4 Essential Pillars to help you write an effective communication plan
Every digital marketing strategy needs a communication plan that will help support the way you speak to your prospects or target audience. Modern marketing is driven by emotions and tactful storytelling that will help you drive engagement, build your brand presence and choose the right platform for the messaging you want to convey. A communication plan is all about developing a clear understanding of how you’ll cast the net to the right customers, with the right messaging to make meaningful moves in all phases of your strategy.
1. So what exactly is a communications plan?
A communication plan helps you organize your communication initiatives. It details the type of messaging you’re going to convey in different campaigns that you’ve created on social media, how you communicate with your audience, and the content you publish, and wherein the digital space you’re going to convey that sort of messaging.
The key questions you’d have to keep in mind are:
Who am I trying to reach with my marketing? (Your ideal target audience)
What message do you want them to receive?
How and where will you reach them?
2. Purposeful communication and objectives
When you first write any strategy, you’ll have to clearly define the purpose of why you’re creating it in the first place. Stating the purpose of your plan will help you define the key pillars and build your entire strategy around these objectives. When writing your objectives, you’ll have to ensure your purpose goes hand in hand with the department’s overall business objectives and core values. So whether you’re trying to sell a product or sell a service, find the purpose and define how it can be of value to you and, most importantly, your target audience.
In your first phase of AWARENESS an example objective would be: “Getting consumers to download an app to get more knowledge on brand. or something as simple as “Enrollment” Make your objective short and concise. If you’re working with a team, this is a super important pillar so they know what messaging they’d like to display on which platform.
3. Who do you want to reach?
Before you start mapping out your messaging, you must understand who your audience is. Whether they are new customers or existing customers, understanding who your customers are will help you convey messaging that is personalized to their lifestyle. If you are targeting a younger segment, you wouldn’t necessarily add complicated messaging to the messaging you’re displaying to your website. Creating buyer personas and segmenting each target market is an important step before laying out the rest of the pillars.
4. Communication Phases
At Raven, we’re big on customer experiences, and that’s why including the customer life cycle is super important when launching a product or service. Sure, you can communicate various messages in your communication plan, but there is also a right time and place in the digital space. Including a customer journey road map is usually a separate step in the business strategy; however, at RAVEN + CO - we feel like it coexists.
Here are communication phases that you should consider when writing your communication plan:
Awareness - Awareness is essentially the first time you’re launching your brand, product, or service. Your prospect is experiencing symptoms of problems or an opportunity. This is where you’ll be researching to execute a conclusion to their problem. The objective of your awareness phase is not to hard-sell your brand but to educate and assist them. But to Create messaging that informs and gives your consumer knowledge about your brand.
Messaging Examples: “Click on the landing page to learn more about the product.”
“This is where to buy the product and how.”
Your brand tagline and a small excerpt introducing your product or service.
Consideration - Your audience has clearly defined their goals when it comes to making their purchasing decision and has committed to addressing them to you or your competitors. They are weighing out their options and being transparent on different approaches or methods to pursue their goals. At this stage, your goal is to acknowledge your buyer’s decision and providing different resources to help them reach their ultimate goal. So you can introduce your products without hard-selling; your goal is to be a part of your audience’s decision process.
Messaging Examples:
Eg. “Make the switch!” ( You can feature your unique selling point here)
Weighing out pros and cons about the product.
Product/Service List.
Messaging that promotes affordability, convenience, time, and quality.
Acquisition - Your audience is now aware of your product, clearly defined their goals, and now considers you as an option in their buying decision. This is your queue as a brand to exceed all their expectations and support their buying decision! Your messaging has to entice them to hit that “add to cart button” or “book service.” You must understand your target audience’s objections they might have before buying from you so that you adequately handle these issues. You must ensure that you have a clear unique selling proposition in your messaging that helps you stand out from your competition.
Messaging Examples:
A clear call to action “Don’t miss your chance, add to cart now!” “Promo lasts until_____” “We are giving you an easier, seamless experience download now!”
Insert promotions/discounts with a limited-time offer.
You can add vouchers/promo codes that will empower and entice your customer to choose your brand over other competitors.
Loyalty/Retention: When your customer has successfully purchased with your brand, it doesn’t end there. Loyal customers are the best customers because they do your marketing for you, through referral or word of mouth marketing. Your retention phase is to keep your customers coming back to your brand because they’ve purchased from you. This is the most important stage of your customer experience strategy. Loyalty and retention require the need to maintain interactions with your customers through subscriptions, rewards, tailored customer offers, gamification, etc.
Messaging examples:
Show appreciation by giving your customers something post-purchase “Enjoy special discounts and rewards for your next purchase!”
Keep them updated! “Sign up for our monthly newsletter to get updates on new products and promotions!”
Give more knowledge by showcasing tutorials on how to use your product/service so it becomes the “I can’t live without!” “Follow our social media channels to learn more about your new products or services!”
Advocacy - Your customers are the most important part of your content strategy. Ask them to write a review or reshare your content to get their peers involved. “Reshare, like, and post our content!”
Now that you know what an ideal communication plan entails, here is our very own communications roadmap that will help guide you with the messaging you’d want to convey on any given social channel! Here is an example of what you should display in your communication plan for a new e-commerce app.
Whether you’re optimizing your social channels or wanting to create content that will entice your consumers to hit that purchase button, this is a crucial step that’s needed in your social media strategy and content strategy before crafting creative content with a call to action. With this guide, you’re able to set apart hard-selling messaging or personalized messaging that will not only entice your customers but speak to your customers on a personalized level.
Download our free communication roadmap here!
Are you still stuck with the kind of message you want to convey that aligns with your core values? Tell us more about your brand and the unique products/services you will be selling. Our digital experts at RAVEN + CO. are more than happy to guide you through this process. Book a complimentary discovery session with us so we can get you started through your content and communication strategy.
www.ravenandcompany.com/consultation
