The Four-Step Process of Communications Planning

By: Gini Dietrich | November 10, 2014 |

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By Gini Dietrich

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Benson Hendrix online.

A communicator, professor, and social media strategist for TEDxABQ, Benson is one of the guys in the industry who does his job without spin and makes everyone else look good.

He has been called everything from a “social media zen warrior” to the “‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper of Public Relations,” and from a “behind the scenes powerbroker,” to “the loudmouth PR love child of Henry Rollins and Anthony Bourdain,” but doesn’t really believe any of it (except maybe the “Rowdy” Roddy Piper part).

This is one of the things I adore about him: He’s humble as all get out. He probably would hate me saying this, but it’s my blog so I’m going to do it anyway!

He’s a giant teddy bear (who wears a cowboy hat). Super smart, very funny, and extremely lovable.

When our mutual friend Ann Marie van den Hurk was in Albuquerque a couple of years ago, she told the story of meeting Benson.

Not only did he meet her at the airport, he showed her around town for the couple of days she was there.

I remember thinking, “Wow. That is super impressive, especially for someone you only know online.”

Well, now you have the opportunity to get to know Benson.

He is hosting our November webinar this Thursday so you get to hang out with him for an hour.

Communications Planning

Strategy 101: Planning for Success is for every communicator who needs to create a plan for next year, but has no idea where to start. It’s for every communicator who jumps straight into tactics and doesn’t do research, planning, or evaluation. It’s for every communicator who wants to show their boss or client how smart they are going into 2015.

Even though it has a “101” in the title, it’s for nearly every communicator who has less than 20 years of experience.

Benson starts out by talking through the four-step process of communications planning and managing by objectives.

He talks about how we tend to want to rush to the tactical side because that’s the most fun, but that you should consider the following first:

Questions you should be asking your client or boss before you begin communications planning
The four things good PR plans look to achieve
What you really should include in a SWOT analysis and how to determine what should be internal vs. external

Then he breaks down each of the four steps.

Here is what you can expect to learn during each section.

Research

How to get excited about the research phase of communications planning
The questions you want to tackle with your research
Answer the question, “Should research be formal or informal?”
Things to consider during the research phase
How to do a communication audit and what should be included

Planning

How to do SMART planning (versus being a smart aleck)
What each step in SMART means, as it relates to communications planning, not business planning
How to manage by objective
What the differences are between goals and objectives…and why you need both
What good objectives include

Implementation

How to develop your strategy in a non-scary way that makes it easy to understand what that means
How to develop your tactics that are driven by the strategy
Why it’s important to tweak and improve

Evaluation

How to develop your evaluation phase
How to use all of these steps to wash, rinse, and repeat for the following year

Webinar Details

The webinar is this Thursday, November 13, at noon ET (that’s 11 a.m. CT, 10 a.m. MT, and 9 a.m. PT, for those of you who can’t do time zones).

It is free and it’s a two-step process.

First, go to Spin Sucks Pro and click the blue “purchase” button at the bottom of the page.

Click “checkout.”

Either create a new account or login to your account.

Click “download purchase” and click the link on the confirmation page (you’ll also receive an email with this information).

Learn and Have Fun

He ends by showing you how to put everything together. He provides great examples and case studies.

He’ll even make you laugh. My favorite quote?

The other business tool I respect and admire…Donald Trump (click to tweet).

Hope to see you on Thursday!

photo credit: Shutterstock

About Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, an integrated marketing communications firm. She is the author of Spin Sucks, co-author of Marketing in the Round, and co-host of Inside PR. She also is the lead blogger at Spin Sucks and is the founder of Spin Sucks Pro.