Author: Elise Constable
Contributor: Natalie Toohey
Your communication plan should set out what you need to communicate, to whom, when and why. The plan should define how communication and promotion will assist in achieving your business plan.
Define your communication objectives
Communication and promotion activities should directly support the achievement of your project goals. Having a written communication plan is a simple way to ensure your actions support your goals, and are properly sequenced and resourced. A clear plan also helps you keep track of implementation and adapt your approach when required.
Start by creating a table which lists your two or three project objectives and then list the stakeholders (or groups of people) whose help you need in order to achieve them. These typically include the local community, potential investors, commercial partners and government bodies.
Next, figure out what you need to do from a communications perspective in order to achieve the support of each of these stakeholders — these are your communication objectives. For example, your objectives might include:
- build and maintain awareness
- build credibility
- educate the community on the potential benefits of the project
- inform and motivate stakeholders
- present the project as attractive and compelling.
Define any potential communication issues
Each project involves a unique set of stakeholders, and a unique set of circumstances. Every community has its own particular dynamics, history and personality, and will have different perceptions of and experience with renewable energy.
Understanding your project and it's stakeholders in detail will help you craft communication actions and messages that are relevant and effective, and flush out any particular communication issues (and opportunities) well in advance.
For example, consider how renewable energy is regarded in your community. Useful topics to discuss include:
- What does our community know about renewable energy?
- What are the main sources of information about energy?
- What negative/positive issues relating to energy have occurred?
- What energy issues have appeared lately in local and mainstream, state media and how might these issues impact the way our community views our project?
- What other issues might impact the way people view our project? Issues might include the credibility of our organisation, political election campaigns, support of local media for environmental topics.
Identify the right communication actions
There are a wide range of communication tools and techniques which can help you reach your communication objectives. Community-based social marketing and community engagement can be particularly effective in building grassroots support and engagement.
Some actions that may be useful include:
- street stalls
- organising local tours of renewable energy projects
- local advertising
- creation and leveraging of local/regional environment networks
- targeted relationship building
- one-on-one meetings
- media engagement
- social media campaigning
- political engagement.
It's important to ensure the communication tools you select are those that will best help you achieve your goals, and suit your budget, available skills and overall needs of the project.
Create your plan
Creating your communications plan should include the following steps:
- Define your objectives
- Define your stakeholders. Refer to Managing stakeholders.
- Define your potential communication issues
- Research other groups and similar projects to learn from
- Determine your budget and human resources
- Select your communication tools. For further information click on the links below.
- Set your measures and evaluation
- Allocate resources
- Create list of activities with a timeline for implementation and volunteers to help
Implement your plan
Once you have completed the planning process and got support from other members of your project team, you are ready to take action.
Plot all of your communication activities onto one spreadsheet which shows when and how the communication will take place. Having all the information in one document allows you to see at a glance whether your communication is coordinated in a way which will be clear, consistent and effective.
It is likely you will need to rely on the time and resources of other people to help complete your communication and promotional activities. It is ideal to have a communications and promotions committee or group for your project so there are many arms and legs to call on.
Certain communication and promotion activities should be managed by specific people in the group in order to avoid reputation damage to the project and be most effective in completing the task. Media relations, for example, will often be most effective when undertaken by the same person for the life of the project. Consider nominating one person as the project's spokesperson.
Measure and evaluate your success
Measuring the impact of your communication and promotion activities will help you understand what works best in your community.
Measurement can be quantitative e.g. number of website hits, bulk-buy sign ups, number of event attendees or qualitatively through feedback forms, emails/phone calls to your group, letters to the editor or comments made during community forums. Ultimately however, your communications activities must support your overall project objectives.
Identify the best measure for each communication activity set out in your plan and report to the planning team on a regular basis. Be sure to provide the feedback to your group so they can use it to adapt the project if needed.
More information
Community Engagement Planning Tool
The Change Agency
Community Based Social Marketing
The Institute for Public Relations – PR tools and measures