BlackHat Money

It can be time-consuming.

And it requires some organizational soul-searching.

But the fruits of a strategic marketing communications plan can define measurable goals for your company and has a direct affect on growth for the next five, ten, even fifteen years.

A strong marketing communications program should be designed to:

• Support your mission
• Provide clear and motivating expressions of that mission to your target market (and your employees)
• Establish a foundation for growth

As you focus on the next 12 to 24 months, your strategic marketing communications should — at the very least — answer the following EIGHT BIG QUESTIONS:

1.  What Are Your Organizational Objectives?  Determine and define the long-term and short-term objectives that your communications strategies need to support.

2.  What Are Your Communications Goals?  Be specific about the desired outcome of communications and how it will be measured.  (And make sure that staff, board members, and other employees understand these goals.)

3.  What is Your Competition Doing?  How does your competition communicate to their audiences?  What impact do they have on your goals and objectives?

4.  Who is Your Real Audience?  Based on your goals and objectives, who is your target market?  Which methods will reach your target in the most effective and cost-efficient manner?

5.  What Communications Tools Should Be Used?  Which present tools can be utilized?  Which need to be phased-out and replaced?  Are other communications channels important to include in your communications mix?  What advertising and public relations opportunities can you leverage? 

6.  What is Your Budget?  As budget allocations are made, the plan and its measurable objectives may need to be altered to fit budget realities.

7.  What’s the Best Creative Strategy?  This includes: Developing a central message and theme, determining unique positioning attributes, writing a creative platform to support positioning and audience target, developing a central creative concept (look, feel, emotion).

8.  What is Your Timeline?  This calendar includes: Creative production, a schedule for deployment of communications tools, media placement, public relations and events scheduling.

Comprehensive communications planning makes the best use of marketing dollars.  Answer the EIGHT BIG QUESTIONS — and the ensuing questions they generate — and your organization will communicate clearly, consistently, and effectively.

JAY HULING is a freelance copywriter with 22 years of experience writing and producing marketing, advertising, and direct response materials for companies all over the country. These companies include the American Lung Association, Atlantic Marine, Barnett Banks, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, Citigroup, CSX, GATE Petroleum, Regency Centers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vistakon, and many more. Find out more about Jay Huling at www.jayhuling.com.

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