“Strategic communications”-- a term thrown around a lot in higher ed but practiced far less. Everyone agrees strategy is important. But a complex place like a university can create a lot of distractions.
Strategic planning offers the promise of effective marcom that reaches key audiences to achieve goals. When there is no strategy, all that’s left is reacting to needs that come up and piecemeal communications that achieve little.
Here are some pointers on how to stay strategic amidst all the noise. Oh, and by the way, this advice is just as relevant to nonprofits, healthcare, and other organizations:
Create a strategy built around supporting institutional goals.
First, identify institutional goals. If there is no official five or ten-year plan coming the President’s office, then work with senior leadership to identify key priorities.
Do your research. Base your plan on solid data and understanding of audiences. Look at what is working and not working in your organization. Look at what others are doing that seems to work or not. Use data and analytics to back up your proposals whenever possible. Of course, keep up with the latest and greatest technologies and best practices, so that you can include these in your strategy.
Get buy-in from key leadership and constituencies. This can be done through meetings with key people, setting up an advisory committee for input, or sending the strategy out to key people for input.
Propose specific communication tactics and channels under each strategic goal. Include proposed timetables, resources (including estimated costs), and staffing. But make sure you allow for the inevitable unexpected requests that come up throughout the year that can’t be pushed aside. This is usually a pretty big chunk of time, so make sure it’s included in your plans.
Consider allocating amounts of time to each strategic priority. Flesh out specific projects associated with those priorities, and who will be the lead and/or doing the work.
Include both the ideal and the realistic. Present the “wish-list” or what you would do with unlimited time and resources, but clearly identify what is essential or urgent as a baseline minimum.
Describe how you will measure the success of your efforts.
Make sure your goals are realistic and achievable. Remember, it’s better to underpromise and overdeliver.
After your strategy is done and approved, review it from time to time.
Assess if your daily work is supporting strategic goals or if too much time is being siphoned away to other things.
Try to guide at least most communications around the strategy instead of just reacting to different things that come up. Yes, everyone must respond to important needs and crises that arise, it’s part of the job, just don’t let the unforeseen take over to the point where they become the entire marcom program. Get back to strategic comms that move the institution forward as soon as possible.
Review analytics and any other metrics available to measure the efficacy of your efforts, and make adjustments as needed.
Give yourself some cover for saying “no.
If you get buy-in from key leadership or an advisory committee of key players from around your organization, then you also give yourself cover to say ‘no’ when the inevitable demands on your time come in from all sides. Of course, you can never say ‘no’ to everything, but the strategy gives you an out, so it’s not just you making arbitrary decisions about who you will help.
Get rid of sacred cows.
Every office has them-- the sacred, time-tested way of doing things or annual projects that come up that everyone dreads and rolls their eyes about. Sometimes these projects are necessary, sometimes they are not. As you assess current operations for the strategy, look at everything with a critical eye. Some regular projects may be leftovers from an earlier time when the priorities, audiences, needs, and technologies were different. Also, maybe some of these tasks can be modified to take less time or labor. Newsletters are a good example-- if you’ve been sending one out every week, maybe it is worth asking if less frequency would really diminish the returns.
Use a multi-channel approach.
Effective communications usually involve a variety of channels. Make sure your strategy is drawing from the totality of the marketing communications toolbox as you look at ways to reach goals.
Let the channels follow the strategy.
Related to the last point, don’t get stuck on a favorite medium, channel, or platform. Focus on strategic goals and let the means follow the goals.
Think about audience first.
It’s amazing how often communications get stuck in whatever internal constituencies (faculty, staff, administration) think is important to communicate to the public instead of getting into the shoes of target audiences, such as prospective students, and thinking about what would engage them. Make sure your strategy is about reaching audiences to fulfill goals. Understand your target audiences as much as you can, preferably through research and data. If you include this audience data in your approved strategy, it takes the heat off of you when you have to politely push aside bad ideas.
Consider an outside perspective
Internal input and buy-in is critical, but getting outside professional perspective on your strategy can be helpful also. Port5 Communications, specialists in higher ed marcom, can review your plan and offer suggestions and ideas, or help you develop the plan.
With so many obstacles facing higher education and other organizations as the world still grapples with Covid and other challenges, there’s little time and money to waste on ineffective communications. Keep it strategic.
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