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Communications Planning

Getting the right message across in the right way.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

what is planning in business communication

Have you ever received an email and felt the sender really wasn't thinking about what you needed to know or hear? Maybe you've attended a presentation that simply left you cold.

Or perhaps you've delivered communications yourself and realized, in retrospect, that you really hadn't got the measure of your audience and their needs.

Whether you need to communicate general day-to-day information or major news about important changes in your organization, the best communications start with good planning.

In this article – and with our free worksheet, below – we'll explore a five-step strategy for ensuring that your message reaches the right people, on the right channel, and leads to the outcome that you intended.

Download Worksheet

Five Steps for Effective Communications Planning

This strategy will help you to prepare an audience-focused communication plan that's sure to get your message heard.

It will put you in the shoes of your audience, so that you can establish key details, such as: what do they need to know, and what do they know already? What's their preferred way of receiving information? What will stop them listening to what you have to say? And how will you know that they have got the message?

Use these five steps to create a good communication plan for your company or project, and record it on your free worksheet .

Step 1. Understand Your Objectives

Be clear about your overall communication objectives. What do you want to achieve, when and why? Record your overall objectives in your plan.

Figure 1: Communications Planning Template

Step 2. understand your audiences.

Now identify and list your different audiences. This can initially seem quite difficult. So, for all but the simplest communications plan, it's good to use Stakeholder Analysis to identify who to communicate with and why.

Think of "audiences" as groups that you need to communicate with. Any one person may be a member of several audiences. For example, consider a project communications plan that has four audiences:

  • All people working in New Jersey Office.
  • All people working in Sydney Office.
  • Customer Services Teams.
  • HR Managers.

Joe is an HR manager working in Sydney and is, therefore, a member of two audiences, as is Sue who is a customer services team manager in New Jersey. Whereas Lee, an IT consultant in New Jersey, is a member of just one audience – "All people working in New Jersey Office."

Step 3. Choose the Right Channels

Once you have clarified your objectives and got a full understanding of the different audiences that you need to communicate with, it's time to choose the most appropriate channels for delivering your message.

Jot down all the possible communications channels you could use. Think broadly and creatively! You probably already use lots of great communications channels in your company, but some new ones may help you to get your message across. Here's a list to get you started:

  • Instant Messaging .
  • Virtual meetings .
  • Notice boards.
  • CEO briefing.
  • Lunchtime meeting.
  • Intranet article.
  • Launch event.

Big corporate news often gets announced at big corporate events. But don't forget to use existing channels, such as staff newsletters, team meetings, and the intranet as well.

Using existing channels with the right message at the right time is an effective and familiar way to reach your audience.

Step 4. Planning Your Message

Now you've decided which channels to use, drill down into your communication objectives and clarify specific objectives for each audience. Start by thinking about the broadest audience groups first. In our example, the broadest audience might be "All people working in New Jersey Office" and "All people working in Sydney Office".

As you consider each audience in turn, ask the following questions:

  • What does the audience need and want to know?
  • When do we need to communicate?
  • What is the regular or preferred channel for reaching this audience?
  • For this specific audience and message, what is the most effective way to get your message across?

Several messages over time may be required to meet the objectives of each audience. Make sure the messages that you plan "add up" to meet the audience's objectives.

As you plan for each audience, remember that members of one audience may also be part of another audience, and so may receive several messages. Plan your communications so that individuals receive the right information and are not inundated, or worse, confused by the different messages that they receive.

Step 5. Monitor Effectiveness

It's good to get feedback on the communications that you have planned and implemented. Ask people from different audiences how you are doing. Check that they understand the messages you need them to hear.

By getting timely feedback, you can tune any future communications that you have planned to better meet people's needs or fill any gaps that you've missed.

Example Communications Plan

Let's consider planning the communications for the implementation of new security passes in your office. The overall objective is to, "Ensure a smooth transition from the current security pass system to the new one."

Who are the audiences and what do they need? First, consider the universal audience "All Office-Based Staff." Everyone will need to know that the change is scheduled, what to expect and when.

If people at each site need to receive different instructions about how to get a new pass and so on, each site needs to be listed as a separate audience ("Staff at site A" and so on) And what about the people who manage security? They are a further audience group as they have specific needs including more detailed information (possibly training) on how to manage the new system.

Now consider the specific messages for each audience. As well as receiving all-staff announcements about the new system, "Staff at site A" must know when and where at Site A to get their new pass photos taken. This information must be communicated several days ahead of time. The day before the changeover, people may need to be reminded to have their new passes at the ready, perhaps by leafleting everyone's desk throughout the office.

For more tools that can help you to plan and manage change, look at the articles on Stakeholder Analysis and Stakeholder Planning (if you haven't already done so.)

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I got 46 which is not bad but still I have to improve.

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  • Project planning |
  • Why a clear communication plan is more ...

Why a clear communication plan is more important than you think

Julia Martins contributor headshot

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.

quotation mark

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

[inline illustration] Communication plan for brand campaign in Asana (example)

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.

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Communications Planning: A Quick Guide

ProjectManager

All projects require communication between stakeholders. This seems simple enough, but sharing information with everyone clearly and consistently requires a plan . Without one, things become messy and stakeholders can become confused and unhappy.

That’s where communication planning comes into play.

What Is Communication Planning?

Communication planning is the process of laying out how communication will take place between team members and stakeholders, whether it be on a project, in an organization or both. In other words, managers use a communication plan to create a formal process for sharing information.

This includes creating systems of communication and order of operations to follow. This can sound dry, but it is ultimately a creative process and should be treated as such.

What Is the Purpose of a Communication Plan?

Creating a communication plan provides a framework sharing information, no matter what it’s regarding or who it’s being shared between. It’s easy to assume that communication is simple—a no-brainer. This is a common mistake. Because we often assume communication is natural, it’s easy to become informal.

Creating a plan gives you the exact steps to follow so that everyone understands the message and knows who to ask questions to if need be. Using a communication plan as the structure for your message creates a dependable resource for everyone to use.

Who Should Focus on Communication Planning?

Communication planning is a group effort, and all stakeholders should collaborate on creating the best organization-wide plan possible. Because they should be consistent no matter the department or project, it’s important that everyone understands them.

That being said, communication planning is most effective when led by an individual. Depending on the context of the plan (whether it will be instituted organization-wide or used for a single project) this person will vary. For example, a communication plan for an entire organization might be created by someone in HR or leadership. A special plan for a project, on the other hand, would be created by the project manager.

what is planning in business communication

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Communications Plan Template

Use this free Communications Plan Template for Word to manage your projects better.

What Are the Steps in Communication Planning?

It’s easy to get lost in the weeds when creating a communication plan. To make sure you cover all your bases, follow these steps:

1. Determine Communication Needs

The best place to start is by determining your specific communication requirements . For example, it’s helpful to think about who will be communicating. Will different departments be communicating with one another? Will HR be communicating with the entire organization? All of these potential scenarios must be considered.

2. State Why Each Communication Is Necessary

One of the most important things to consider when creating a communication plan is why it’s even necessary. Like we mentioned above, communication can seem like second nature. Why do we need a plan at all? But when we pinpoint exactly why we need a plan and how that plan will enhance teamwork, we’re motivated to create something effective.

3. Establish How the Team Will Communicate

This step is fairly simple. Someone needs to decide exactly how communication will take place. In other words, what tools will the team use? For example, teams may use email for some messages and third-party apps, like Slack, for others. There may also be documents and reports that need to be completed and archived.

If you’re using a project management software like ProjectManager , then you can manage all your project plans, project communications and project documentation in one intuitive online platform.

ProjectManager's Gantt chart is a very useful tool for communications planning

4. Decide How Often Official Communication Will Take Place

Many plans set concrete intervals for communication, no matter the message. These communications can be thought of as “check-ins” and serve to keep everyone on the same page and feeling informed. This also creates a written record of the past.

5. Assign Communication Responsibilities

Whoever creates the plan is also responsible for deciding who will do the sharing—department heads, officers, etc. These individuals could then potentially pass their messages along to someone tasked with putting together a comprehensive update or formatting the information a certain way. All of these responsibilities need to be considered and assigned.

Related: 5 Free Project Report Templates

Important Parts of a Communication Plan

As you’re writing a communication plan, there are five important things to keep in mind. When all five of these things are taken into consideration, you can feel confident you’ve covered all your bases. The best way to ensure you understand these elements is by answering the following questions related to each:

“Who is this message for and is there more than one audience?”

Establishing the audience of the message is the best place to start communication. For example, think about who will be communicating, such as different departments, executives, outside agencies, etc. This audience will affect the message and how it’s delivered.

“What is the message itself and is this message clear?”

The message is what drives a communication plan. Before you begin creating your plan, you must be sure to know exactly what you’re trying to communicate, in the simplest possible terms.

Purpose of the Message

“why is it important to share this message”.

Determine the exact purpose of the message to be sure it’s clear and includes all the necessary information. How? Try describing the purpose of the message in as few words as possible. This can be a challenging exercise, but it improves the salience of the message.

Communication Method

“how exactly will the message be shared and what systems will be used”.

This part of communication planning is fairly cut and dry. As the person creating it, you must make sure team members understand where messages will be coming from and how they should reply. For example, if all of your messages will be delivered through a certain slack channel, this needs to be specified. Similarly, if you wish to keep all of your communications within a project management tool , this needs to be made clear.

Communication Timing

“how often should communication take place and what is the best interval”.

The best communication plans are set up to keep communication alive and consistent, even if some messages are simple check-ins. The worst plans are created to deliver only huge announcements. One way to prevent this is by establishing an interval for messages to go out. This could be weekly, monthly, or even daily, in some cases. For example, a one might include instructions to create and share a daily report with a supervisor.

Communication Plan Template

This free communication plan template for Word helps you establish the communication guidelines that will be followed to communicate with your project stakeholders. Describe the communication objectives, schedule, delivery channels and other important details.

communication plan template

Why Use a Communication Plan Template?

When it’s time to create an official communication plan, using a template can be extremely advantageous. As we’ve shown, they can be complex documents and there’s more to them than meets the eye.

Using a communication plan template helps protect you from leaving out pertinent information or creating a document that is difficult to understand. We’ve all written something that makes perfect sense in our head but isn’t as clear to other readers. Communication plan templates are specifically designed to eliminate this risk and establish a reliable, consistent format to communicate.

Communication Planning Best Practices

Communication planning comes with its fair share of challenges, like anything else. These best practices can help avoid hiccups.

Create an Accountability System

Inevitably, there will be moments when it seems easier to “go off script” and forget about following a plan. This is especially true when a message is simple, but it’s still just as important to follow the plan for the sake of consistency.

For this reason, it’s helpful to put an accountability system in place that reminds everyone how important it is to always use the plan. When everyone understands this importance, they’re less likely to deviate from the plan.

Regularly Evaluate Effectiveness

Making the best possible communication plan can be a work in progress, so don’t put yours on a shelf to gather dust. Instead, monitor its effectiveness and continually brainstorm new ways to improve the plan. As organizations and projects grow, plans may need to adapt.

If there are miscommunications, it may be time to assess why they happened and what could have been done to avoid them. Similarly, communication plans may need to adapt as organizations and projects grow in order to remain effective.

Listen to Feedback from Stakeholders

Feedback from people actually using the plan is invaluable. If team members and stakeholders strongly dislike the plan, they’re much less likely to use it. Similarly, if the communication plan isn’t doing its job—clearly sharing information—it’s time to make changes. If stakeholders don’t understand the information, there’s no point in sharing it at all.

How ProjectManager Simplifies Communication Planning

Communication plans are static documents. Project management software brings them to life and provides team members with the exact tools they need to follow the plan. When your communication plan and these tools live in the same location, the plan itself is much easier to follow.

ProjectManager cuts down on the time and energy it takes to create a communication plan and put it to work. Whether you use a template or make a communication plan from scratch, upload the document into ProjectManager so that any team member knows exactly where to find it. Because when a communication plan is easy to find and access, everyone is far more likely to use it.

a screenshot of a team member commenting on a task in ProjectManager

Organize Your Team and Their Skills

When you’ve created your communication plan, it’s time to put it to work! ProjectManager offers all the features you need to inspire and execute the most effective communication plan possible. Team members can leave comments in tasks and tag one another, as well as add additional team members to tasks. These tags and comments make asking questions, getting answers easy and referencing communication in the future simple.

ProjectManager's team management features are great for communications planning

ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that provides your team a collaborative platform to plan, track and report on their progress. See how it can make your projects more productive and efficient by taking trying the software for free today.

Click here to browse ProjectManager's free templates

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Module 2: Writing in Business

Planning business messages, learning outcome.

  • Discuss the importance of the planning stage in the writing process

A circular diagram of the "plan" stage of the writing process, and within the circle are the words "plan, purpose, preliminary research, outline/organize."

Remember those school days when teachers required outlines before you could start writing your paper? They may have referred to it as part of a “pre-writing” phase. It turns out those outlines are life skills, not just busy work. As adult business communicators, you should still commit to outlining. An outline serves as a road map for what you’re going to write,  and  it aids in breaking weak writing habits. Outlines set a writer up for success. Unlike in school, they do not need to be formally typed and numbered; they can exist on a notepad or scrap to the side of the keyboard. That said, using your word processor’s outlining function is a great way to keep your outline tidy, and cutting and pasting makes it easy to rearrange your order.

First, determine how the receiver of this communication likely feels about the communication: positive, neutral or negative. Focus on what the receiver feels based on the receiver’s situation. Do not factor in “How I’d like to hear this news.” The receiver has not researched this message, might not have heard parts of the topic before, or might not have the same background you do. The receiver may have a different work responsibility and may need background to fully appreciate the communication. Factor all of that into the audience analysis. This is you-view planning.

The you-view thinks about what the receiver wants and needs to understand. Do not factor in your own feelings.

A screenshot of a google shirt for the search, "Journal of Obesity and Weightloss Medication impact factor.

Planning is the key first step in the writing process because it enables the writer to begin thinking about how the final product will be created and evaluated. It is the first step in establishing your accountability and reliability as a writer. Remember that when you are writing for a corporation or organization, your writing lives on as legal documentation and reference. Writers are no less responsible for accountability for their work than are lawyers and medical personnel. Solid planning leads to reliable final documents.

Skipping the pre-writing stage is like taking a vacation without first choosing a destination: If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you get there? Fortunately, pre-writing can take many forms, and there are strategies that suit every type of writer.

The strategies and processes used in the pre-writing stage not only help the writer formulate a topic and solidify ideas, they also serve as a kind of rehearsal for the rest of the writing process. As the writer uses the vocabulary associated with a particular topic, he or she becomes well-versed in the subject and is able to express ideas with more confidence, organization, and clarity. All of this brings to mind the old joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”  The answer, of course: “Practice. Practice. Practice.”

Just as a musician must practice their instrument in order to achieve their goal, the practice undertaken during the pre-writing stage guides the writer toward a specific goal. That goal is to develop a well-defined topic that will eventually be couched in the language of a succinct thesis or hypothesis.

Planning starts with audience reaction, which maps to an organizational structure for the document.

Earlier in this module, three audience types were introduced: positive, neutral, and negative. These audiences may receive positive, negative, or persuasive messages:

  • Positive messages are routine or good news. The receiver is likely to react positively or neutrally.
  • Negative messages are bad news. The receiver is likely to react negatively.
  • The overlapping category is persuasive messages. The audience is expected to need encouragement to act as the sender desires. In some cases, the receiver is more like a positive audience. In other cases, the receiver is more like a negative audience.

All messages contain three or four blocks:

  • News:  Whether good news or bad news, the message states its point clearly. The receiver should clearly understand the news unambiguously.
  • Reasons:  The reasons section supports or explains the news. This is the needed detail to aid the receiver’s understanding or action.
  • Goodwill and Action:  This is the closing paragraph where the sender provides a brief, sincere remark designed to continue the working relationship. The closing paragraph is not finished without some detail or reminder related to the purpose of the communication, or call to action.
  • Buffer . This is usually only found in negative and some persuasive messages. A buffer starts a message where the reader is likely to be the negative side of the continuum by warming the reader to the topic, but not laying out the entire outcome of the message.

Depending on your audience reaction, you will place these blocks in a different order:

A diagram titled, "How does your audience fell about your conclusion?". The diagram is a double ended arrow, with one end being green and labeled "positive", the middle being yellow and labeled "neutral", and the other end being red and labeled "negative". Below the arrow is the question, "How should you organize your message?", and below the question in between the "positive" and "neutral" sections are the words "direct organization, news-main idea, reasons, goodwill & action". Below the question in between the "neutral" and "negative" sections are the words "indirect organization, buffer, reasons, news-main idea ("no"), goodwill & action".

Positive Message Outline

The basic organizational outline for a positive message uses the blocks introduced above in that same order: news, reasons, and goodwill and action. Remember, this is the outline for writing the entire message (the second step in the writing process). The blocks are the labels of the outline section where the writer collects notes and thoughts on that part or paragraph. With these notes, the writer can write the entire message without stopping to look for detail.

In this example of a positive message, assume the sender is confirming the receipt of a duplicate shipment and has agreed to provide credit.

Negative Message Outline

The generic organizational outline for a negative message uses the three blocks news, reasons, and goodwill and action. It uses these organizational blocks in a different order and also adds the buffer block. Remember this is the outline for writing the entire message (step 2 in the writing process). With these notes, the writer can write the entire message without stopping to look for detail.

In this example of a negative message, assume the sender is delivering the bad news about a delay in the promised ship date of a book. The receiver needs this to prepare for a two week training conference but didn’t order it early enough.

Persuasive Message Outline

A diagram of The Purchase Funnel, with the Number of prospective purchasers decreasing from top to bottom. The very top section of the funnel is purple and labeled "Awareness", with a subheading labeled "Market potential". The next level down is blue and labeled "Interest", with the subheading labeled "Suspects". The next level down is orange, and labeled "Desire", with the subheading labeled "Prospects". The very bottom level is green and labeled "Action", with the subheading labeled "Customers".

It is helpful to overlay these structures with the marketing concept of Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA).

This strategy starts with the opening of a positive or negative message. The opening should include an attention grabbing opening, such as a fact, question, or something to catch the receiver’s interest. Next, direct your writing to discuss more details to interest the receiver in this situation. The desire is about how the receiver’s help or action matters. Finally, the closing includes the specific action requested of the receiver.

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5 Ways to Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan

By Daleska Pedriquez , Sep 28, 2021

5 Ways to Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan Blog Header

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.

Simple Business Communication Plan Template

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.

Simple Crisis Business Communication Plan Template

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.

Nonprofit Healthcare Business Communication Plan Fact Sheet Template

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.

Gradient Sales Action Business Communication Plan Template

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.

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

Gradient Customer Service Mind Map Template

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.

Simple Performance Review Mind Map Template

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.

Business Communication Plan Mind Map Template

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.

All-Company Business Communication Newsletter Template

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.

Internal Back To Work Announcement Email Newsletter Template

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.

Project Plan Timeline Infographic

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.

Team Player Microlearning Infographic Template

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.

Project Management Communication Plan Template

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

Nonprofit Capital Campaign Timeline Infographic 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.

Marketing Plan Mind Map Template

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.

Business Update Newsletter

 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.

Simple ADDIE Model Infographic Template

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 .

Instruction Customer Onboarding Process Job Aid Template

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.

How to Write an Effective Communications Plan [+ Template]

Kayla Carmicheal

Published: January 05, 2023

Remember the " Tide Pod Challenge ?" That horrendous time at the beginning of 2018 when adolescents filmed themselves ingesting laundry detergent?

service leader creating a communications plan

While it was a funny (albeit dangerous) start to the new year, this small boost of infamy was a PR mess for the detergent brand in question, Tide , whose crisis communication team had to figure out how to respond to America's teens swallowing their toxic product. Tide's parent company, Procter & Gamble, was swift in their response, thanks in large part to their communication plan .

In this post, you'll learn how to create an effective communication plan that prepares you and your company for any situation.

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What is a communications plan.

A communications 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). Communications plans can be used in times of crises, but they are also used when pitching new initiatives or launching new products.

Communication plans can help you clarify the purpose of a product launch or new initiative and officially determine the messages you want to deliver to your intended audience(s).

Additionally, a communication plan can help your business during a time of crisis if a previous marketing message or business decision damages your reputation with internal stakeholders or customers.

If companies don't have a communication plan , they'll be unprepared when disaster strikes. It may be unlikely that your company will find teenagers eating your product for internet fame, but not so unlikely that you'll never find yourself needing a procedure to effectively handle difficult situations.

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.

free editable Communication Plan Template

Download These Templates for Free

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

How to Write a Communications Plan

  • Conduct an audit of your current communications materials.
  • Set SMART goals for your communications plan based on the results from your audit.
  • Identify the audience to whom you plan to deliver your communications 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. Conduct an audit of your current communications materials.

Before sitting down to get rollin' on your plan, you need to first decide where it'll fit into your business. So it's important you complete a "state of the union," or an audit of the current climate of communications within your company. This can help you identify any problem areas.

For instance, let's say you need to create a communications plan for a new product launch. To create your plan, you'll first need to perform an audit to identify gaps in your current marketing approach.

After performing the audit, you might find there is a major gap in your marketing materials in which you rarely discuss a topic that aligns well with your new product. You'll want to ensure this topic makes it into your communications plan.

what is planning in business communication

Crisis Communication and Management Kit

Manage, plan for, and communicate during your corporate crises with these crisis management plan templates.

  • Free Crisis Management Plan Template
  • 12 Crisis Communication Templates
  • Post-Crisis Performance Grading Template
  • Additional Crisis Best Management Practices

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Free Communication Plan Template

Fill out the form to access the template..

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. Additionally, you might consider hosting focus groups or sending surveys to your audience to find gaps in your current communications materials.

Of course, you'll want to have the goal of your communications plan in-mind when conducting an audit. In the example above, noticing you're lacking material on a certain subject only matters if your goal is to drive leads and conversions to a product that aligns with that subject.

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

2. Set SMART goals for your communications plan based on the results from your audit.

After your audit, you'll want to lay out a few goals based on the data from the results. What do you want to achieve with this plan?

When in doubt, remember that your goals should be SMART : Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.

For instance, if a small agency is writing a communications plan for its client, they might write a goal along these lines: "We plan to increase employment applications for our client by 25% over the course of one quarter."

Alternatively, perhaps your HR team needs to write a communications plan to pitch designing a new growth matrix for individual contributors who don't want to become managers.

If that's the case, your HR team will need to identify specific goals they hope to achieve as a result of their plan, even if the results are less quantifiable — for instance, their goal might be to "increase employee retention rates by 10% over the next year" or even "increase employee satisfaction, as indicated by their next NPS scores." They'll need to pitch these goals to stakeholders to get leadership on-board.

SMART goals calculator

Download Your Free SMART Goal Template

3. Identify the audience to whom you plan to deliver your communications plan.

Good communication starts with knowing and understanding your listener. In this case, if a crisis communication plan is for stakeholders, which one(s) are you writing for? Stakeholder examples include employees, investors, customers, local government officials, or media outlets.

If you're writing for media outlets, a press release detailing your goals is a good idea for that audience. There should be a process for who will speak to the media outlets, an outline of what they will say, and an action plan put in place moving forward.

Alternatively, if your audience is your employees, you might want to create an up-to-date internal document for employees to refer to, as well as the contact information for the internal DRI if they have follow-up questions.

4. Outline and write your plan, keeping your audiences in-mind.

When you're ready to outline and write your plan, it's likely easiest if you start with a table or chart to identify the messages you need to promote, to whom you're targeting those messages, and on which channel(s).

Once you've created a general outline, here's how you'll want to structure your communications plan (feel free to copy these sections into a Table of Contents for your own plan):

  • Purpose (what is this communications plan for)
  • Escalation Framework (including 'first line of defense' and 'greater response team')
  • Roles and responsibilities of each employee
  • Do's and Don'ts
  • How to maintain an effective response plan

(If you need help writing a communications plan, download our free, ready-to-use communications plan templates .)

When writing your communication plan, work with groups or representatives from your stakeholders to improve accuracy. Strategies should solve for goals or potential risks.

For instance, if you work for an agency aiming to promote a client's product, a risk might be spending money on paid ads without a guaranteed ROI. To solve for that risk, the agency should detail different steps to ensure the ads are effective before going public.

5. Determine the channel(s) on which you need to deliver your messages.

The channels you choose to communicate with your audience depends on your message, and to whom you want to deliver that message. For instance, if you're creating a communications plan for internal employees, you might send out your communications plan in a company-wide email, use a team communication app , or in-person team meetings to deliver your message.

Alternatively, if you're communicating with customers, you might determine it's best to communicate via an email newsletter, or via a press release.

Of course, the channel(s) you choose will depend on your goals, but it's important as you're writing your communication plan that you keep your distribution methods in-mind.

6. Decide which team members are responsible for delivering the message.

Once you determine your audience and channel(s) on which you'll deliver your communications plan, figure out the DRI for delivering the message.

For instance, if your HR team is pitching a new growth matrix to leadership, you might ask your Director of HR to deliver the initial pitch in the first meeting. Once leadership is on-board, you might ask each HR representative to deliver one training session for each internal team to ensure every employee understands what's changing internally, and why.

7. Estimate a timeline for how long each step should take.

You should have a ballpark estimate of how much time each step in executing your strategy will take. For instance, if your plan needs to go from the higher-ups down to the employees, it's good to take into account how long going through the chain of command will take. It's also smart to infer how long a media cycle will last.

For instance, for a minor slip-up on an ad campaign, the advertising agency might estimate the cycle for controlling the issue will take a month — including meeting with the client, stakeholders, and employees to discuss steps moving forward.

8. Measure the results of your plan after presenting to stakeholders, and determine successes and areas for improvement.

There's always room for improvement. Measure the results of the plan after presenting it to stakeholders, and determine aspects that went well, and areas for improvement next time.

For instance, the ad agency might not have met its goal of increasing prospective applications by 25% within a quarter. They might rework their goals to give themselves more time or pivot their quarterly focus to fit those goals.

Alternatively, if you notice certain language in your communications plan evokes a level of stress or fear with internal stakeholders, consider how you can re-word next time to ensure your communications plan feels helpful, beneficial, and positive.

Some aspects of building a communication plan can be a "choose your own adventure" journey. The key is choosing aspects that best reflect what your business needs in times when effective communication is key. What do your stakeholders need to know, and how are you going to best communicate that?

Communication Plan Examples

  • Strategic Communication Plan
  • Project Communication Plan
  • Marketing Communication Plan
  • Corporate Communication Plan
  • Crisis Communication Plan

Communication plans can get tricky, but writing an effective one will prove itself with its longevity. The following communication plans include analysis for stakeholders you'd respond to and the procedures for what to include in those communications.

1. Strategic Communication Plan

Bright Hub Project Management's communication plan explains how, when, and why communication happens within its organization.

This example is great because it details how communication managers write crisis plans and acknowledges that sometimes the busy marketer or project manager takes on this responsibility.

Strategic Communications Plan

Image Source

2. Project Communication Plan

Here's an example of a Billing Upgrade Project from Simplicable . This communication plan maps out all the important meetings and documents needed for the project. As you can see, it also includes necessary sections including audience, goals, format, and DRI.

project communication plan example

3. Marketing Communication Plan

A marketing communication plan is essential for communicating to your target market, especially when launching new products or initiatives. This example from Smartsheet allows you to plan marketing communications strategies for customers, sales prospects, media partners, internal stakeholders, and events.

Marketing Communications Plan Grid Template

4. Corporate Communication Plan

Corporate communication plans outline how organizations communicate internally and externally. This example from Smartsheet is a nine-step roadmap that includes space for a mission statement, executive summary, situation analysis, key messages, and more.

corporate communication plan example

5. Crisis Communication Plan

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.

communications-plan_1

Communication Planning Tips

Communication planning can be tricky, so here are some extra tips to keep in mind to help your plan shine: when describing procedures for handling crises, include who the situation involves. This lets stakeholders envision decision-making processes.

Additionally, if you're part of a larger company with a broad stakeholder list, it's okay to split up target audiences for your plan.

For instance, maybe your audience is more than just "consumers." Split stakeholder groups for easier comprehension and more distinct solutions.

Ultimately, your communications plan needs to clearly and succinctly provide necessary information to everyone involved in the business decision, product launch, or PR crises. Use the strategy mentioned above, as well as our communication plan templates , to ensure yours is as effective as possible.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September, 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

crisis communication

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How to Write a Communication Plan in 10 Steps

A communication plan can help you effectively communicate with your audience, employees, and stakeholders. Read this guide to learn the basics.

Effective communication can help improve every aspect of your business by enabling you to share information with customers and the public. However, your communication shouldn't be spontaneous because saying the wrong thing at the wrong time can damage your reputation.

How do you communicate with your customers? Successful businesses know they can't respond to every customer inquiry, concern, or public relations issue as they happen; you must have a communication plan to help you prepare for answering tough questions.

A communication plan can help you respond to customers and the public, get the word out about new products and services, deliver your key brand messaging, and recover when there's a public relations blunder. If you're wondering how to market your business , you'll need to start with a comprehensive plan of action.

what is planning in business communication

What is a communication plan?

A communication plan is a thorough plan explaining the actions you'll take to communicate information to stakeholders. It ultimately identifies your essential brand messaging, including branding basics like your value proposition, while using different types of storytelling to share information with the public. In addition, every communication plan has a crisis management strategy built in to help you respond in times of a crisis, so it's important to have conflict resolution skills .

Communication plans can be used for almost every aspect of your marketing strategy throughout different types of marketing , enabling you to communicate your key messages. It may also help you identify which personalized campaigns you'll use to share this information. Your communication plan will cover everything from discussing product launches with the media to handling a crisis.

Companies without plans are unprepared when there's a potential threat to their reputation. For example, if your product was misused and caused harm, you'll need a strategy for how to deal with the repercussions, including how to answer journalist questions. Most small businesses don't have to worry about worldwide PR nightmares, but reputation management is still vital to any effective communications plan.

How to write a communication plan

Your plan is part of your communication strategy. It'll need to cover several elements, including how you'll talk about your products and services and how your business will handle a crisis. For example, a project communication plan can help you discuss new products with investors, while an all-encompassing plan can be used to support key stakeholders deal with potential disasters.

Here's how to write an effective communication plan.

Review your existing methods of communication and guidelines

Your strategic plan should reflect on existing communication methods and guidelines to determine what works and doesn't. Some small businesses might not have a plan at all, allowing them to start fresh. However, if you have a plan, you'll need to go through it to determine if any areas are still relevant to your company.

For example, if you're writing a project communication plan for a new business, you'll need to convey different messages to stakeholders, such as deadlines and action items. Meanwhile, if you're writing a communication plan for a product launch, reviewing your marketing strategies to ensure they align with your new messaging is a good idea.

Identify the objectives based on your findings

Always define your goals after analyzing the existing communications materials. During your audit, you may have missed key marketing collateral like flyers or packaging designs to launch your new product effectively. Laying out your goals after identifying gaps is crucial to ensure you have a successful plan in place.

It's best to have specific and measured goals before starting your communications planning to ensure it can accomplish all essential objectives. For example, a company launching a new product might have a goal of increasing sales within the first month by 15%.

Different departments in your organization might have different communications plans. For example, your warehouse management team may have a plan to pitch new packaging to save money on shipping costs. This team would then need to identify specific goals, such as reducing shipping costs by x amount.

No matter the goals, they can help you have something to aim for with your communications plan. They'll also give you something to measure against after you get your initial baseline metrics.

Pinpoint your target audience

Identifying your target audience before writing your communications strategy is crucial because you need to understand who the plan is for. If you're writing a crisis communications plan, you'll write it for stakeholders like the CEO or a PR representative to speak on behalf of the company. In addition, if you're writing a communications plan for launching a new product, you'll need to consider who your customers are and how you'll market to them.

Make a draft

Now that you know your goals and who you're writing for, you can begin your first draft. If you already have a template to work from, you can start filling it in. However, if this is your first time writing a communications plan, you can begin with an outline to help you identify the essential messaging points.

Your communication plan should have information detailing what the plan is used for. For example, if it's used for product marketing, it should clearly state its purpose and appropriate times to use it. It should also include a crisis communication plan describing how potential problems will be handled and by whom.

Depending on your communication plan type, you may also specify different marketing campaigns or ways you'll achieve your goals, including steps to reach your objectives.

Obtain feedback

Get feedback from the appropriate team or audience to help you identify pain points and areas of improvement in your plan.

For example, if your communications plan is meant to help stakeholders deal with crises and threats to the company's reputation, you can talk to stakeholders directly about different responses to common issues. Many project stakeholders are experts in their fields and may have experienced some of these crises within their careers, which can help you get valuable feedback on handling them.

Additionally, if you're creating a communications plan for employees, you can speak to them directly or send them your draft to obtain feedback.

Determine which communication channels you'll use to distribute your message

How and where you distribute your message depends on the type of communication plan you have. For example, if you create a communications plan for employees, you'll likely distribute it internally via email.

However, if you make a communications strategy for stakeholders, you can discuss it with them in person to help them understand what it's for and how to use it.

Meanwhile, if you're trying to share your message with customers, you might use email marketing newsletters, leverage social media, or put it on your website in a strategic place, depending on what the message is.

Create a schedule

The timing of your message is just as important as the message itself. For example, if there's a crisis and you don't act fast enough, it can be challenging to recover, which is why a plan is vital in the first place.

Let's say you have a PR nightmare on your hands, and the media is making misleading claims about your company. In this case, you'll need to act fast to refute those claims and use various small business PR strategies to get your message out, including using social media to communicate with customers and the public and scheduling interviews with journalists to tell your side of the story.

The same is true if you're launching a product. Timing your message can help generate buzz and excitement before the release date. Then, when your product launches, you already have customers interested in purchasing it.

Know who's responsible for delivering the message

The type of communications plan you create will dictate who is responsible for delivering the message. For example, if you're launching a new product, your marketing team will likely market it through various strategies and channels. Meanwhile, if there's a reputation crisis, your CEO or a representative from the company will probably deliver the message to the public.

Conduct a final review

Once you've finished your communications plan, give it one more review with the team to ensure everyone is on the same page. By now, you should have all the information you need in terms of feedback, but reviewing it one more time can help you catch any potential issues, including grammatical mistakes or confusing action items.

Test and analyze your results

Once your communications plan is complete, you can start testing it and measuring your results. As you already know, you should always continue improving on your strategies. You can measure the results of your plan after it's presented. For example, if you launched a new product intending to increase sales by 15%, you can measure your progress throughout the campaign.

If you don't reach your goals, you at least now have a baseline to help you create more realistic objectives for your next communication plan.

Top components of an effective communication plan

To build an effective communications plan for any department, you'll need these elements:

what is planning in business communication

  • Intended audience: Who is your message intended for? Depending on your goals, this could be anyone, from customers to internal employees.
  • Message format: What will your plan look like? The format of your message depends on what you've used in the past and what has worked. For example, you may use a simple PDF structure when working directly with stakeholders so everyone has a copy.
  • Distribution: How will you share your message? How you share your message depends on what type of message it is. For example, if you're sharing news of a new product, you have many channels to choose from, including ads and social media.
  • Timeline: When will your plan begin and end? Your plan timeline varies depending on the project, but you should always have a start and end date to ensure you can effectively measure your performance and progress.
  • Message source: Who will share your message? The person who shares your message could be anyone, from the head of HR to the CEO, depending on your type of communication plan.

Why is communication planning important?

Communication planning is important because it can help you effectively communicate with your audience, giving you the right thing to say at just the right time. It can also help everyone understand their role in the strategy. For example, for a product launch, product development is responsible for creating the product, while marketing is in charge of getting the word out to the public.

Communication plans can also improve stakeholder and client relationships by helping everyone get on the same page and plan easily. With a good communication plan, no one is left in the dark. Additionally, it can help those using the communication plan to articulate smart responses quickly, which can be beneficial when your reputation is at risk.

what is planning in business communication

To summarize, a few of the advantages of communication planning include:

  • Effectively communicate with your audience
  • Understand individual and team responsibilities
  • Improve stakeholder and client relationships
  • Articulate smart responses quickly

Avert a crisis with comprehensive communication planning

Communication planning is key to the success of any company because it can improve internal communication and your relationships with the public. Anyone can write a communications plan and share it, but what's most important is the message.

Ready to share your communications plan with customers, employees, or stakeholders? Draft your communications plan and share it with Mailchimp. With our email editor, you can design simple yet elegant emails to share messages with your audience.

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

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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.

How To Write An Effective Communication Plan With Examples

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:

Communication Plan Example

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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Corporate Communications Plan: The Roadmap for Success

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Learn how a Fortune 50 hires the best people

Successful companies are strategic with the way they communicate. In fact, developing a corporate communications plan can be one of the most important ways to build a stronger brand.

Trust is created by the ways that businesses share authentically about themselves and how they respond to difficult situations.

Communications teams benefit from putting a lot of effort into the way they craft messaging and tell stories about their brand. And those that are most equipped to handle challenges and adapt to change are the ones that have plans in place.  

A 2019 study showed that 96% of people think the businesses they deal with could improve when it comes to communication and project management. So clearly this is something more businesses need to address!

Let’s explore what successful corporate communications plans include and have in common, and how they can benefit your organization.

What is a Corporate Communications Plan?

A corporate communications plan is the framework for how a business shares messages internally and externally. You can think of it as the roadmap for how a company communicates with their stakeholders, employees, customers, the media, and regulators. 

Part of the plan includes what information to share, who the target audience is, how frequently to provide updates, and what channels are the best to relay these messages.

Having a plan in place shapes how a company will handle communications during times of crisis, change, and launches of campaigns and new products.

What Are the Types of Corporate Communications?

The two main types of corporate communications are:

Internal Communications: How a business shares information with its employees, leadership teams, managers, and board members. 

The interactions can be formal modes of communications such as all-hands meetings to discuss strategic initiatives and performance, updates about organizational changes, company newsletters , and internal memos about policy changes. 

Or they can also include more informal communication like using messaging apps to collaborate, welcoming new hires, celebrating work anniversaries, or sharing details on winning new business.

External Communications: Any information shared outside of the organization. 

Whether it is a formal press release or branded content on social media, these communications build the company’s public image and impact the perception of a brand and its products or services. 

Marketing, content, and advertising created by the company to promote it are included as external communication methods. 

Press releases and financial reporting are another way that companies share messaging about the organization with the outside world.  

Why is Having a Corporate Communications Plan Important?

Corporate communications plans lead to sharing clearer and better messages with your target audience. 

Whether that audience includes your own employees or potential customers, you want to be heard in the right place and at the right time. Setting up a framework to achieve that is essential. 

Sometimes you might be thrown a curveball, and a communications plan will help your business be prepared for any unexpected changes or crises that come your way. 

Surprisingly, a JOTW Communications Survey showed that 59% of communicators say they have a communications strategy drafted, but only 45% admit to having a documented crisis communications plan.

Having a plan in place will also allow for speedier recovery to any public relations issues. For example, responding to negative feedback and being open about mistakes can build trust with your brand and get you back on the right track in the eyes of customers and potential clients.

Communicating effectively and transparently shows that your brand values engagement by taking a proactive approach to be included in conversations about your brand or industry. 

A corporate communications plan for internal communications will also help define and build a transparent company culture. This can improve employee engagement by keeping team members included in conversations about where the company is heading and what it values.

If there are sudden changes on a team, you’ll be better able to communicate the changes in a way that makes employees feel comfortable and cared for if you have a plan for how to share that information first for those immediately affected and then across the company.

What Should A Corporate Communications Plan Include?

It takes time and consideration to develop an effective corporate communications plan. You’ll want to include details for the objectives, approach, and tracking measures for the goals of your messaging.

In simple terms, you’ll want to include the who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Here are the elements your corporate communications plan needs:

  • Target Audiences – these are the groups of stakeholders that will be receiving the messages. They could be employees, customers, media members, investors, leadership teams, and managers. Age, location, job level, interests, and lifestyle are all helpful to know about the receivers of your messaging.
  • Objectives – most communications are created with a call to action or a desired outcome in mind — these are your ultimate objectives or goals. They should be tied to your overall organizational goals to drive business outcomes.
  • Message content – what you want to say and what you are trying to help your readers understand. Tone and personality are important to formulate in your message to get your reader’s attention.
  • Distribution strategy – the channels and venues that your communications will be delivered on are an important aspect of the communications plan. Paid, earned, owned, and shared media channels have different benefits for reaching audiences.
  • Frequency – how often you will be sharing or updating content to reach your target audience. This will depend on your team’s budget and resources, as well as an understanding of your target audience and being mindful of attention fatigue. 
  • Measures of evaluation – how you’ll know if your communications were successful. These should be highly attached to your objectives and goals so that you can track progress and understand areas for improvement.  

How to Create a Corporate Communications Plan

You can follow these steps to design a corporate communications plan that is thorough and takes into account the many facets that go into a successful communications strategy.

1. Establish goals

Pick 3-5 measurable goals for your communication plan. They could be connected to brand awareness like increasing website traffic or generated a certain number of new leads.

Or they could be related to employee engagement, such as increasing the employee satisfaction score on your next survey or increasing the number of shares of branded content.

2. Set a clear process

Knowing the steps involved to launch a communications campaign and having teams on board with the process will ensure that your plan is scalable.

Document the steps involved from content creation to distribution to collecting feedback and share those with any teams that are included in the action.

You should also define clear roles for who will be involved in creating the communications and which stakeholders need to be involved for approving messages and compliance.

3. Identify and segment targets

Take time to think through who your target audience will be and how they may be different. Knowing your audiences can help you tailor your content and tone to appeal to audiences.

Use customer analysis and social listening to determine your audience’s preferred social channels and the best forms of content to encourage visibility of your content.

The way your company shares information with employees will likely be different than how it presents to the board or investors so it’s important to segment your audiences.

4. Develop key messages

Craft the copy and creative materials needed to effectively communicate your messaging. Think about what you are trying to articulate and how it could be conveyed in the clearest and understandable way for your target audience.

The content-type should also be considered — should the message be shared in a meeting or email or video? How can the audience react and ask questions about the announcement? These are all questions to consider when creating the content for both internal and external communications.

5. Choose a channel strategy

You’ll need to determine the channels and frequency of your communications to meet your goals. 

For example, if your communication strategy is for internal communications you’ll evaluate whether an email or meeting is the best way to share the news. 

Do teams prefer shorter, weekly updates or to get more information at the end of the month? Get feedback from your audiences to determine what makes the most sense for your communication cadence.

6. Measure objectives and progress

Before you start implementing your plan, think through how you can measure success for your communications with metrics like reach, open rates, and engagement.

That way you will be set up to continuously improve your content strategy and messaging. 

Collect feedback from employees or customers on how to improve your messaging and enact these changes so that you are don’t run the risk of turning off or disengaging your audience.   

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What are the Main Channels for Corporate Communications?

Companies have many software platforms and tools to choose from that can help streamline communications. You’ll want to use a mix of communication channels to achieve different goals.

For external communications, social networks, media publications, and videoconferencing are some of the most effective ways to reach potential customers and grow brand awareness. 

All of the content that you publish on your website reflects the values and goals of your brand and can be a powerful way to make connections by providing valuable resources to potential buyers.

For internal project communication, email and messaging apps are the easiest ways for people to collaborate at an organization. They make it easy to share files and resources, get input from colleagues, and track project status updates. 

Internal blogs, company newsletters, and intranets are some examples of methods that companies have used to keep employees informed and connected.

For building company culture and employee engagement, internal enterprise social networking platforms provide a more flexible and easy to use way to share company content. 

Employee advocacy for corporate communications

Employee advocacy platforms like EveryoneSocial make it easy to link to external social networks, bridging the gap between internal company conversations and sharing them externally to strengthen brand engagement.

Press releases are important tools for sharing announcements and launching new products. And those efforts can be amplified when you have employees that want to share that content to their own networks, as well.

Beyond externally distributing communication messages, EveryoneSocial has unique features that keep your people engaged, connected, and informed — no matter where they are working. 

For example, some features for communications include: 

  • Internal newsletters
  • Push notifications
  • Mobile apps
  • Real-time messaging
  • Follow company employees
  • Tag employees on important info
  • Read-only content

EveryoneSocial platform sample post showing corporate communications.

Want to learn more about how Everyone Social can be used to improve your corporate communication plan? Schedule your demo with us and we’ll share how some of our enterprise customers are communicating better by enabling their workforce with EveryoneSocial!

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Chapter 2: The Writing Process

Venecia Williams

Learning Objectives

  • Identify the three stages of writing
  • Explain the importance of having a clear purpose
  • Explore how to analyze your audience
  • Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different communication channels

To write successfully, you need to pre-write, think, research, plan, organize, draft, revise, rethink, analyze and brainstorm. Why is it important to think of writing as more than just the act of physically writing out words? Because often when people say that they’re “bad at writing,” they actually just need to make a few adjustments to just one of the phases of the writing process. The more you understand your writing process, the more control you have over it.

The writing process is made up of three main parts as illustrated in Figure 2.1.

what is planning in business communication

Pre-writing: In the prewriting stage, you might read an assignment prompt, research, make an outline, sketch some ideas, brainstorm, doodle, jot down notes or even just think about your writing topic.

Writing: In the writing or drafting stage, you write down words. Your writing task will determine how you write. Some people write long or important documents by composing them in a notebook and then typing out the final product. Some write in one long paragraph and then break it up in the revision stage.

Revision: After you’ve finished writing, it’s time to rethink your piece. Many students think that revising is just making grammatical changes, but it’s a lot more than that. Expert writers often spend most of their composition time on revision. They may rethink their strategy, try a new outline, show their work to a colleague to get feedback, read their work out loud to see where it sounds choppy or simply put the work away for a few hours so that they can come back to it with a fresh perspective.

It’s important to note that your writing process won’t be a straight line. Expert writers switch between different modes. For example, you might realize that you need more research and go back to the pre-writing process. You might revise and write as you go. You might show a draft to a colleague or friend and decide to reorganize the entire work based on their feedback. Sometimes, this back-and-forth feels frustrating to new writers, but it’s a normal part of the writing process.

Here are some ideas to switch up your writing process if you’re getting stuck. They can be used both in school and in the workplace.

Ways To Switch Up Your Writing Process

Pre-Writing

  • Read the assignment prompt, then quickly write down 5 things you’ll need to do to be successful in the assignment. Using this list and the assignment prompt, create a timeline for finishing the assignment. For example, if you’re being graded on using primary and secondary research, you’ll want to make time to research, analyze your sources and add your citations.
  • Go for a walk (or do some exercise) and think about your writing task. Sometimes moving your body helps you do brainstorming.
  • Create an outline for your work.
  • Use brainstorming (mind mapping, bubble maps, etc).
  • Try illustrating your project visually. Connect ideas and thoughts with lines.
  • Read a similar document to get ideas.
  • Talk about your writing task with a friend.
  • Turn off the screen of your computer and try writing your document. This will help you get your thoughts down without worrying about editing.
  • Use the voice recorder in your phone to record yourself describing what you want to write about as if to a friend.
  • Try free-writing. Write the phrase “What I want my reader to know is…” or “The most surprising thing about my research is…” Then, set a timer for 5 minutes and write about this topic. Don’t stop writing. Ignore all grammar and spelling errors. See how much you can write.
  • Schedule a time each day to write and put it in your calendar.
  • Try the Pomodoro Technique , where you work intensely for 25 minutes then take a 5-minute break.
  • Read your work out loud. The ear is a better editor than the eye.
  • Leave your work overnight so that you can come back to it with fresh eyes.
  • Describe your work to a trusted friend or family member and encourage them to ask you questions.
  • Compare your work to the assignment prompt or rubric. Read a criteria/rubric point then go to your work and underline where in the work you met the criteria.
  • If your writing uses sources, print your work out and highlight every time you use a source. If your writing has no highlighted parts, you might want to add sources. If your writing is mostly highlighted, you might want to do more analysis of the sources.

The Writing Process In the Workplace

Students are often surprised to learn how much time professional writers devote to pre-writing and editing. In fact, a study conducted by a Toronto consulting firm found that writers in the workplace spend 40% of their time pre-writing or planning, 30% of their time revising and only 20% of their time writing [1] . In contrast, some studies have found that students only spend 3-5% of their composition time revising.

In the workplace, you will vary your writing process depending on several factors, including:

  • The importance of the writing task
  • Your deadline
  • The deliverable
  • Your own writing process
  • The culture of your workplace
  • How much collaboration is required

A Note on Collaboration

Much of the writing that you’ll be doing in the workplace will involve collaborating with others. To do so effectively, you will have to respect other people’s writing processes and listen carefully to your collaborators. Different cultures also have different collaboration practices. For example, if your project impacts Indigenous People, you would want to involve many different people from the impacted community, especially Elders. If you’re not Indigenous, you might begin the project by taking time to listen, ask questions, and build trust. When done well, collaboration will make your work stronger. This quote from settler scholar Sophie McCall shows that collaboration doesn’t just have to be about ensuring that everyone agrees:

“ Collaboration does not have to aim for a seamless platform of agreement; indeed, collaboration can embrace differences and acknowledge conflict. We came to think of our process as one of working across differences of experience, profession, background and interest .” – Sophie McCall on working with Metis artist Gabrielle L’Hirondelle (as quoted in Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing by And About Indigenous Peoples by Gregory Younging)

Planning Your Message

Sometimes, new communicators will want to start the writing process by deciding what product they want to create. For example, they might want to create an Instagram account to promote the company. If you don’t analyze your context, audience, message and purpose, you could end up choosing the wrong product. Preparation for the writing process involves purpose, research and investigation, reading and analyzing, and adaptation.

To prepare effectively, you should undertake the following steps.

1. Determine the Message’s Purpose

While you may be free to create documents that represent yourself or your organization, your employer will often have direct input into their purpose. All acts of communication have general and specific purposes, and the degree to which you can identify these purposes will influence how effective your writing is. General purposes involve the overall goal of the communication interaction: to inform, persuade, entertain, facilitate interaction, or motivate a reader. The general purpose influences the presentation and expectation for feedback. In an informative message, the most common type of writing in business, you will need to cover several predictable elements:

  • Why (optional)

Some elements may receive more attention than others, and they do not necessarily have to be addressed in the order you see here. Depending on the nature of your project, as a writer, you will have a degree of input over how you organize them. Note that the last item, Why , is designated as optional. This is because business writing sometimes needs to report facts and data objectively, without making any interpretation or pointing to any cause-effect relationship. In other business situations, of course, identifying why something happened or why a certain decision is advantageous will be the essence of the communication. In addition to its general purpose (e.g., to inform, persuade, entertain, or motivate), every piece of writing also has at least one specific purpose, which is the intended outcome; the result that will happen once your written communication has been read.

2. Analyze your Audience

The audience of any piece of writing is the intended or potential reader or readers. This should be the most important  consideration in planning, writing, and reviewing a document. You “adapt” your writing to meet the needs, interests, and background of the readers who will be reading your writing. The principle seems absurdly simple and obvious. It’s much the same as telling someone, “Talk so the person in front of you can understand what you’re saying.” Do we need a course in that? Doesn’t seem like it. But, in fact, lack of audience analysis and adaptation is one of the root causes of most of the problems you find in business documents.

Audiences, regardless of category, must also be analyzed in terms of characteristics such as the following:

  • Background knowledge, experience, and training: One of your most important concerns is just how much knowledge, experience, or training you can expect in your readers. Often, business communicators are asked to be clear, but what’s clear to you might not be clear to someone else. For example, imagine that you’re a software developer who’s developing an app for a client. Unfortunately, your code had a number of bugs, which put you behind schedule. If you give a highly technical explanation of why the bugs occurred, you will likely confuse your client. If you simply say “we ran into some bugs,” your client might not be satisfied with the explanation. Your job would be to figure out how much technical knowledge your audience has, then find a way to communicate the problem clearly.
  • Needs and interests: To plan your document, you need to know what your audience is going to expect from that document. Imagine how readers will want to use your document and what will they demand from it. For example, imagine you are writing a manual on how to use a new smartphone. What are your readers going to expect to find in it? Will they expect it to be in print or will they look for the information online? Would they rather watch a series of Youtube videos?
  • Different cultures: If you write for an international audience, be aware that formats for indicating time and dates, monetary amounts, and numerical amounts vary across the globe. Also, be aware that humour and figurative language (as in “ hit a home run ”) are not likely to be understood outside of your own culture.
  • Other demographic characteristics: There are many other characteristics about your readers that  might have an influence on how you should design and write your document, for example, age groups, type of residence, area of residence, gender, political preferences, and so on.

In the workplace, communicators analyze their audience in a number of ways. If your audience is specific (for example, if you’re writing a report to a particular person), you may draw on past experience, ask a colleague, Google the person or even contact them to ask how they would best like the information. If you’re communicating to a large group, you might use analytics, do user testing or run a focus group. Unless your project is important, you may not have time to undertake sophisticated audience analysis. In this case, you should follow the most important maxim of workplace communication: don’t waste people’s time . In general, clear, plain language that is clearly arranged will please most audiences. We’ll talk more about Plain Language in the next chapter.

3. Adapt Your Message

Let’s say you’ve analyzed your audience until you know them better than you know yourself. What good is it? How do you use this information? You can use this information to determine how much information to include or omit from your document, and whether or not it is appropriate to use technical language. For example, if your readers are specialists, you do not need to add as much background information as you would for a non-technical audience. Audience analysis also determines your level of formality. If you are writing to a colleague in another branch, you will probably use a different level of formality compared to when writing a proposal to a potential client.

Analyzing your audience also helps you to determine your primary and secondary audience. Your primary audience is your intended audience; it is the person or people you have in mind when you decide to communicate something. When analyzing your audience you must also be aware of your secondary audience . These are other people you could reasonably expect to come in contact with your message. For example, you might send an email to a customer, who, in this case, is your primary audience, and copy your boss, who would be your secondary audience. If you are responding to the customer’s complaint and your boss is copied on the message, you might include some background information if you boss is not familiar with the situation.

4. Choose Your Medium/Product

Purpose is closely associated with channel. We need to consider the purpose when choosing a channel. From source to receiver, message to channel, feedback to context, environment, and interference, all eight components play a role in the dynamic process. While writing often focuses on an understanding of the receiver (as we’ve discussed) and defining the purpose of the message, the channel—or the “how” in the communication process—deserves special mention.

When is it appropriate to send an instant message or text message versus a conventional email? What is the difference between a letter and a memo? Between a report and a proposal? Writing itself is the communication medium, but each of these specific channels has its own strengths, weaknesses, and understood expectations that are summarized in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2 |  Communication Channels

Our discussion of communication channels would not be complete without mentioning the issues of privacy and security in electronic communications. Many companies monitor their employees’ electronic communications or Internet use. When you call and leave a voice message for a friend or colleague at work, do you know where your message is stored? It is always wise to consider that any time you send an IM, text, or e-mail or leave a voice message, your message is stored on more than one server, and it can be forwarded to persons other than the intended receiver or can be stored for later retrieval by people for whom your message was not initially intended. Are you ready for your message to be broadcast to the world? Do your words represent you and your business in a positive light? By choosing the correct channel for a message, you can save yourself many headaches and increase the likelihood that your writing will be read, understood, and acted upon in the manner you intended.

In terms of writing preparation, you should review any electronic communication before you send it. Spelling and grammatical errors will negatively impact your credibility. With written documents, we often take time and care to get it right the first time, but the speed of instant messaging, text messaging, or emailing often deletes this important review cycle of written works. Just because the document you prepare in a text message is only one sentence long doesn’t mean it can’t be misunderstood or expose you to liability. Take time when preparing your written messages, regardless of their intended presentation, and review your work before you click “send.”

The writing process involves pre-writing, writing and reviewing. When planning your message, it is important to determine the purpose of your message and think about the needs of your audience. Once you have a good understanding of your audience, think about how to create a message to fit that audience’s needs. Finally, choose the most effective channel for your document and be sure to consider the possible ramifications of what you have written before you send it.

End of Chapter Activities

2a. thinking about the content.

What are your key takeaways from this chapter? What is something you have learned or something you would like to add from your experience?

2b. Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

  • How much time do you send on prewriting, writing and revising your work?
  • Make a list of the written communication that you read, skim, or produce in one day.
  • Which communication channel do you most use and why?

2c. Applying chapter concepts to a situation

Choosing the right channel

Anita is in the final year of her post-graduate degree program and needs to make a decision about her internship. For the last year, she has been working in a cafe in her neighbourhood. She hopes that she will be able to do her internship at the cafe. Recently the shift supervisor quit and moved to another city, and the cafe owner told Anita that she would be perfect for the position because of her great work ethic.

Anita meets with her internship supervisor to discuss her plans. Her supervisor is unwilling to sign off on her internship at the cafe because even though it would be a supervisory position, it would not be in her field. He suggests that she finds another job for her internship. Anita is disappointed. She will have to quit her current job and start the job search process again.

She needs to let her manager know that she will not be able to accept the supervisor position, and it is very likely that she will have to quit. Her manager prefers to communicate through text messages, but Anita wonders if a text message would be appropriate in this situation. She learned about choosing the correct medium in her business communication class.

Which medium should Anita choose to convey this message and why?

2d. Summary Writing

Watch this TED Talk on How to Have Better Conversations . Write a summary and evaluate how the speaker presented her topic. What do you think of her topic?

Attribution

This chapter contains content from  Business Communication For Everyone (c) 2019 by Arley Cruthers and is licensed under a  Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license,  Introduction to Professional Communications  is (c) 2018 by Melissa Ashman and is licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license and Business Communication for Success  which is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the  University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing  through the  eLearning Support Initiative .

  • https://www.mdctraining.com/ ↵

Chapter 2: The Writing Process by Venecia Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is a communication plan and why it’s important: a guide

This nonprofit professional is enacting a communication plan by calling supporters.

For nonprofit organizations, a  communication plan  is a holistic approach to strategizing, documenting, and implementing  marketing , outreach, and communication practices across an organization’s departments and teams.

Communication plans define  what  information should be communicated,  who  should receive that information,  when  that information should be delivered,  where  (e.g., email, social media, mail) communication will be shared, and  how  those communications will be tracked and analyzed.

In this guide, we’ll look at the benefits of a communication plan, the steps for making a plan, and a template to get you started.

Top 7 benefits of communication planning

Nonprofit communication plans have many more benefits than a single  outreach campaign  could bring alone. An effective communication plan helps your team:

  • Clarify your goals and objectives.  As your communications roadmap, your plan tells you where you need to go and how to get there.
  • Articulate the relationships between audiences, messages, channels, activities, and materials.  The communications planning process will help you identify who you need to reach, what you want them to know, and how you will reach them. You will find that each of your audiences has unique characteristics, needs, and motivations. As you plan, you will discover the most effective ways to communicate with them.
  • Identify and implement a variety of communications activities.  Since there are an infinite number of ways to spread your message, a communication plan helps you determine which activities will yield the best results. 
  • Clarify staff member and stakeholder roles.  For effective communication, everyone needs to know what they will contribute and what they are responsible for. A well-articulated plan will help stakeholders get on the same page, feel a sense of ownership over their work, and articulate a consistent message.
  • Find creative, collaborative solutions.  Involving staff, stakeholders, constituents, interns, and junior staff members in the planning process will bring in a number of diverse perspectives to reach your audiences more effectively.
  • Incorporate stakeholder input in the communications process.  Asking for stakeholder and  community feedback  on your plan will show that you value their input and adjust your plan to be as impactful as possible.
  • Evaluate your plan’s successes and growth areas.  Organizations will often do a mid-course review to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Then, they can create and implement new approaches. Develop a unique evaluation strategy to consistently gather the information you need to improve your plan.

Now that you’re familiar with the many benefits of communication planning, you’re ready to begin the process of making a communication plan for your organization.

How to make a communication plan: 8 steps

Ultimately, building a communication plan now will save you significant time, energy, and resources in your communications down the road. For ease of use, we’ve broken this planning  process down into eight simple steps:

  • Audit your existing strategies and materials.  You likely don’t need to start your communication plan from scratch. Evaluate what’s working and what isn’t in your current communications with  volunteers , donors, and partners. 
  • Set SMART goals.  Based on the results from your audit, determine goals for your communications. For the greatest impact, your goals should always be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). 
  • Identify your target audiences.  Based on your SMART goals, determine your communications’ target audiences. For example, if your goal is to increase annual fundraising, you might focus on  potential major donors  with wealth and philanthropic indicators that suggest they could give more. 
  • Establish your communication methods.  Once you have a good sense of your target audience, consider their communication preferences, such as the channels and platforms they use most. Then, focus your communication efforts on those channels.
  • Determine communication cadences and timelines.  Depending on the goals, audience, and medium, the frequency of communication will vary widely. For example, while you’ll likely post updates on social media multiple times each week for maximum engagement, you might decide to send a more in-depth physical or digital  newsletter  once a quarter.
  • Assign roles to team members.  Determine which departments and individuals are responsible for delivering each message. For example,  a board member  might be responsible for communicating with major donors, a development officer might be responsible for communicating with recurring donors, and a program coordinator might be responsible for communicating with volunteers.
  • Document your plan.  You only have a plan if you remember to document it. Record your plan in a digital format that can be easily shared and updated.
  • Share your communication plan with stakeholders.  Distribute your documented plan to relevant team members and stakeholders with instructions on how to use it. As a result, everyone will be on the same page, and your communications will be clear and consistent.

Rather than being a linear process, communication planning is, in fact, quite cyclical. Once you implement your plan, track and measure both quantitative and qualitative metrics such as views, click-throughs, and conversions to determine strengths and weaknesses. Then, adjust accordingly!

An easy-to-use communication plan template 

Keeping a detailed, up-to-date record of your communication plan is crucial to its success. Doing so creates continuity and consistency within and between departments. 

Although there are numerous ways to document your communications plan, the simplest approach is often the most effective. A  communication plan template , like the one below, can be specific  and  easy for everyone in your nonprofit to follow. Reference the information sourced in the steps above to answer each question in the form below:

Goal.  What do you want your communication to achieve?

Content.  What information or  call to action  will this communication contain? 

Timing.  When and how often will you deliver this communication?

Channel.  Where will you share this communication?

Methods . What tools/platforms will you use?

Audience . Who will receive this communication?

Owner . Who is in charge of sending out this communication?

While you may also want to develop an in-depth communication plan for your communications team, for the majority of stakeholders, this short template will be more accessible, quicker to update, and easier to reference than a lengthy guide.

Once you have your plan down, pair it with a robust,  all-in-one fundraising solution  that helps your team quickly identify audience segments, target them with engaging content, track results, and effectively implement changes.

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How to Communicate Your Company’s Strategy Effectively

  • David Lancefield

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Ditch the lofty purpose statements and lengthy slide decks.

For too long, communicating strategy has been an afterthought. Executives have shared long, bombastic documents or withheld critical information and expected people to just “get it.” And it hasn’t worked. Greater external uncertainty, collaboration, employee anxiety, and organizational openness demands a change of approach. The author presents five actions that will improve the clarity and quality of communication, enabling stakeholders to make a more substantive and meaningful contribution to the strategy.

Most people can’t recall the strategy of the organization they work for. Even the executives and managers responsible for strategy struggle, with one study reporting that only 28% of them could list three strategic priorities.

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  • David Lancefield is a  catalyst, strategist, and coach  for leaders. He’s advised more than 40 CEOs and hundreds of executives, was a senior partner at Strategy&, and is a guest lecturer at the London Business School. Find him on LinkedIn (@davidclancefield) or at  davidlancefield.com , where you can sign up for his free “Mastering Big Moments”  workbook .

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Importance of Planning in Business communication

All communication, whether personal or business requires planning. Thirukkural says “whosoever one might be, one should guard his tongue”. You can easily offend a person or damage a situation by the slip of the tongue or a wrong gesture. In situations of personal communication, planning is done quickly and most times the situation or the context helps the planning. But in business communication planning is definitely a prerequisite.

In business communication, the first principle is planning. Any message, communicated without proper planning is bound to be haphazard and disjointed. The exercise of planning, though apparently time consuming, will be rewarding. Abraham Lincoln’s most celebrated emotional speech known as the Gettysburgh address, where he dedicated the cemetery to war heroes is acclaimed to be outstanding for its spontaneity and brevity. But the truth of the matter is that Lincoln spent hours and days to refine and polish the speech as evidenced from the records in the archives.

Stages of Planning

Planning and preparation bring extra dividends. Planning leads to better organization of the message and produces the desired results. When we say desired result, we agree that every communication exercise is a means to an end. The communicator must be able to clearly identify the end. In short, he should identify the purpose for which he is sending the message. The purpose may be to remind about a due, or may be to give some new information, or may be to point out a lapse or may be just a courtesy with the underlying purpose of promoting goodwill. Once you have identified the purpose, you must make an evaluation of the receiver. It means you should have an understanding of the mental attitude of the receiver. Is he going to be responsive or indifferent, interested or apathetic to your message. You have to adopt your message to the mental attitude of the receiver. This is easier in the case of an individual than in the case of a group at the receiver’s end. If it is a group, you should be able to identify the minimum communication response expected of the group and adopt the message to it. The next stage would be to collect the ideas and gather data to make the communication effective. Finally, the message should be organized by preparing rough drafts. If all these steps are not carefully gone through, the message would appear disjointed, ill-organized and become ineffective. On the other hand, if the purpose is identified, the receiver evaluated, ideas gathered and message organized, the communication would become effective. Before one makes a speech or sends across a letter, or conceives an advertisement, one has to go through the steps of planning such as identifying purpose, evaluating the audience, collecting all relevant information and finally organizing the message. Once the message is organized, the sender should choose the proper medium for transmitting the message.

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Communication Theory

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How to create a business analysis communication plan

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Reading time: about 6 min

Business analysts help companies improve their processes, systems, and operations by analyzing current practices, defining business needs, and proposing solutions. In other words, business analysts (BAs) are in the business of change. 

Once BAs define the problems and the solutions, they help initiate changes through careful communication and planning across the organization. Because business analysis covers the entire organization, BAs must facilitate cross-functional communications that effectively speak to the needs for change and the path forward so stakeholders at every level support the initiative.  

That’s where a strong communication plan comes in.

BAs must be skilled communicators, enabled by a robust communication strategy and plan. Without buy-in from employees and leaders throughout the company, change initiatives will fall flat. 

Below we’ll cover what a business analysis communication plan is, why it’s important, and best practices for developing a BA communication strategy.

Why is it important to have a communication plan?

A formal communication strategy helps business analysts communicate change requirements, project initiatives, and business needs clearly and consistently. This is an important part of the communication strategy because business analysts must be able to communicate clearly across the organization throughout the iterative change management process. 

As projects and requirements evolve and different stakeholders engage in the process (or are impacted by the initiatives), communication acts as the glue that holds everything together and keeps everyone on the same page.

A communication plan provides a roadmap to guide messaging decisions and ensure that information is relayed in the right way to the right people. 

In short, a strong communication plan:

  • Keeps things organized
  • Drives efficiency through a set process
  • Ensures the communications reach the right audience

What is a business analysis communication plan?

Requirements communication is an important part of a BA’s responsibilities. Ongoing, iterative communication helps BAs convey key business requirements, findings, and recommendations throughout the business analysis process. 

Business analysis and requirements communication involve numerous activities including:

  • Managing conflicts
  • Determining the requirements format
  • Creating a requirements package
  • Presenting the analysis and requirements
  • Reviewing requirements
  • Obtaining requirements signoff

To successfully communicate through each of these tasks, BAs need a clear communication plan. 

A business analysis communication plan is a framework that helps BAs document: 

  • What information needs to be shared.
  • Who needs to receive the information.
  • When information should be delivered.
  • How information will be shared (platform and setting).
  • Required stakeholder actions (sign off, review, give feedback).
  • Next steps after stakeholder actions.

A communication plan should outline the purpose of the communication, how those goals will be achieved, the audience, the timeline for delivery, and how results will be measured.

Use visuals to outline your communication plans and keep track of key messaging strategies. Visuals like a communication plan chart or communication matrix can help you get started.

communication matrix

Visualizing your communication plan will keep your framework organized into key categories such as stakeholders, deliverables, task or project owners, priority, and delivery method. Take advantage of visualization solutions that are easily shareable and collaborative to disseminate information efficiently and keep everyone on the same page. 

Best practices for developing communication plans

Creating and implementing a robust communication plan takes work. But the payoff is worth it. Use the following tips and best practices to nail your business communication every step of the way.

1. Determine your communication goals

What is your purpose for the communication? For instance, are you managing conflict, creating a requirements package, or seeking sign-off from stakeholders? Each objective will affect how you communicate with your audience and the tools and strategies you use. 

For example, if you are managing conflict surrounding business requirements and stakeholder expectations, you might have to get everyone in a room together to have a meeting to bridge the gap. Or, you may need to prepare a presentation with additional supporting research to back up your initial requirements analysis. 

2. Consider your audience 

How you communicate information will also depend on who your audience is. Consider what communication format and messaging is most effective for each individual or group you’re communicating with. 

For example, your audience may be most receptive to a formal presentation with follow-up emails. Meet your audience where they are while ensuring all requirements are fully documented throughout the process for reference.

Communication methods could include:

  • Status reports
  • Meeting summaries
  • Presentations
  • Video conferencing
  • Chat or email
  • Shared collaboration tools like interactive visuals

3. Pay attention to frequency

Communication can make or break your company’s engagement. While what you say is important, how often you communicate can play an equally important role in building trust and keeping everyone on the same page throughout the change management process. 

Don’t leave people to guess what is going on in the business or how it might impact them. Bring people into the conversation so you are always working from the most up-to-date information and ensuring no one is left in the dark. 

Paying attention to the frequency and cadence of your communications will improve engagement and buy-in from your stakeholders across the organization.  

4. Use visuals to deliver your communication

Communication must be consistent and clear. Avoid text-heavy, complex plans in favor of easy-to-digest roadmaps. While many BAs outline their plans in spreadsheets or text documents, visuals can help you organize and present your messaging plans and information simply and effectively through every business analysis stage.

The following templates can help you get started:

BPMN process flow diagrams help analysts understand current business processes and identify opportunities to improve them. These are a great addition to your BA toolbelt both for analyzing and documenting as-is processes as part of your analysis, as well as communicating your findings to stakeholders. Use these diagrams to illustrate current processes and pinpoint where and how your recommendations fit in.

BPMN process flow

Current vs. Target Balanced Scorecard

Balanced scorecards help BAs compare current business metrics to strategic goals. These are a great tool for analyzing the gap between where the business is now and where it would like to be. Use balanced scorecards to help communicate gaps in your strategic targets and support your case for recommended requirements.

business analyst

Business Model Canvas

A Business Model Canvas is a one-page document that summarizes your business plans. This is a great asset for BAs because it succinctly communicates strategy, plans, and vision with enough detail to provide context and clear information about process and decision-making. 

Business Model Canvas organizes the following information in one easy-to-digest visual:

  • Value proposition —What problem are you solving
  • Key partners —Who needs to be involved in producing and delivering these solutions
  • Key activities —What needs to be done to achieve your goal
  • Key resources —What you need to deliver these results
  • Customer relationships —How do you talk to your market about these solutions
  • Customer segments —Who needs your solution 
  • Channels —How will you deliver your solution

This visual is a great tool for organizing your plans and communicating the business value of your recommendations to stakeholders at every level.

A successful business analysis isn’t complete without a well-executed communication plan. Use these tips to bring your organization together on key business requirements and make an impact today. 

what is planning in business communication

Create a robust communication plan and strategy to gain employee buy-in and communicate key details with stakeholders in Lucidchart.

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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Business communication is always evolving. With these courses and certification program, you can upskill for 2024

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If you ask almost any professional about the most important hard skills, communication is almost always top of the list. 

The ability to discuss strategy, goals, and solutions with others is paramount to any business; communication can truly be the make or break for companies small and large. Millions of dollars can be lost each year because of inadequate communication.

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UNC Kenan-Flagler's #1-ranked online MBA

For these reasons, communication skills remain highly desired. Digital communication skills are the second most in-demand technical skill and communication more broadly—including written, oral, and presentation—remains among the top soft skills sought after by companies, according to Wiley’s Closing the Skills Gap 2023 report .

And with the workplace looking a lot different than it did just five years ago—with more remote work and AI integration, for example—the best ways to communicate are also changing.

“Skills today can generally get outmoded in about three to five years and so that means that we need to upskill really often,” says Angie Kamath, dean of the NYU School of Professional Studies .

Changing communication dynamics

One way to get ahead of the curve is to explore business communication courses. While they previously focused more on writing professional emails, completing research reports, creating effective presentations, today, the area has shifted to focus more deeply on data analytics, customer communication, social impact, and social media, Kamath notes.

Social media in particular has created new opportunities for businesses to sell products. According to Pew Research Center , 3 in 10 adult social media users have purchased a product after seeing it on social media—with the number rising if it is mentioned by a content creator they follow.

Because this shift is so broad and impactful, Kamath says integrated marketing has become the most popular master’s program that NYU’s professional studies school offers. For those who work deeply in the marketing and communications space—upskilling via a graduate program could be a great opportunity. 

For others, completing a certification program or even simply taking a one-off communication course could be a great way to learn the most up-to-date practices—especially in the wake of new technology.

“So, we often try to help people understand how to use technology—flavor of the month or flavor for year is AI—but how to use technology to enhance what you’re doing from a communications standpoint,” Kamath tells Fortune .

At the same time, there are also human dynamics that have changed in the workforce, including around gender, diversity, aging, hybridity, and Gen Z. Therefore, in part, exiting your algorithm is critically important to learning new ideas and having conversation, Kamath says.

“Whether it’s in our job life or work life or personal life like social media, is sucking us in,” she adds. “We get to be in our echo chamber because the algorithm is telling us what to consume.”

Her advice is to find an offering that best addresses your interests and learning desires within three large skill buckets: human, business-enabling, and technical. A course may be able to touch on all three or focus deeply on one subject. 

The good news is that there are a variety of program lengths, costs, requirements, and focuses, and while certificates are offered, you can also choose to just enroll in individual courses. Ultimately, it is most important to choose one that best fits into your modern career goals as well as personal circumstances. 

Fortune has laid out some of the offerings on the market for you to upskill in the world of business communication. 

Duke Continuing Studies Program: Business Communication Certificate

Requirements: 2 courses to gain certification

Cost: $145 per course; $250 for package

Format : Online

Timeline: 10–20 hours to complete entire package

Course examples : Effective Business Writing; Effective Presentations; Communicating Collaboratively

eCornell: Business Communication Certificate Program

Cost: $3,900

Timeline: 3 months

Course examples : Cross-Cultural Communication; Persuasive Writing; Impactful Unscripted Communication

Harvard Extension School: Business Communications Graduate Certificate

Requirements: Take 3 business communication courses to gain certification

Cost: $9,660 ($3,220/course)

Format : Online or in-person

Timeline: Within three years

Course examples : Information Technology Finance and Communications; Grant Proposal Writing; Negotiation and Organizational Conflict Resolution

Johns Hopkins Carey Business School: Executive Certificate in Business Communication

Requirements: Take 3 18-hour courses to gain certification

Cost: $11,400 ($3,800/course)

Timeline: Self-determined

Course examples: Interpersonal Communication & Conflict Management; Written and Visual Communication; Public Speaking for Professionals

NYU School of Professional Studies: Certificate in Professional Writing and Communications

Requirements: 3 core courses + 3 electives to gain certification

Cost: ~$5,400 ($799–$999/course)

Format : Online; instructor-led or self-paced options

Course examples: Digital Communication in a Changing Workplace; Persuading in Business: Leadership, Public Speaking, and Executive Communication; Strategic Communications and Corporate Storytelling

UCLA Extension: Business Communications Certificate

Requirements: Complete 7 courses (5 required + 2 electives)

Cost : ~$6,700 (includes fee, tuition, program materials)

Course examples: The Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication; Crisis Management and Communications: Safeguarding Image and Viability; Best Practices in Social Media for the Communications Professional

University of Colorado—Boulder: Effective Communication: Writing, Design, and Presentation Specialization

Requirements: 4 course series

Cost : $49/month

Timeline: 2 months (10 hours/week)

Course examples: Business Writing; Graphic Design; Successful PresentationBeyond these examples, platforms like Udemy , Coursera, and edX offer a variety of course offerings in the business communication space. 

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IMAGES

  1. Communication Strategies in Business with Infographics

    what is planning in business communication

  2. Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan

    what is planning in business communication

  3. Why Should You Use Communication Plan Templates

    what is planning in business communication

  4. Creating a Business Plan: Why it Matters and Where to Start

    what is planning in business communication

  5. Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan

    what is planning in business communication

  6. Communication Strategy Framework And Why It Matters In Business

    what is planning in business communication

VIDEO

  1. Objectives of business communication /business communication

  2. Business Plan Implementation

  3. INTRO TO BUSINESS

  4. Planning your project communication

  5. Business Communication

  6. Business Communication Assignment

COMMENTS

  1. What Is Communication Planning and Why Is It Important?

    Communication planning involves learning about the audiences you want to reach and using strategic messaging and channels to best engage them. Learning about the importance and advantages of communication planning can enable you to create a strong framework for building relationships with internal and external parties.

  2. Communications Planning

    Step 1. Understand Your Objectives Be clear about your overall communication objectives. What do you want to achieve, when and why? Record your overall objectives in your plan. Figure 1: Communications Planning Template Step 2. Understand Your Audiences Now identify and list your different audiences. This can initially seem quite difficult.

  3. How to Write an Effective Communication Plan [2023] • Asana

    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.

  4. Communications Planning: A Quick Guide

    Communication planning is the process of laying out how communication will take place between team members and stakeholders, whether it be on a project, in an organization or both. In other words, managers use a communication plan to create a formal process for sharing information.

  5. How To Create an Effective Communication Plan

    A communication plan is a detailed plan that conveys important information to your target audience, which may vary depending on the situation but could include current and potential customers, team members, stakeholders, clients or investors. During the communication planning process, you and your team will determine the following:

  6. Planning Business Messages

    Planning is the key first step in the writing process because it enables the writer to begin thinking about how the final product will be created and evaluated. It is the first step in establishing your accountability and reliability as a writer.

  7. Five Components Of A Successful Strategic Communications Plan

    Luckily, after some research and conversations with others who had more experience than myself on the topic at hand, what finally developed was a communications strategy plan that we used over...

  8. Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan

    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.

  9. How to Write an Effective Communications Plan [+ Template]

    What is a communications plan? A communications 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).

  10. How to Write a Communication Plan in 10 Steps

    For example, if you're writing a project communication plan for a new business, you'll need to convey different messages to stakeholders, such as deadlines and action items. Meanwhile, if you're writing a communication plan for a product launch, reviewing your marketing strategies to ensure they align with your new messaging is a good idea.

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

    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.

  12. What is Communications Planning? 4 Steps Communication ...

    Communications planning is the process of identifying and setting goals, determining who needs to be communicated with, and deciding what communication tools will best achieve the desired result.

  13. What is a communication plan?

    A communication plan is a policy-driven approach to providing company stakeholders with certain information. Communication plans are typically used in business settings to ensure all parties have the latest updates on projects, goals and objectives. They are also critical aspects of both incident response and business continuity (BC) planning.

  14. 5.2 A Planning Checklist for Business Messages

    Describe the planning process and essential elements of a business document. John Thill and Courtland Bovee (Thill, J. V., & Bovee, C. L., 2004), two leading authors in the field of business communication, have created a checklist for planning business messages.

  15. Corporate Communications Plan: The Roadmap for Success

    A corporate communications plan is the framework for how a business shares messages internally and externally. You can think of it as the roadmap for how a company communicates with their stakeholders, employees, customers, the media, and regulators.

  16. Chapter 2: The Writing Process

    The writing process involves pre-writing, writing and reviewing. When planning your message, it is important to determine the purpose of your message and think about the needs of your audience. Once you have a good understanding of your audience, think about how to create a message to fit that audience's needs.

  17. What is a communication plan and why it's important: a guide

    Communication plans define what information should be communicated, who should receive that information, when that information should be delivered, where (e.g., email, social media, mail) communication will be shared, and how those communications will be tracked and analyzed.

  18. How to Communicate Your Company's Strategy Effectively

    Greater external uncertainty, collaboration, employee anxiety, and organizational openness demands a change of approach. The author presents five actions that will improve the clarity and quality ...

  19. What is Communication Planning? (And How to Develop a Plan)

    Communication method: Your communication plan determines the form of communication and messaging you choose for the project. For example, you can use an email, newsletter, or phone call. Target audience: Your communication plan requires a defined target audience, along with a strategy for targeting that audience.

  20. Importance of Planning in Business communication

    In business communication, the first principle is planning. Any message, communicated without proper planning is bound to be haphazard and disjointed. The exercise of planning, though apparently time consuming, will be rewarding.

  21. Creating a Communication Plan for Your Business

    1. Establish your brand. In order to ensure your messaging and communication efforts all adhere to the same values and mission, create a brand statement that neatly summarizes what your company stands for and believes in. Consider using a template like this to help you write your own: [Company name] exists in order to give [benefit 1], [benefit ...

  22. How to create a business analysis communication plan

    A communication plan provides a roadmap to guide messaging decisions and ensure that information is relayed in the right way to the right people. In short, a strong communication plan: Keeps things organized Drives efficiency through a set process Ensures the communications reach the right audience What is a business analysis communication plan?

  23. 1.5 Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling

    Planning. Planning is the function of management that involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving those objectives. Planning requires that managers be aware of environmental conditions facing their organization and forecast future conditions. It also requires that managers be good decision makers.

  24. These business communication courses can help grow in-demand ...

    Course examples: Digital Communication in a Changing Workplace; Persuading in Business: Leadership, Public Speaking, and Executive Communication; Strategic Communications and Corporate Storytelling

  25. 30 Emerging Technologies That Will Guide Your Business Decisions

    This theme focuses on making the right business and ethical choices in the adoption of AI and using AI design principles that will benefit people and society.. Human-centered AI (HCAI) is a common AI design principle that calls for AI to continuously benefit from human input. Behavioral analytics refers to session-tracking capabilities that monitor user interactions with a protected service to ...

  26. 6 work and workplace trends to watch in 2024

    Digital jobs could help to balance skill shortages in higher-income countries, while boosting opportunities for younger workers in lower-income countries: "If managed well, global digital jobs present an opportunity to utilize talent around the world, widening the talent pool available to employers and providing economic growth pathways to countries across the income spectrum."

  27. Area businesses preparing for RNC waiting to hear contract decisions

    "The plan is to highlight and show what our Black businesses can do or are doing in the city of Milwaukee." Bradley Thurman, partner in the coffee shop, hopes business from the convention will ...

  28. War in Ukraine: Estonian PM Calls for Joint Bonds to Boost Kyiv's

    The European Union should work on a plan to issue €100 billion ($107.8 billion) in eurobonds to boost the continent's defense industry, and in the meantime do more to get weapons to Ukraine ...