentiment and boost customer satisfaction. A communication plan should include designated social media accounts, roles and responsibilities, posting guidelines, and response times.

Email Automation Software

Automated emails can be a powerful tool to deliver fresh content and engage with customers. Distribute communication plans through automated email marketing software such as MailChimp. 

These tools include features to segment your lists and set up drip campaigns, so you can send the right message to the right person at the right time. You can also use it to track customer actions and generate detailed analytics reports.

Intranet Systems

An intranet system helps employees collaborate around documents, tasks, and projects in one central location. You can also use this platform to distribute communication plans, send notifications about upcoming events, and clarify roles and responsibilities. 

For example, asynchronous communication tools like Slack allows you to create multiple channels for specific projects and topics—streamlining communication processes and making it easier for teams to stay in sync.

Implement a Communication Plan and Streamline Your Processes

A communication plan brings consistency to a project or initiative and helps you manage change. Consider the needs of your audience, select suitable tools and channels, and start crafting a plan that works for everyone.

With the right tools and processes in place, you can ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page—minimizing miscommunications, reducing errors, and ultimately boosting customer satisfaction. Helpjuice can help you create a central hub of information and resources. Get in touch to see how we can help you streamline your internal processes.  

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How to Write a Communication Plan

Sarah Mai & Samantha Scott

Aug 5, 2021

12 min. read

Communication is key to running a business. Full stop. The secret is to have a solid communication plan in place to keep all your teams and stakeholders aligned. But how do you write a communication plan and what exactly is it? In this blog, we’ll explore 10 key steps to writing a communication plan for easy reapplication across multiple channels.

Table of Contents

What is a Communication Plan?

What is the difference between an internal communication plan & external communication plan, what should a communication plan include.

A communication plan is a document and/or calendar that provides marketing & PR teams a cohesive structure for crafting their messages. It is designed so everyone has a clear understanding of which stakeholders should be contacted and when.

Your plan is the glue that helps your campaign from hitting any roadblocks and it’s a bible to refer to when marketers get stuck in a messaging rut (or rather, try too hard to get out of a well-established rut - not all ruts are bad when it comes to branding ). 

When writing a communication plan, think of it as a template that you'll be able to use for all different communication efforts. Speaking of templates, we have a free communication plan template available just for you!

Communication from a marketing and PR perspective covers a lot of bases, and cohesion in planning across all teams is super important.

An internal communications plan is the framework you use when communicating with all your employees. The types of communications in your plan can include company updates, product announcements, and other important business news. These internal updates will often be delivered by way of an internal newsletter . 

An external communication plan outlines how, when, why, and where you need to connect with your different audiences, such as social media followers and email subscribers, and other external stakeholders such as investors. 

Planning this communication, whether internal or external, requires having a clear strategy so you know who needs to be contacted first and what you want to accomplish when you deliver the message. Is the objective to encourage employee engagement around some exciting company news? Then you need to connect with your social media manager first. Is the objective to announce a new software update? Then you may want to connect with the product marketing team to anticipate some FAQs. 

The more specific you can be with times, dates, media contacts , goals, and objectives for each communique, the more useful your communication plan will be in keeping everyone aligned. 

An effective communications plan should include:

A clear schedule

Who needs to be communicated with and when? Have a list of all possible stakeholders, both internal and external, who will be receiving communication from your company.

For example, if you’re announcing a product update, will it include a press release? Does it need to be announced to investors first? How soon after the press release goes out will you send internal communications ? 

Make sure you include the specific goals behind each type of communication from your company. Note that the goals should apply specifically to the communication method (such as social or email). We'll go into this more below.

Key messages

What are the key messages you want to get across in your communication? This should be related to your goals. If your CEO is speaking at a conference, you make send him a communication plan that highlights key messages he/she must include in the presentation around your market share, your hiring expectations, or new markets you've recently entered.

These key messages should be tailored to the demographic you are trying to reach, and fit the medium you are using to communicate them through.

Tip: Remember to think about how your brand voice and personality when developing the key messages during your communications planning.

When crafting your plan, here are 10 steps that are important to keep in mind for effective communication with your key stakeholders. Your strategy will always evolve, and it's important to let it, however, the steps below provide a great starting point for building a template that can serve as a reference point for your organization:

1. Identify the current status

Start mapping out your communication plan based on the current status of your marketing strategy and the ROI you saw the previous year. Analyzing your social media reporting, or marketing reporting , in general, will be critical when it comes to informing the direction of your strategy.

This way, you can design your plan more confidently, based on the data. It is important to not get too hung up on historic data, however, given that the subject of your upcoming communication will usually be different. But you can still analyze receptiveness based on time of year, time of day, news outlets that performed better, multimedia style (video vs still image for example), etc.

You can do this analysis yourself, but it can be a lengthy process. If you already have a media intelligence solution like Meltwater, you can use it to gain in-depth insights into how your current and past communication strategy is working, track industry developments, and keep tabs on competitors.

To get you started use the below metrics and look for patterns to optimize your plan:

• Media exposure – tracks coverage (both editorial and social media) volume over time.
• Top sources – breaks down social media buzz by channel or publication.
• Google Analytics – provides a clearer picture of what types of posts generated website traffic.
• Share of voice – compares coverage volume for two or more topics/ competitors.
• Sentiment – assesses the tone of a brand’s coverage over time.
• Trending themes – uncovers conversational patterns surrounding a topic.
• Top locations – helps identify the top markets discussing a brand or event.
• Top social posts – explains the social content with the highest social reach value within a given date range.

2. Be clear about the objectives

Clearly define the communication goals and objectives within your plan. Specificity is extremely helpful in this step - write down the details of who you plan to communicate with and why. Ensure that your strategy goes hand in hand with the various department’s business objectives. It’s a lot easier to get buy-in if you can prove how your plan contributes to the wider picture, illustrating how it benefits the company and drives bottom-line ROI.

3. Craft your strategy

A well-thought-out strategy is where you can nail down the actual action items and assign responsibilities to bring your communication plan to life. There are several models and templates marketers can use to map these internal and external influences including SWOT analysis , Porter's 5 Forces,  and PESTEL .

A SWOT analysis is a good place to start when analyzing internal and external insights. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You can use this framework to benchmark the progress of your new communication activity to make sure your plan is as effective as it could be.

Porter's 5 Forces model is widely used to assess external forces, along with a PESTEL analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal). You can use this template when you'd like to determine if your plan needs to change based on competitor activity, large internal company shifts, or if you spot a potential crises brewing.

4. Who is your audience?

Your company probably already has a clear idea of who your target audience is and your various marketing personas . But it’s always a good idea to revisit these since trends can impact consumer behavior and this will affect how you communicate with them. Using a social listening and monitoring tool is a great place to start - allowing you to dip into the natural focus group of social media to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. 

Remember that your communication plan needs to take into account a lot of different audiences - and the messaging tone and context will differ depending on who you are communicating to. For instance, how you communicate the same piece of news to an investor is vastly different than how you should deliver it to your social media followers.

5. What is the message?

What message are you trying to communicate? Messaging that worked last year isn't guaranteed to work in the current year; this is especially true if there have been industry changes or internal shifts at your company. For example, a competitor may have come into your space, causing you to no longer be the most innovative supplier. 

Your communication should then be amended to convey a more enticing value-prop, and you should work to refine the way you represent your product. As you make this change, consider how your communication strategy should look for letting your key stakeholders know about it.

6. Channel selection

Where will your messaging be taking place? Determine the communication channels that will be used , when you’ll use them, and whom each channel is intended for. Each communication method will accomplish different goals as well, so have a place to define what you’re hoping to achieve.

For example, in a social media post, you may be looking for new followers, likes, or comments. Whereas for an email you’re probably looking for an increase in open rates or CTR.

Your communications should cover the many communication mediums you're using in your marketing strategy such as:

• Social media - engage with new and potential customers, find influencers, track competitors, and address customer complaints
• Email marketing - communicate with your subscribers to promote events, new blogs, and move them further down the marketing funnel
• Internal newsletter - keep your employees abreast of company news, changes, product updates, and announcements
• Print - connect with consumers through physical brochures, newspaper articles, or signage. 
• Push notifications - a particularly helpful strategy if your business has a mobile app, but push notifications and SMS marketing is not limited to apps. This is a useful way to get in front of eyes that may not check their email or social media regularly.
• Digital ads - make sure you’re well-aligned with your paid advertising team so you can ensure the ads you have running are relevant and topical to any current campaigns or upcoming events.
• Online media - reach out to journalists with story pitches or press releases to reach a wider audience than those who already follow you or are subscribed.  

7. Determine your budget

Budget is, of course, an essential part of the planning stage for your communication strategy. It’s important that you ensure you’re realistic in matching your plan with your resources: even a small budget can have a big impact if resources are used properly and you understand where your strengths lie.

8. Assign responsibilities

Make sure the appropriate point-person is clearly defined in your communication plan - and make sure their responsibilities lined are outlined carefully. Are they responsible for pushing campaigns live or is there another person's final "ok" needed for sign-off? Who should be contacted if they aren’t available? Who will be helping them with all the necessary assets? You’ll want to have all these questions answered in your plan.

9. Establish a clear timeline

Communications planning is most effective when your timeline is well laid out with target dates and times. This also makes it easy to identify certain next steps that need to happen, such as follow-ups or feedback requests. You’ll also be able to see where certain blockers are happening and can work to correct them.

A good place to start is with a Gantt Chart Template, which helps you map out each quarter and its specific objectives in one timeline. Ensure to leave room for unforeseen projects and activities that may occur during the year.

10. Follow up

Lastly, know that your communication plan is not infallible. There will always be changes, though they shouldn’t be made lightly or in a vacuum. Because so many departments and teams are involved in ensuring your communication plans go off without a hitch, it’s essential that you keep everyone involved.

Have a check-in with your team to evaluate your goals and performance regularly to see if you’re meeting your milestones and objectives. During these check-ins, there may be unexpected opportunities that you find to elevate your message, or you may spot a potential crisis brewing, meaning you’ll need to do an emergency adjustment to your crisis communications plan . 

Need help with ongoing follow-up on your communication plan?

With insights found using Meltwater’s media monitoring tools, you’ll be able to keep up to date with how your brand is featured in the media and keep track of important industry news and trends. And be sure to check out our free communications plan template to help you get started.

By using data-driven insights you can better understand how best to communicate with your target audience and internal stakeholders. Fill out the form below if you’re interested in learning more about optimizing your communication plan!

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15 Communication Plan Templates for Professional Use (2024)

Written by: Orana Velarde

Communication plans can help you deliver information timely and effectively to stakeholders in various situations — from a PR crisis to a new product launch. They are excellent tools to share with your team and prepare them to communicate properly in any given situation.

If you're intimidated by the idea of creating a communication plan from scratch, it's okay. You can simply use a pre-designed communication plan template to speed up the process.

We've put together a list of 15 professional communication plan examples for various use cases.

The best part?

You can edit these communication plan templates online and download them or share them with your team.

Here's a short selection of easy-to-edit Communication plan templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more below:

Just choose the category from the list below that best describes your needs and start designing a successful communication strategy.

15 Communication Plan Templates for Professionals

Template #1: strategic communication plan, template #2: crisis communication plan, template #3: it communication plan, template #4: project management communication plan, template #5: internal communication plan, template #6: event communication plan, template #7: simple communication plan, template #8: change management communication plan, template #9: stakeholder communication plan, template #10: donor communication plan, template #11: school communication plan, template #12: emergency communication plan, template #13: marketing communication plan, template #14: product launch communication plan, template #15: diversity and inclusion communication plan, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Before you start scrolling, here’s a video on how to create attractive documents with Visme to get your creative juices flowing.

Strategic communication plans are essential documents that corporations, organizations and companies use to maintain stable and constant communication with their audiences. Below is an example of a communication plan template you can use to streamline communication.

This sleek strategic communication plan uses contrasting desaturation with bright colors to bring attention to the content. The placeholder sections in the table of contents include:

• Executive Summary
• Situational Analysis
• Demographics

Adding your content is easy as all you have to do is copy and paste into the template and adjust as needed. If you want to add pages with a type of graph or more text content, just duplicate a page. Use the same colors as the rest of the design to have a balanced look and feel.

And if you’re short on time, you can use the Visme AI document generator to generate your communication plans or any other document in a matter of seconds. Just type in your prompt, provide a bit more context, select your preferred design and watch the tool produce your first draft in seconds.

Check out how the AI document generator tool works.

Every startup, company or enterprise is bound to have a moment of crisis to deal with. It could be an unhappy customer or a global pandemic. For that reason, you need a crisis communication plan to specify actionable practices in any crisis.

Create your own Communication Plan with this easy-to-edit template! Edit and Download

With crisis communication plan templates like this one, all involved parties have access to the necessary information. Our designers have put together a collection of pages and sections to get you started, including:

• Crisis Communication Policy
• Crisis Command Center Team
• CCC Activation Hierarchy
• Media Liaison

To personalize your brand’s communication plan, simply change the colors and fonts using your Brand Kit . If you need more pages for more key messaging sections, it’s easy to duplicate the pre-designed pages and add your content.

You’ll need to adjust the layout a bit, so the pages don’t look the same. Change the image background for another and customize the text boxes and icons to match your content.

Here’s another great example of a communication plan. Share your project ideas and future goals effectively with our easy-to-use IT communication plan template. It's designed to help you choose the right communication channels and strategies for your IT projects.

The communication template has a bold dark and red design theme that sets a powerful visual tone. With eye-catching visuals and straightforward layouts, this template makes it simple to present your project proposals, timelines, and resource allocation.

Collaborating with your team becomes a seamless experience, ensuring that your message is conveyed accurately and efficiently to all stakeholders.

Upgrade your project communication with this attention-grabbing dark and red-themed IT communication plan template, and make a lasting impression while conveying your ideas and goals with impact.

Is your team working on a project together and you need to keep everything in check and on track? Are you looking for a way to let everyone know what needs to be done and when?

This project management communication plan sample is just what you need as the basis of your action plan.

Be clear and direct about what needs to be done, by whom and when. Putting it all in this project management communication framework template is going to create transparency within your team.

Your job as a project manager is to make sure everything is taken care of correctly and on time. When you use project communication plan templates like this one, your success rates go up.

Use the table of contents in this project management plan to outline all necessary information and key messaging. Explain how and when deliverables are to be expected and who are the key stakeholders in the process.

Link to collaboration channels and give instructions on how to use them best. Give instructions on how to name files and where everything is stored in the cloud.Use the Visme workflow tool to assign and manage each task, set deadlines and review and approve projects—all within your workspace.

Working on a project together takes careful planning. A project manager needs to ensure that everyone knows what’s expected of them and who to contact about different things. That's where an internal communication strategy comes in play.

This internal communications strategy template is just what you need to keep the team on track.

Our professionally designed internal communication plan is easy to use and customize with your content. The sections are separated as follows:

• Stakeholders
• Implementation
• Team Involved

If you plan to share your communication plan as a digital PDF, add links to the respective pages. This way, the reader can navigate to their desired content from the table of contents .

Use the timeline feature in the implementation section to visually schedule the tasks for the project. If you need to make the timeline longer, simply duplicate the page. Customize the colors and fonts for your brand using your Brand Kit.

Simplify the process of planning, organizing, and executing your events with our outstanding event communication plan template.

This complete communication strategy template comes equipped with step-by-step instructions, enabling you to seamlessly coordinate crucial event particulars, create detailed timelines, and ensure your guests are well-informed, all within a single platform.

Featuring captivating visuals, contemporary fonts, and customizable color schemes, this template not only enhances the functionality of your event communication plan. The rich blend of serene blues, pristine whites, and vibrant pinks also adds an aesthetic touch that will leave a lasting impression.

Add flipbook effects so readers can interact with the document as if they are reading a book. Make event planning a breeze while keeping everything visually appealing with this versatile template.

Communications planning doesn’t always need to be complicated. A simple communication plan will do the job for any small project. All you need for effective communication is the key messaging and the relevant links to the preferred communication channels.

This corporate communication plan template is simple and keeps things to only two pages. It effectively uses icons , progress bars and a table format to visualize possible situations of crisis and the appropriate response to each situation.

You can remove the cover page and download your communication plan as a single-page infographic . Or you can add more pages to turn it into a more comprehensive document.

If you’ve ever had to change something inside a company, you know how difficult it can be to it seamlessly. Change can be about a piece of software, a physical working location, a process or system.

A change management communication plan will help everyone involved in the transition by making sure they’re all on the same page.

This change management communication plan designed by our Visme designers uses placeholder content for a change in CRM. The sections apply to any type of change and are:

• Summary: What is changing and why?
• Stakeholders: Who is involved in the change and how?
• Phases: How will the change take place with the help of a timeline?

This is the perfect communication plan template to help your team change something seamlessly without affecting other aspects of your work.

When working on your plan, use Visme’s shortcut tool to easily find anything you want in the editor. Simply type forward slash (/) on your keyboard and search bar will appear. Type in a keyword to easily find design assets, tools and features in the Visme editor.

Having many stakeholders aiming for the same goal requires good organization and planning. Make sure everyone’s on board with this stakeholder communication plan example.

This professionally designed template offers all the pages you need to organize the information for your stakeholders. Share everything they need to know about your company, the goals, objectives, changes, projections and more.

Plus, share all relevant information like the dates for team meetings, a project roadmap , and the manager’s phone number.

If you need more pages than the template provides, simply duplicate and add your content in text boxes. Also, maintain a visual balance in the general look-and-feel of the page.

To keep the communication plan easy to read and understand, link to longer content with popups or external hyperlinks. Make sure to share the finished communication plan as a digital PDF file.

A well-planned donor communication strategy is essential to the success of any fundraising campaign. With our user-friendly template, you can impress your donors and streamline your fundraising efforts. This comprehensive tool includes easy-to-follow sections for outlining your donor engagement strategy, establishing effective communication channels and tracking the progress of your campaigns.

Our template features engaging graphics and icons, sleek fonts, and customizable colors that not only make it visually appealing but also allow you to tailor it to your organization's unique branding.

Every part of this template is customizable. With Visme’s intuitive editor, you can change colors, fonts and more to fit your branding. Elevate your fundraising endeavors and make a lasting impression on your valued supporters with this visually captivating and user-friendly template.

Ensuring that all communication levels are clear and concise within a school setting can be difficult without a communication plan. That's because precise instructions and direction are often essential for teachers, staff, parents and managerial positions.

Our school communication plan sample was created especially for you by our Visme designers. The three main sections cover communication strategies at three different levels:

• Academic Communication
• Staff Communication
• School-Wide Communication

Customize the tables with your school colors and input your specific information into the cells. Make your communication plan interactive by adding links to the correct communication channels for direct messaging and virtual or in-person meetings, and then share it online.

An effective emergency communication plan is vital for ensuring the safety and well-being of your team members. When a disaster strikes, a well-structured and thorough plan can ensure swift, coordinated responses and minimize risks.

Prepare your organization for emergency situations by sharing proven methods and solutions with this invaluable template. This stunning and user-friendly template simplifies the process, allowing you to outline essential procedures, contact information, and crucial resources. It provides indispensable guidance to your personnel in times of crisis, ensuring they are well-prepared and can respond effectively when needed most.

What makes this template shine are the striking images, visuals and design elements. In Visme’s library, you’ll find tons of visuals and design assets to communicate your ideas. Feel free to swap the template color theme to match your branding.

Need help writing or proofreading content for your plan? Visme’s AI writer is your handy assistant. All you need to do is write an accurate prompt that reflects your need and watch the magic happen.

Marketing and social media campaigns are successful when everyone involved knows what their part is in the process and what their tasks are. Setting every team member up with the information they need to reach a common goal is the primary purpose of this marketing communication plan.

This marketing communication plan example has a colorful, modern feel. Circles form a big part of the visual layout, making the content easier to digest and more interesting to look at.

In this marketing communication plan template, there are four sections for your key messaging:

• Goal and Objectives
• SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis page is a practical guide to see where your project has weaknesses and what strengths will pull it through. On the last page, you’ll find a timeline to help keep every team member on track of their tasks and in what timeframe.

Easily customize the template to match your brand by using your Brand Kit. Share the template with team members to get feedback and collaborate on the final design. Track how many people have viewed or taken action on your plan using our analytics feature .

When launching a new product, it’s good practice to work as a team. The best way to make sure all the pre-launch tasks are taken care of is to create a product launch communication plan.

In the six pages of this attractive product launch communication plan, you can lay out all the steps for your product’s pre and post-launch activities.

Use the timeline page to explain in detail what needs to happen. Specify which communication teams take care of what tasks, like the press release and influencer outreach emails.

Use hyperlinks to more in-depth content for specific teams and don’t forget to share the links to relevant communication platforms.

Use the sections set up for you in the template or create your own. Your key messaging will probably be similar to this but it’s easy to personalize or add more.

• Launch Phases
• Pre-Launch Activities
• Post-Launch Follow Up

Make sure to include the steps for recording post-launch metrics as these are just as important as the ones done pre-launch. Plus, measurable insights can help with other product launch projects in the future.

Achieving diversity and inclusion in the workplace requires a clear and comprehensive communication plan. A plan will serve as a strategic framework to promote diversity and inclusion initiatives across your organization.

This remarkable, fully customizable template is your compass for systematically advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization. The template has a clean and creative design layout with high-quality images and graphics that add visual excitement.

The eye-catching images are carefully selected to support your narrative and enhance the overall aesthetic of your plan. With its captivating design, you can effortlessly engage your entire workforce, presenting your vision, initiatives, and progress with impact and clarity.

There are multiple options for sharing your plan with stakeholders. You can share it online with a link or embed it on your website or landing page. Alternatively, you can download it in multiple formats.

Design Your Own Communication Plan Online

Creating a communication plan is easy when you have practical and inspiring templates to guide you. To get started with designing your communication plan, simply choose the template that best fits your vision and input your content.

If you're new to Visme, use one of the free templates and adjust the content accordingly. That said, you’d be surprised at what you can do with a premium Visme subscription .

With a premium subscription, not only will you get access to premium templates and graphic assets, you'll also be able to create any type of visual — from documents and presentations to infographics, charts, surveys, social media graphics and more.

You'll also be able to download your designs in multiple formats, from image to PDF to HTML5, work in collaboration with your team, create a Brand Kit and much more.

Ready to get started? Sign up for a free Visme account today and create a great-looking, comprehensive communication plan to share with your team.

Are you still weighing your options about creating a communication plan? Hopefully, the templates on this list inspired you to take a look and give them a try.

But you might still need a little help deciding if this is a suitable document for what you need. That’s why we’ve put together the most common questions asked about communications plans.

Q1. What is a communication plan?

A communication plan is a strategic document that shares coordinated, consistent and directed messaging for achieving a specific goal, such as managing a PR crisis or successfully launching a new product.

A communication plan can be printed, sent via email as a PDF or shared as a live online link. A well-structured and effective communication plan is the single most crucial factor of project management in any industry and for every use case.

Q2. What is the purpose of a communication plan?

The primary purpose of a communication plan is to deliver consistent information about a shared goal. It keeps everyone on the team on the same page about what needs to be done, how and when.

A communication plan solves many problems that teams usually face when there’s no clear direction for everyone involved. With a clear communication plan, everything is explained in detail and easy to follow.

All communication needs are laid out in detailed sections covering topics from goals and objectives to timelines and schedules . A communication plan brings together all the communication channels into one single document. From there, team members can spread out through relevant links and supplementary documents.

Q3. What’s included in a communication plan?

Every communication plan example is different, just how every project is different. But what remains the same across the majority of communication plans is the relevant and strategic information.

A standard communication plan includes sections like:

• Short and long-term goals for the project.
• A set of key messages to be explained in detail, separated into sections.
• Strategies for communication, both in-house and outbound.
• Details about the people involved in the project.
• A schedule and timeline for specific events, deadlines and reporting.
• Further communication methods.
• Specific instructions about your company’s communication process.
• Strategies for measuring success.

Apart from the list above, a communication plan must also include details pertinent to the specific project. If there are folders or systems that people need to access for the project’s success, list them and explain how to use them.

Q4. What is the first step in communication planning?

The first step in communication planning is to define the goals you and your team want to achieve. Outline both short and long-term goals so it’s easier to plan the project as pieces of a whole.

Following the goals, set the objectives. Explain how you plan to achieve these with the help of timelines, schedules, and tables. Include a list of involved stakeholders and links to further means of collaboration.

Q5. What are the key messages of a communication plan?

A communication plan’s specific key messages will depend on what you want to achieve and who your target audience is. Your key messages are the most essential communication points for any particular project.

For example, let’s say you’re creating a communication plan for a product launch. The key messages would cover;

• The goals and objectives of the product launch.
• The reason and story about why this product was created and what problem it solves for people.
• A timeline of pre-launch activities including who will be contacted for outreach and what information will be shared with them.
• What messaging and visual strategies to use for social media and advertising.

An excellent way to make sure all key messaging is clear is to add each one as an item in the Table of Contents.

Q6. What’s the best tool to create a communication plan online?

If you want to create a communication plan that makes an impact, use Visme! Our professionally designed communication plan templates will look amazing with your content and be super easy to customize.

With a Visme communication plan, you can include data visualizations using data from a Microsoft Excel sheet. In fact, if you’ve been creating project communication plans in an Excel spreadsheet, it’s time to upgrade your communication efforts!

Knock your team out of their seats with your impactful communication plan!

Head over to Visme's professional document creator and look through the template library, or click on any of the communication plan template buttons in the list above.

Q7. How to Write a Communications Plan

• Audit Your Existing Communication Plan: Before you put pen to paper, do a situational analysis of communications in your company. The goal is to identify gaps, problem areas and opportunities for improvement.
• Set SMART Goals: Based on the audit results, highlight SMART goals you want to achieve with your communications plan. An example of a SMART communication goal would be to improve client response time to complaints from six hours to three hours within the next 2 months.
• Identify Your Target Audience: Are you working with media outlets, customers, partners, investors, employees, customers or the government? Understand who your intended audience is. Consider their demographics, interests, needs, and communication preferences. This will help you tailor your messages and select appropriate channels.
• Communication methods, both in-house and outbound.
• Team members responsible for delivering communication
• Escalation plan
• Communication channels
• Choose appropriate and effective channels: Consider using a combination of channels such as email, meetings, presentations, the intranet, newsletters, social media, or face-to-face interactions. Adapt your channels based on the nature of the message and the preferences of your audience.
• Assign responsibilities: Determine who will be responsible for executing different aspects of the communication plan. Assign roles and responsibilities to team members or stakeholders involved in the process. Clearly define each person's tasks and deliverables.
• Set a timeline for execution. It's important to have a rough estimate of the time required for each step in implementing your strategy. For example, if your plan involves sharing information from top-level management to employees, it's wise to consider the duration it will take to go through the chain of command.
• Regularly review and assess your communication plan's performance : Evaluate the effectiveness of your messages, channels, and activities. Identify areas for improvement and make adjustments accordingly.

Q8. What are the Top Communication Planning Tips?

When it comes to communication planning, here are some tips to ensure effective and successful communication:

• Define clear objectives and identify the target audience: Whether it's providing information, generating buy-in, or addressing concerns, having clear objectives will guide your communication strategy. Understanding who your target audience is will help you tailor your communications to their needs, interests, and preferences.
• Be consistent and transparent: Maintain consistency in your messaging across different channels and ensure transparency throughout the change process. Share relevant information, progress updates, and any challenges or risks involved. This helps build trust and credibility with your audience.
• Engage leaders and influencers: Leverage the support of influential leaders and stakeholders within the organization. Engage them early on and involve them in the planning process to help drive change and promote a culture of open communication.
• Establish a feedback loop: Create channels for employees to share their thoughts, concerns, and suggestions. Actively listen and respond to feedback to build trust and engagement.
• Evaluate and Adapt: Gather feedback, track engagement, and assess whether your communication objectives are being met. Use the insights gained to adapt and refine your communication plan as needed.

Q9. How to Use Communication Plan Templates

To effectively use communication plan templates, follow these steps:

Choose a suitable template: Select a communication plan template that aligns with your specific needs and goals. Visme has a comprehensive library of templates that provide a comprehensive structure and include sections relevant to your project or initiative.

Gather relevant information: Collect the necessary information to complete each section of the template.

This may include objectives, target audience details, key messages, communication channels, timelines, budgets, and evaluation methods. Refer to existing documentation, conduct research, and consult with stakeholders as needed to gather accurate and relevant information.

Customize the template: Tailor the template to fit your specific requirements.

• With Visme's intuitive editor, you can easily modify section headings, add or remove sections as needed, and adapt the content to align with your project or organization.
• Customize the visual elements of the template to match your branding or style guidelines by adding your logo, adjusting colors, and modifying fonts.
• Access a rich library of images, videos and design assets to make your plan visually appealing.
• Automatically generate and incorporate captivating images, art, and graphics into your plan using Visme’s AI image generator .

Share and collaborate: Share the completed communication plan with relevant team members and stakeholders using Visme's collaboration features . Encourage them to provide feedback, input, and suggestions for improvement.

Implement and monitor : Implement the communication plan and monitor the progress and effectiveness of your communication efforts. Make adjustments as needed based on feedback, data, and changing circumstances.

Create a effective communication plans in minutes with Visme

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About the Author

Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com

Develop an Effective Communications Plan in Six Steps

A smart communications plan is essential to the success of any rollout.

Whether you’re looking to launch a capital campaign, announce a new program or implement a new service, you’ll need a communications plan to help you deliver the right message to the right audience to achieve optimal results and return on investment.

Developing a communications plan can seem like a daunting task, so we distilled the process down to six steps to help you get started.

1. Set Clear Goals and Objectives

A common pitfall for building a communications plan is jumping straight to the tactics. Goals and objectives are the roadmap of a plan and help you clarify the results you want to achieve with your tactics.

More specifically, goals are long-term in nature and can be viewed as the final destination on the roadmap. Generally, a plan will have up to three goals.  Objectives are specific, measurable outcomes or results that an organization plans to achieve in a given period.

To ensure you hit your goals, your objectives need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, or SMART:

2. Identify and Prioritize your Target Audience(s)

Once your goals and objectives are established, the next step is identifying who you want to deliver your message to. As you begin to identify who your audiences might be, it’s important to consider who they are, both in a demographic sense and a behavioral sense. This is where the target audience comes into play.

Here are a few thought starters to help you pinpoint your target audience:

• What groups or individuals do you need to engage to help you reach your goals?
• Who would benefit most from your offerings?
• What actions do you want the audience to take?
• Who do you generally engage in your programs, projects, and initiatives?
• What challenges hold supporters back from contributing?
• What characteristics do your current supporters share?
• What characteristics does an ideal supporter embody?
• How are individuals finding your organization (e.g. social media, events, word of mouth)?

While identifying your target audience(s) may reveal several groups, consider prioritizing three or four audiences.

3. Craft a Compelling Message

Each target audience has distinct motivators and barriers; therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach to messaging often falls short. No matter who you’re writing for, though, keep messaging clear, concise, personalized and jargon-free.

Compelling messages are comprised of four key elements that need to be tailored to each audience:

• Key message: The core takeaway you want to deliver to your audience
• Secondary messages: Supporting messages that enhance the key message
• Proof points: Factual evidence that affirms what you say is true
• Calls to action: Actions you want your audience to take

4. Develop Integrated Strategies and Tactics

Now it’s time to bring the communications plan to life! This is accomplished through integrated strategies and tactics. Strategies are a unique approach for pursuing one or more communications goals, and tactics are the methods you employ to execute against the strategy.

The PESO model is a great framework to reference when building out your communications strategies and tactics:

• Promotional efforts that involve paying for placements on third-party channels via social media ads, sponsored posts and native advertising
• Buzz generated by the public (e.g. the press or your audience) through methods such as PR and word of mouth
• Content on social media channels designed to drive engagement between a brand and its audience
• The channels you have complete ownership of such as your website, blog, events, etc.

When developing tactics, it’s important to remember the 80/20 rule, which entails allocating 20% of social media content for direct asks (e.g. donations, event registration, etc.) and dedicating 80% for building community through engaging content.

5. Build a Better Budget

After crafting integrated strategies and tactics, the next critical step is to build a feasible budget. Budgeting gives you visibility into the costs associated with implementing your communications plan. In addition, establishing a budget is essential for containing costs and identifying opportunities for efficiencies. Lastly, budgets are a fundamental resource for assessing your plan’s return on investment.

To build a budget, you’ll need to consider the following:

• Does your organization have an existing budget allocated for communications activities?
• How much will each line item in the tactical portion of your plan cost?
• If applicable, what were the projected vs. actual costs for previous campaign implementations?

Your budget should serve as a guardrail to help keep your plan on time and track, so don’t be afraid to tweak your tactics to ensure budget alignment.

6. Create an Actionable Timeline

The final step in any plan development is mapping activities against a timeline. Timelines are essential for helping you stay the course when transitioning from the planning phase to implementation. Create a monthly or quarterly timeline, taking into consideration major events and holidays you want to leverage (e.g. fundraising campaign launch, company anniversary, Giving Tuesday, New Year’s Day, etc.).

Developing a smart communications plan before launching a campaign, program or service is integral to setting expectations and ensuring success. With these six steps, you’re all set to get started on planning. Don’t forget to make the plan your own by tailoring the steps to best achieve your goals!

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Blog Graphic Design 5 Ways to Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan

5 Ways to Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan

Written by: Daleska Pedriquez Sep 28, 2021

Good communication is a very important aspect of our lives.

A business with struggling internal and external communications often lags behind in growth and suffers from poor employee retention.

That is why most organizations learn how to create a  business communication  plan.

This ensures that the company won’t fall prey to any of the pitfalls above and ensures seamless communication.

Don’t know how to start creating a communications plan? No problem. With Venngage’s plan templates, you can design effective plans without design experience.

START CREATING FOR FREE

Click to jump ahead:

• What is a communication plan in business ?

What are the benefits of having a good business plan communication?

Examples of business communication strategies, business communication plan templates, what is a communication plan in business.

Business communication can be divided into two categories: internal and external.

Internal communications deal with how effectively anybody within the company communicates with each other.

It deals with issues regarding the flow of information, processes, and ideas in more specific terms.

On the other hand, the external part deals more with communication with the shareholders and the customers.

However, an internal communication plan, like this project plan template , is effective if the target audience in the organization understands and embraces it.

CREATE THIS PLAN TEMPLATE

It is not as simple as putting all those strategies in a manual, handing them out to your employees, and telling them to go nuts with it. Obviously, that won’t work.

A good communication plan needs to be able to seep itself slowly but effectively into your company’s culture and values.

Employees need to eat, sleep, and breathe good communication.

This is the reason why you need to have solid communication strategies in business . Be strategic about it, like with this crisis communication plan, and include some out-of-the-box ideas.

A business communication plan needs to have consistency, variety, informativeness, and entertainment.

That is what we want to help you with today. We want to give exciting business plan strategies that you can implement to boost your organization’s communication exponentially.

But before we go into that, let us dive into the importance of a communication plan.

Once your branding has been imported, you can add your  brand colors  to all templates with one click.

Related: 8 Steps to Create an Actionable Employee Development Plan [with Templates & Examples]

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Let us get to know first what great things will happen if communication is seamless within the company.

Things get done faster.

You can also use this template to convince investors and partners about the benefits of working with your company.

Design infographics like the above example using Venngage’s extensive icon library. We offer 40,000 icons as well as diverse people icons .

With a good business communication plan, the target audience within the organization knows the proper flow of information and absorbs the key messages.

Employees will also know whom they can talk to about certain things and whom they can’t talk to. The result? The communication strategy will help tasks around the company get done faster.

Solving issues and problems is quicker.

Problems and issues will always arise if you have a thriving business. Whether it’s logistics, sales, marketing, operations, etc., challenges abound almost daily.

For example, this sales action plan outlines how the business works, as well as performance indicators. This will help team members understand the budget and their goals.

With good communication channels, any issues with workflow get solved faster, and the company keeps moving forward and growing.

Design plans effectively with Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature, available with every Venngage Business account.

Employees feel more valued.

A company that fosters great internal communications with its people will always gain the latter’s loyalty. That loyalty can kick-start a lot of things like better efficiency and output.

Teams will also grow closer and form bonds. That is when the company can maximize even a small workforce.

Related:  How to Improve Employee Engagement with Visuals

Customer service improves.

Good communication plans also extend to one’s target audience. Customers always love swift, timely, and helpful responses. Using White Label VoIP , you can provide efficient and branded communication services, ensuring a seamless and professional customer experience.

A customer service mind map, like this example below, will make it easier for businesses to keep customers happy.

CREATE THIS MIND MAP TEMPLATE

If your company knows how to communicate its key messages with customers properly, you will react quicker than if you do not.

Employee retention rate increases.

What happens when employees feel more valued and have an easier time communicating with each other?

You get a lot of people willing to stay for a long time.

Bad employee retention rates cost companies a lot of money and task stagnation. Create an internal communication plan to manage this strategy, like this performance review process mind map.

Pair the communications strategy with effective communication channels to boost employee retention.

Create personalized documents with the  Venngage for Business  account. You can upload your own images to the editor. Or use one of the images from Venngage’s stock photo library.

Now that we have learned the benefits of a great business communication plan, let’s find out some of the most effective and exciting strategies out there.

Integrate fun videos into your communications strategy

If you want a good business communication plan example, then think of a video.

It’s no secret that videos can help people be more engaged, learn effectively compared to reading and writing, and understand key messages faster.

This one is really a no-brainer for external and internal communications.

An example of video communication is this video series about racial healing.

Other good examples of using videos in your business plan communication are monthly messages from the CEO.

Challenges and appreciative messages from the head of the company can easily be relayed to the employees. This is something that your people will surely love.

What is a communications strategy that works? Scheduled open meetings.

Scheduled open meetings are helpful for the company’s growth and can be something employees really look forward to.

How are they impactful for internal communications? And why should they be included in a communications strategy mind map, like this one? There are several great benefits that we should talk about.

First, open meetings encourage employees to share their thoughts and ideas.

This allows people to help grow into leadership roles while helping the company flourish by getting lots of fresh ideas.

Secondly, it can also be a place for employees to give their feedback. This helps the company continuously learn how their people feel so they can adjust accordingly.

Lastly, open meetings help empower employees and make them feel that they have a voice within the company. Issues also get resolved faster through these meetings.

For these reasons, every internal communication plan should include room for open meetings.

How to create a communication plan? Employee newsletters.

Another asset that should be added to an internal communication plan is employee newsletters , like this example.

CREATE THIS NEWSLETTER TEMPLATE

These help teams easily assimilate information in an entertaining and informative way.

Employee newsletters should be equal parts informative, professional, and sometimes silly.

If you look at an internal communication plan example from a company, it should include newsletters.

They are a great way to learn about new protocols, new products, and emergency news around the company, like in this reopening guide email.

With a  Venngage for Business  account, you can access the export as HTML feature. This makes it easier to import your design into Mailchimp or Outlook for a clickable email campaign.

Don’t forget to put stuff like fun and inspirational news about your people, whether it’s a bit personal (as long as it is still within respectable boundaries) or professional.

Related:  65+ Engaging Email Newsletter Templates and Design Tips

Good business plan communication strategies make training interesting.

During internal communications planning, the first thing that you need to think about is training or, more specifically, how you continuously and effectively train the workforce.

Jazz up your seminars by using entertaining tools like  infographics  and short videos. Infographics like a  project timeline template are also a great way to improve internal communications.

CREATE THIS INFOGRAPHIC TEMPLATE

Infographics are a fun and effective way to summarize data and information through the use of charts and eye-popping graphics.

Fire up the Venngage app and start making an infographic using hundreds of ready-made templates.

Use the large database of images, icons, and charts to give your training that much-needed punch.

Next, try to implement fun video slideshows in their training to keep their visual minds stimulated.

Videos are by far more effective than oral learning, so use those to your advantage.

Keep things consistent. Training shouldn’t be done just once and never again. Have a monthly training session if you can. And use visuals like this microlearning infographic.

Just make sure that you keep them entertained while you are at it.

Remember, when it comes to training, if they snooze, you lose.

Related:  How to Make Engaging Training Materials with Visuals (+ 20 Template Examples)

Another good business communication plan example? Use digital workspaces.

Digital workspaces allow teams to work and complete projects in a more efficient and timely manner.

That is why it is always a great idea to use those apps as part of your business plan communication strategy. You can adapt the communication plan below to accommodate digital workspaces.

With digital workspaces, everything is done online, so people can work faster even if they are at home.

This also allows them to communicate and post updates wherever they are.

Best of all, every step of the project is recorded with timestamps, so everyone can easily backtrack tasks and conversations.

Related:  18+ Project Management Infographics for Pain-Free Project Planning

You now know the importance of a communications plan. Here are some templates that will help you build better plans for your company.

Nonprofit campaign communications plan template

Using colors and lines, the template divides each section so the team is completely aligned. And you can adapt the visual for other types of companies, as well.

Marketing plan template

There are so many processes in a business. Keeping managers and team members on the same page can be a challenge.

This template can be customized for a variety of purposes, including creating a communications plan for a company.

Business update newsletter

We’ve already mentioned how useful newsletters are for boosting internal and external communications.

This customizable newsletter template is perfect for sharing updates with customers. It can easily be adapted to share news within a company, as well.

 Informational infographic template

Sharing information with employees doesn’t have to be boring. With this template, you can educate your target audience effortlessly.

The template has plenty of room to share information via text. But you can also add a diagram to illustrate your point.

Did you know you could create Smart Diagrams  with Venngage? Look for the Smart Templates tag in the Venngage library and start creating for free.

Customer onboarding plan

What’s one of the most important facets of a customer-facing business? Onboarding the customers efficiently.

Boost your communications plan by adding the following customer onboarding process infographic .

This template uses text, icons, and colors to make it more readable. These elements also make the steps in the infographic easy to follow and implement.

Good communication goes a long way.

Learning how to create a communication plan means that you need to understand how to make things fun for people. That is why you need to implement some out-of-the-box ideas and refine the more traditional ones.

Get successful at this, and your company will reap the big benefits.

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• Why a clear communication plan is more ...

Why a clear communication plan is more important than you think

More often than not, clear communication can make or break successful projects. Clear communication in project management isn’t just about where you should be communicating—it’s also about which team members should be receiving which types of messages.

The good news is, creating an effective communication plan isn’t difficult. All you need to do is define your communication channels and align on when team members should use each. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to set up a communication plan and show you a template so you can create your own.

What is a communication plan?

Sharing a communication plan can give your team clarity about which tools to use when and who to contact with each of those tools. Without a communication plan, you might have one team member trying to ask questions about work in a tool that another team member rarely checks. Rather than being able to clearly communicate and move forward with work, each team member would end up frustrated, confused, and disconnected from the work that matters. Then, if they don’t have clear insight into who is responsible for each channel, they might end up reaching out to an executive stakeholder with questions that person can’t answer. What started out as a simple miscommunication has spiraled into three frustrated team members—and all the while, work isn’t moving forward.

What should a communication plan include?

Your communication plan is your one-stop-shop for your project communication strategy. Team members should be able to use the communication plan to answer project questions like:

What communication channels are we using? What is each channel used for?

When should we communicate in person vs. asynchronously?

What are the project roles? Who is the project manager ? Who is on the project team? Who are the project stakeholders ?

How are important project details, like project status updates, going to be communicated? How frequently will these be shared?

What shouldn’t be included in a communication plan?

A communication plan will help you clarify how you’re going to communicate with your project team and project stakeholders—whether these are internal team members that work at your company, or external stakeholders like customers or contractors.

A communication plan in project management is not a PR plan. This plan will not help you align on your social media strategy, identify a target audience, or establish key messages for different demographics. If you need to build out those plans, consider creating a  social media content calendar  or a  business strategy plan .

The benefits of a communication plan

Obviously  clear communication in the workplace  is a good thing. But do you really need a written communication plan to do that?

In a word: yes. A good communication plan can help you communicate the right information to the right project stakeholders. Executive stakeholders don’t need to be notified about every project detail—similarly, every project team member might not need to be on a conference call with your external partners. By clarifying where and how you’ll be communicating, you can reduce the guessing game and unblock your team.

Less app switching

We recently interviewed  over 13,000 global knowledge workers  and found that the average knowledge worker switches between 10 apps up to 25 times per day. Instead of focusing on high-impact work or even collaborating effectively with their team members, knowledge workers are sinking hours into simply trying to figure out where they should be communicating.

A communication plan can eliminate this guessing game. For example, if your team knows that you only communicate about work in a  work management tool , they can search for key information there—instead of digging through document folders, Slack messages, and multiple email chains. Similarly, when you know that a team member is only tangentially working on the project—and is only being looped in during high-level status reports—you won’t bother them with a question about when the next  project deliverable  is due.

We have created communication guidelines around what software or what tools are best for what. Asana is for action, Slack is for quick responses or answers to things that are floating around. Email is more official and mostly external facing. By doing that, and creating the proper communications guidance, it really helps reduce the noise.”

Increased collaboration

Team collaboration isn’t an effortless process that happens by itself—it’s a skill that you and your team have to build. One part of creating effective  team collaboration  is clarifying your team’s communication conventions. That’s because a big barrier to effective collaboration is feeling comfortable communicating—especially if you work on a  remote or distributed team . If your team feels unsure because they’re still trying to figure out how or where to communicate, they won’t be fully comfortable talking to one another.

Your communication plan is a chance to clarify where team members should be communicating. Depending on the level of detail, you can also include when team members should be communicating—and clarify team conventions towards setting “Do not disturb” mode or snoozing notifications.

By providing these guidelines, you’re effectively removing one of the biggest barriers to easy communication and collaboration between team members. When team members know where to communicate—and just as importantly, where not to communicate—they can be confident they’re sending the right message at the right time.

Less duplicative work

Currently, knowledge workers spend  60% of their time on work about work  like searching for documents, chasing approvals, switching between apps, following up on the status of work, and generally doing things that take time away from impactful work. Part of this work about work is not knowing where things should be communicated.

If team members don’t have a clear sense of where information is shared—things like your  project plan  or  project timeline —then they’ll have to dig through multiple tools or ask several team members just to find the right information. As a result, team members who are unclear about where they should be communicating about work also have a harder time simply finding existing work.

Work about work leads to more manual, duplicative work and less clarity overall. In fact, according to the  Anatomy of Work Index , we spend 13% of our time—236 hours per year—on work that’s already been completed. By sharing your communication plan, you can give your team clarity into exactly where work lives, so they don’t have to spend all that time finding it themselves.

How to write a communication plan

A communication plan is a powerful tool—but it’s also relatively easy to create. You can create a communication plan in four steps.

1. Establish your communication methods

The first step to creating a communication plan is to decide where your team will communicate—and about what. This includes when to use which tools and when to communicate live vs. asynchronously. Live, synchronous communication is communication that happens in real time. Conversely, asynchronous communication is when you send a message without expecting someone to reply right away. We all use asynchronous communication every day without realizing it—most notably, every time we send an email.

As you define your communication plan, identify what to use each tool for. For example, you might decide to use:

Email to communicate with any external stakeholders.

Slack for synchronous communication about day-to-day updates and quick questions.

Asana to communicate asynchronously about work, like task details, project status updates , or key project documents.

Zoom or Google Meet for any team meetings, like project brainstorms or your project post mortem.

2. Align on communication cadence

Now that you know where you’ll be communicating, you also have to identify how frequently you’ll be communicating. Your communication cadence is your action plan for updating different stakeholders about different project details.

For example, you might decide to schedule:

Weekly project status updates posted in Asana to all project stakeholders and sponsors.

Monthly project team meetings to unblock any work or brainstorm next steps.

Asynchronous project milestone updates in Asana as needed.

3. Add a plan for stakeholder management

Running a successful project often depends on getting stakeholder support and buy-in. At the beginning of the project, you’ll do this during the  project kickoff meeting —but it’s also critical to maintain stakeholder support throughout your project.

Take some time as you’re drafting your communication plan to detail when to communicate with each project stakeholder, and about what. Some people, like your key project team members, will be communicating about this project regularly—maybe even daily. Other project stakeholders may only need to be looped in during project status updates or maybe just at the final readout.

By listing out how you’ll be managing communication with stakeholders, you can ensure they’re being contacted at the right time about the right things. The communication they recieve should answer questions at their level of detail and with a focus on business results and overall, high-level impact.

4. Share your communication plan and update it as needed

Once you’ve created your communication plan, it’s time to share it with your project team. Make sure your communication plan is accessible in your central source of truth for all project information. We recommend using  Asana  to track all project communication and work, so you can talk about work where you’re working.

If any changes impact your project communication plan, make sure you update it and communicate those changes. That way, team members always have access to the most up to date information.

Example communication plan

Communication plan template

Description of communication.

What type of communication is it?

How often will you be communicating?

Which tool will you be using? Is this synchronous or asynchronous communication?

Who is receiving this communication?

Who is in charge of sending out this communication?

Good communication starts with a communication plan

Clear communication can help you send the right message at the right time. Empower effortless collaboration while also ensuring every team member is being looped in at the right times. That way, your team can spend less time communicating about work and more time on high-impact work.

Related resources

How Asana drives impactful product launches in 3 steps

How to streamline compliance management software with Asana

New site openings: How to reduce costs and delays

Provider onboarding software: Simplify your hiring process

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“Davis & Company provided insights well beyond the original premise of the project; the team’s vast experience allowed them to see issues that we were blind to. Once implemented, their recommended solutions have reshaped the Air Force Research Laboratory/RQ organization.”

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