communication plan example for a business

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

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.

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:

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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How to Write an Effective Communications Plan [+ Template]

Published: January 05, 2023

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

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.

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.

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!

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Why a clear communication plan is more important than you think

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.

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

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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6-Step Guide to Crafting the Perfect Communication Plan

A communication plan is a key to developing an effective and consistent messaging strategy.

It helps guide the process of setting measurable goals for your strategy, profiling your target audience and creating and successfully delivering your message.

What is a Communication Plan

Components of a Communication Plan

Steps to communication planning, step 1 – perform a situation analysis, swot analysis, pest analysis, perceptual map, step 2 – identify and define objectives / goals, step 3 – understand and profile your key audience, step 4 – decide the media channels and create a strategy, step 5 – create a timetable for publishing, step 6 – monitor and evaluate the results, common mistakes to avoid when creating communications plans, faqs about communication plans, what’s your approach to writing a communication plan, what is a communication plan.

A communication plan outlines how teams can communicate important information to key stakeholders. It highlights what information should be shared, when, to which audience and via which channels.

Having a solid communication plan in place will help ensure that the communication objectives of your organization are met and that all assets that you send out are aligned with the core communications strategy of the company.

In marketing and public relations, communication plans are used to plan how important information about products and services will be communicated to target audiences, including customers, clients, media and the general public. Companies also use communication plans to maintain consistent and effective internal communications within the organization. These may include internal newsletters, intranet updates and team Wikis. In project management, communication plans are used to highlight how information will be communicated within teams and relevant stakeholders, throughout the lifecycle of the project. Overall, communications plans offer a structured approach to plan, implement and evaluate communication efforts to optimize the effectiveness of communications.

Use this communication plan template to develop your strategy and deploy it.

Why is a Communication Plan Essential?

Clear communication is the backbone of any successful initiative. A communication plan ensures that everyone is on the same page, reducing the risk of confusion, missed deadlines, and unmet expectations. It fosters trust, ensures transparency, and can be the difference between project success and failure.

Who Should Use a Communication Plan?

A communication plan isn’t just for large corporations or project managers. It’s for anyone aiming to streamline interactions, whether you’re a small business owner, a team leader, or an individual looking to improve personal projects. Understanding your audience and tailoring your communication strategy to them is the first step.

When Should You Implement a Communication Plan?

The best time to implement a communication plan is at the onset of a project or initiative. However, it’s never too late. Whether you’re starting a new project, revamping an old one, or looking to improve ongoing communications, a well-structured plan can make a difference.

Where Does a Communication Plan Apply?

While often associated with business projects, communication plans apply everywhere: from community events, educational programs, to personal projects. Any scenario that requires organized communication can benefit.

Your communications plan should include the following key elements.

1. Target Audience

Who is Your Target Audience? All strategic communications should be directed at a specific audience. Accordingly, the message you send out should be tailored to their level of knowledge, understanding and trust in your brand or organization.

What is the Context of Your Message? The next step is to define the context of your message. Identify key events that may be significant to the audience that you are aiming to reach. The context defines what should be included in the message and how your audience will relate and respond to it.

3. Outcomes

What Do You Aim to Achieve with Your Message? The outcome of your message is the ‘call to action’. Define what people need to know, believe and do after receiving the message. Create a ‘message pyramid’ with an attention grabbing headline, followed by ‘reasons why’ and proof points. This helps the audience understand your core message and then consider the proof points which are relevant to their context, and there by act based on your call-to-action.

Which Media Channels Will You Use? Media are the channels through which your message is communicated. These may vary depending on the content, context and audience of the message. For instance, if you want to reach a younger tech-savvy audience, you may choose a social media platform that may be popular among them.

5. Messengers

How Will You Choose Your Messengers? The primary messenger may not always be the most ‘effective’ messenger. The messenger’s ethos should resonate credibility, status and power, expertise and relationship.

Why do most companies get their CEOs or members of the senior management to conduct new product launches or convey important product information? It is because audiences tend to have confidence in people with big titles who have an influence in the organization. They are also experts in their subject area and have a strong relationship with the company.

6. Measurement

How Will You Measure Success? It is important to cultivate strategies to measure the effectiveness of your communications. Include KPIs for your communication activities and document the results. This also helps build a repository of information which will be useful when planning future communications activities.

Whether you are creating a marketing communication plan or a strategic communication plan, the following steps will help guide you.

Situation analysis helps assess the capabilities of and health of things in an organization. It’s the ideal way to understand the current status of your organization’s communication.

You can gather as much information as needed from conducting an audit .

To gather relevant information from situation analysis, you can consult departmental heads, process owners and other internal staff members.

In a situation analysis, you need to examine both the internal and external environments. To do so, you can use the following tools

You can use a SWOT analysis to examine the strengths and weaknesses within your organization, and opportunities and threats that you can find in your external environment.

With a PEST analysis , you can examine political, environmental, social and technological factors, all of which exist in the external environment of your organization, but can have a significant impact on the way things run in your business.

One good competitor analysis technique is the perceptual map. It helps you make sense of how your customers perceive the brands of your competitors in the market compared to yours.

Once you know where you stand, you can find your direction. The next step is to define your goals.

Think of what outcomes/results you want to achieve from your communication plan. These will become your goal/s as you develop your communication plan.

Make sure that the goals you select are SMART :

Who are you creating this communication plan for? Understanding your audience and their requirements, characteristics etc. is key to creating an effective message and delivering it successfully.

Your key audience could be within your organization or your customers. Either way, you should gather information on them and create simple audience personas.

These personas could include a variety of data that ranges from their age and gender to the challenges they face.

As you conduct research on your target audience you would get to know that their requirements and preferences are diverse.

It’s clear that you won’t be able to reach all of them through one media channel or retain their attention with one type of content.

Consider the most effective channels you can think of when creating your media channel strategy. Make sure to select the ideal channel when you are targeting different audience segments.

When do you want your audience to hear your message and how often? Have a content calendar or create a Gantt chart outlining a timeframe for your publishing strategy.

You may also need to take the resources available to you into consideration. If you have one content writer, publishing quality blog posts on a daily basis would be ineffective.

Constantly monitor and track your results in order to understand whether you are any closer to achieving your goals. If you have failed, proceed to mark it down so you can make necessary improvements next time.

Creating a communication plan for your non profit organization? Check out this resource for some great tips.

Overcomplicating the Plan

Trying to include too many channels or too much information may complicate the plan. This can lead to confusion and dilute the effectiveness of your messaging. Stick only to key messaging and channels that are most effective in reaching and engaging the target audience.

Not Considering the Timing

Timing is crucial in communication planning. It is important to consider the timing of the messaging and ensure that they are aligned with key events or milestones. Don’t send out important communications during periods of high volume or noise, such as during holidays or major news events.

Not Adapting to Changes

Communication plans should be adaptable and flexible to changes in environment or audience. It is important to regularly review and update plans to keep up with emerging trends (to make sure that your plan stays relevant and effective). Failing to adapt to changes may cause missed opportunities and ineffective messaging.

How often should a communications plan be updated?

A communications plan should be updated regularly to reflect changes in the organization’s goals, priorities, audiences, or external environment. The frequency of updates will depend on the pace of change in the organization and the industry. A good rule of thumb is to review the communications plan annually and update it as needed. However, if there are major changes in the organization, such as a merger, acquisition, or crisis, the communications plan should be updated immediately to ensure that communication is timely, accurate, and effective.

How can an organization measure the effectiveness of its communications plan?

An organization can measure the effectiveness of its communications plan by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) related to its communication goals and objectives. These KPIs may include website traffic, social media engagement, email open rates, media coverage, customer satisfaction surveys, or sales figures. By tracking these KPIs over time, the organization can assess whether its communication activities are achieving the desired results and make adjustments as needed. It’s important to set realistic goals and benchmarks for each KPI and to ensure that the data is collected consistently and accurately. Additionally, feedback from stakeholders, such as customers, employees, and investors, can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of the organization’s communication activities.

A successful communication plan will get your message delivered across to your audience effectively while ensuring that you are on track to accomplishing your business objectives.

Follow the simple steps above to create a winning communication plan. If you have any other tips, do share them with us in the comment section below.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

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Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics.

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10 communication plan templates—and how to write your own

There's a warning on the box my steam iron came in that says, "Do not iron clothes while wearing them."

This gave me pause for a few minutes, but it got me thinking about the kind of lawsuit that prompted lawyers to include an otherwise obvious warning on the box and the kind of crisis communication plan that came to exist in the aftermath.

Add that to the "pudding will get hot when heated" warning and the trademark "shower cap fits only one head" disclaimer, and you've got yourself an era in which communication plans are not only a helpful organizational tool but a very necessary one.

Successfully running a company requires clear communication across the board: with employees, customers, investors, and any other stakeholders. Any gap in communication can lead to difficulties that range from minor project blips to absolute disaster. And while they're necessary for crisis management, communication plans have plenty of other uses beyond ensuring your consumer doesn't give themselves third-degree burns.

Table of contents:

Communication plan templates 

How to write a communication plan

Communication plan essentials, what is a communication plan.

A communication plan is your blueprint for delivering key information to appropriate stakeholders. It outlines the information that needs to be communicated, who it's meant for, the channel it's delivered through, and the folks in charge of it to ensure clear, consistent, and purposeful communication.

This document can look different depending on what it's used for. Here are some examples to give you an idea:

If I were creating a crisis communication plan for the unlikely event that someone irons their shirt while wearing it, I'd consider all the steps we'd have to take to avoid scrutiny and legal issues, like seeking medical attention, designating a spokesperson to represent our company, or press release strategies to address the issue. (I'd also consider whether the box should come with a logical analysis puzzle the user needs to solve before they can open it, but that's just me trying to fix the world one steam iron at a time.)

A marketing communication plan plays a different role. It's designed to outline responsibilities and initiatives within the grand scope of the marketing strategy to keep teams aligned and informed. One initiative I'd underline twice for our steam iron product would be to produce marketing imagery that clearly demonstrates how to iron a shirt—i.e., on an ironing board, not a body.

A product launch communication plan helps keep everyone on the same page regarding brand messaging, intended effects, and progress throughout the launch. Let's take Apple as an example. They're known for their meticulously planned and executed product launches. Their communication strategy involves creating anticipation through teaser campaigns, leveraging secrecy to build excitement, and hosting live events to unveil new products.

Bottom line: communication plans run the gamut. When it comes to format, some plans may be in a table format, outlining talking points and deadlines. Others may contain more of a narrative, meant to inform and update the reader on how a situation is being handled.

You can use a communication plan for both external and internal communication. An employee communication plan, for example, is only meant for your team's eyes. On the other hand, public relations communication plans can be used internally and can also be shared with relevant third parties for outreach and marketing purposes.

Communication plan templates

A communication plan is that one bookmark every employee clicks at the beginning of their day until they associate its main page with the smell of coffee.

Knowing what it is and why it matters is one thing, but understanding the different ways you can use a communication plan is another. Since there are so many different types of plans, I've put together a few templates to highlight the differences. Pick your (well-labeled) poison.

1. Marketing communication plan

This communication plan outlines your marketing initiatives for each audience. It tracks relevant information, including the person or team in charge of the project, tasks, timeline, communication channels, audience, and notes.

It also organizes this information based on each aspect of your marketing strategy, whether it's targeting existing clients, potential leads, investors, events, or any PR third parties. 

2. Crisis communication plan

No organization is immune to unexpected and challenging situations that can potentially harm its reputation and operations. This communication plan outlines a systematic approach to addressing crises, including key team members, their responsibilities, communication channels, and the predefined strategy.

It should include clear guidelines for rapid response, methods for updating stakeholders, and ways to mitigate potential damage to the organization's image. The plan should always outline the key crisis management team, their roles and responsibilities, procedures for identifying the crisis, and how to work with media outlets and external entities.

3. Internal communication plan

This communication plan is designed to ensure employees receive timely and relevant information, have clear visibility of organizational goals, and stay informed about key developments within the organization.

It includes details on communication channels, such as newsletters, meetings, and virtual seminars. Typically, it outlines how the leadership team communicates with employees, how frequently they can expect updates, and methods for gathering feedback to enhance internal communication across the board.

4. Social media communication plan

A social media communication plan guides a company's strategy in utilizing social media platforms for its communication goals. It's important for building a strong online presence, engaging with your target audience, and managing your company's reputation in the digital world.

This plan includes an overview of your social media content strategy , detailing the type of content you intend to share, how often you should publish posts, and the voice of the message. 

To make the most of your social media communication plan, define the target audience on each platform, outline KPIs for measuring success, and establish helpful guidelines that can tie into your crisis communication plan and leverage social media in case of an emergency.

5. Change management communication plan

If your company goes through grand-scale change such as mergers, rebranding, restructuring, or process optimization , a change management plan is crucial for ensuring your team is informed, engaged, and supportive of the changes. 

The team's going to need an explanation and a plan of action now that Janice is walking down the office toward the door marked "manager" with a big smile on her face.

Its goal is to facilitate a smooth transition and should always include clear messaging regarding the reasons for the change, the anticipated benefits, and how this could affect employees. It outlines the timeline for the change, strategies for addressing concerns, available communication channels, and any feedback regarding the process.

6. Non-profit communication plan

Non-profits operate differently from other organizations, and their communication plans reflect that. The document effectively conveys the non-profit's cause, engages stakeholders, and develops support. 

Since it's designed to build awareness, foster donor relationships, and maintain a level of transparency about the organization's impact, a non-profit communication plan should include well-crafted messaging that aligns with the org's values, outlines the strategy for reaching and mobilizing donors, and plans how to make the most of communication channels such as social media, newsletters, and events.

For a unique touch that sets your non-profit communication plan apart, emphasize storytelling to humanize your cause and connect with your audience on an emotional level. For example, you might include an initiative that triggers an automatic email when a donor registers or makes a contribution—something that reflects their impact on the cause.

7. Product launch communication plan

Developing a new product is a stressful and tedious process on its own. Introducing it to the world can be its own hassle, but a good communication plan can help simplify the process by creating anticipation, generating excitement, and breaking down the approach for a successful product launch.

Your plan should include key features and details about the product, the target audience, and market positioning . To nurture and engage that anticipation, you should also include a timeline for communication activities and strategies that cover the channels you intend to use, like social media, email marketing, and press releases.

To take it a step further, include messaging that addresses potential challenges and opens up the opportunity to receive feedback and gauge your customers' response to the launch.

8. Public relations communication plan

This communication plan is ideal for organizations that want to manage their brand reputation and build relationships with the public. Your brand image is an important aspect of business that can affect operations on every level, and nurturing it requires strategic communication, especially with media and public inquiries. You want the public eye to see you in your nice, freshly-ironed shirt.

A public relations communication plan includes key messaging, a media relations strategy, and a calendar of planned PR initiatives, as well as goals, target audiences, and metrics for monitoring the success of your PR efforts.

9. Employee communication plan

Any organization with a team bigger than six people can face major communication challenges, to say nothing of companies that employ staff in the hundreds and thousands. Company news, updates, policies, and initiatives that employees need to be aware of can be difficult to disseminate properly.

Sure, you can take your chances on a company-wide email, but it'll likely end up buried unopened somewhere in everyone's inbox, and you'll be standing there with the corporate equivalent of eating mango-scented shampoo.

An employee communication plan helps foster organizational transparency and workplace alignment within your team. It'll contribute to your company culture and enhance your employees' sense of belonging and connection to company goals.

This plan includes channels for internal communication as well as a content strategy that touches on employees' needs and concerns. While an internal communication plan focuses on the company's business goals, an employee communication plan addresses the company's internal development initiatives. 

10. Event communication plan

This communication plan guides your organization's efforts surrounding an event, ensuring effective promotion, coordination, and engagement. It's useful for managing the flow of information before, during, and after an event.

The plan includes key messaging, the timeline for the event's communication activities, strategies for putting channels like social media and email marketing to use, and how to properly approach inquiries and feedback from event attendees.

Each type of communication plan contains a different set of elements, but the process of putting a communication plan together, regardless of its purpose, remains the same. 

1. Set communication goals

I hate sounding like every therapist ever, but communication goals are very important. If your roommate doesn't understand that your scream of pain from the other room means you might have accidentally ironed a shirt while wearing it, help isn't coming, and your room will smell like barbeque. 

Your goals can range from increasing brand awareness and engagement to notifying stakeholders about a new product launch or managing an emergency. Setting these goals beforehand lays the foundation for the entire plan and defines communication channels, messaging strategies, and evaluation metrics. Focus on setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) business objectives .

If I were ironing a shirt, I'd outline my goal for a smooth, freshly-ironed shirt free of wrinkles, and I'd prepare for that by neatly placing the shirt, being conscious of those pesky corners, and keeping it nice and aligned before getting started. In the same vein, If I were writing a communication plan that focuses on brand awareness, I'd outline goals for social media campaigns and content marketing strategies. I'd aim to increase user engagement on each social media platform by a certain percentage, increasing visibility, ad clicks, and interaction with my brand.  

Clear communication goals give your organization a sense of direction and allow your team to accurately measure success, making adjustments based on tangible results.

2. Identify the audience

Each audience you're trying to reach through your communication plan will have its own unique expectations and concerns. The plan and the message within need to align with the audience's values and interests.

If you're writing for investors, the plan needs to outline your communication goals for them specifically, touching on relevant topics and important points. It would also designate how the information will be conveyed, by whom, and how to move forward if any variables were to shift. 

Conduct thorough market research , and collect relevant insight into your target audience's demographics, behaviors, and preferences. What data are you sharing with your investors? What kind of information would be both relevant and important to share with them? How can you best phrase that communication so it has a positive impact?

Who's telling the board that a customer ironed their shirt while wearing it?

A good practice is to segment your audience and create detailed personas to ensure your message is not only read but understood and embraced.

3. Outline key messages

The key information you're distributing through your communication plan is a delicate balance between the organization's goals and resonance with the audience. 

For example, a product launch communication plan doesn't really need your 25-year company trajectory outlined and explained. The key information here would pertain to the product itself, the process for the launch, steps to take, tasks to perform, and the timeline for the entire project.

Make your messages clear, concise, and compelling to leave a lasting impression. 

4. Choose communication channels

Outline which communication channels are best suited to execute your plan. For example, an employee communication plan should utilize private internal channels like meetings, internal platforms, or emails. Product launch communication plans should leverage external channels as well, like websites, social media, newsletters, and press releases.

Choose communication channels that fit the plan and can be integrated for a cohesive communication strategy that aligns with both your company's goals and the audience's preferences. Ask yourself: 

Who's meant to read this? 

How can I reach them? 

Is this private internal communication or is it meant for public distribution? 

Which channel would have the best visibility for my audience? 

5. Create a timeline

For the plan to be effective on any level, you need to outline its execution in a detailed timeline that sets the start and end dates of each initiative or item on the document.

Details such as specific dates for key events, launches, and regular updates anchor the plan and facilitate a proactive approach. The timeline is your audience's visual roadmap, and it is handy for allocating resources when you're executing your communication plan. 

6. Allocate resources

Putting the plan into action will require resources like budgets and staffing needs. Even time is a resource that needs to be considered. For example, your budget should account for advertising costs, materials, technology investments, and communication channels.

Allocating resources as soon as the timeline is clear ensures the communication plan runs smoothly and delivers the intended message across all initiatives. 

7. Designate responsibilities

If you run into an unexpected crisis situation while at the helm of an organization, even the most detailed communication plan won't make a difference if no one knows what they're supposed to be doing.

Designate responsibilities and outline who owns which task so that when the plan goes into action, your team can just refer to the document to know who's taking care of each task, who to reach out to, and what their part in the operation is.

This is important even in non-crisis situations. Let's say you're launching a new tech product. Your plan should designate your marketing director as responsible for presenting the new product concept and strategy to the company's executive board. It should also designate your marketing coordinators as responsible for any workshops or seminars for external partners like retailers and distributors. 

8. Create contingency plans

Always prepare for the unlikely. Create contingency plans to deal with challenges that might come up when you're executing your plan. What should the team do in the case of negative public reactions or technical difficulties? Who's taking charge of directing efforts in each aspect? How do you address potential issues should they arise? How do you pivot or proceed if you don't achieve your goals?

Be prepared for gaps in the execution, and outline proactive responses to bring the plan back on track.

9. Set metrics for evaluation

Measurement and evaluation are key for the development of your communication plan. You want to track and gauge how well the efforts outlined in your plan are performing.

You can monitor public perception and sales volume before and after implementing your crisis communication plan, or you can monitor KPIs like audience engagement, reach, and conversion rates when your new marketing plan goes into effect. In the case of internal and employee communication plans, you can monitor the change in processes and how it affects your team's efficiency and comfort levels. 

Leverage your communication channels to identify these metrics and areas for improvement, so you can keep adjusting your plan as you go.

10. Perform testing and gather feedback

While testing and gathering feedback are encouraged throughout the process, this relates more to testing your communication plan before you launch it.

For example, you can test how effective your communication plan is and how well it would be received through focus groups, pilot programs, or even internal experimentation.

Once you have feedback from your target audience, you'll be better positioned to refine your messaging and its presentation, and address pitfalls before you execute the plan.

You don't want your communication plan to be just another document in your arsenal of organizational tools. The goal is to make it a piece of your strategy that actively contributes to better communication and company-wide transparency. In order to write an effective communication plan, here are some essential points to consider:

Establish messaging and branding guidelines: Stick to your organization's tone, style, and visual uniqueness to keep your brand identity alive in all communications.

Monitor and adjust: Keep an eye on the plan's performance. Make efforts to adapt based on emerging trends, feedback, and unforeseen challenges.

Report and review: Set KPIs and review them to gauge the effectiveness of the communication plan and better prepare for future strategies.

Document your plan: Keep your plan detailed and well documented , so all team members are on the same page regarding your strategy.

Consistency and long-term planning: Maintain and encourage consistency in your messaging and plan for the long term. Align initiatives with your long-term communication goals.

You can launch exceptional initiatives with a communication plan template and set a unique process that's invaluable for your company's strategy in marketing, PR, change management, and crisis situations. The right plan can make your operations smoother, a bit like a steam iron would your shirt if you're conscious enough to not turn yourself into an ironing board.

Most importantly, it defines how your organization communicates—both internally and externally. It sets the pace and tone for future initiatives. As you become more accustomed to how they work, you'll be able to customize and create your own document templates for other aspects of your business. As you establish the foundation for business communication, you'll be able to automate every part of your project management flow and communicate those goals seamlessly. Find out how Zapier can help you streamline project management . 

Related reading:

The 6-step client onboarding checklist (with template)

7 meeting minutes templates for more productive meetings

One-pager examples and how to create your own

An exhaustive guide to customer acquisition strategy (with 13 examples)

20 free proposal templates to ace your pitch

How to create a sales plan (and 3 templates that do it for you)

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Hachem Ramki

Hachem is a writer and digital marketer from Montreal. After graduating with a degree in English, Hachem spent seven years traveling around the world before moving to Canada. When he's not writing, he enjoys Basketball, Dungeons and Dragons, and playing music for friends and family.

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5 Ways to Make an Exciting Business Communication Plan

By Daleska Pedriquez , Sep 28, 2021

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.

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.

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]

Return to Table of Contents

Let us get to know first what great things will happen if communication is seamless within the company.

Things get done faster.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

 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.

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 .

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.

6 Communication Plan Templates With Examples

Effective communication plans are critical to any business. You need to describe your specific business messages and who should say them across business situations. This can help ensure your staff and stakeholders take your desired action. The result is that you reach your communication goals.

The thing is, certain business situations crop up more than once. So, if you write about what should be said every time your firm has a marketing campaign, you might have to write three long reports in a single month or four or five, depending on the campaigns you run during that period.

Writing about the same things all over again is time-consuming. It can take your attention away from other, more important business activities. 

That said, the question is this: Is there a way you can announce communication strategies without wasting that much time in these repetitive situations?

Yes, you can! Let me introduce you to the business communication plan template.

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What is a communication plan template?

A communication plan template is a pre-written document that outlines your business messages across different situations. They say who is responsible for each communication task in the overall communication strategy. 

When you have a template ready, you can disseminate your strategy to your staff or other stakeholders quickly and effectively. After all, all you need to do is fill out the variables and hit send.

You shouldn’t, of course, just get any kind of template. Good business templates for communication plans should help you get your message across. Whether you send your template via team communication tools or offline, after reading it, everyone involved should know exactly what to do to achieve communication goals. 

But where do you get these templates? 

The good news is, there is always a good communication plan template at your disposal. I’ll share some of them with you in the next section.

6 Communication plan templates for businesses

From communicating changes in management to announcing exciting new product launches, here are six message templates you can use for your different business communication goals. 

1. Change in the management communication plan template

You need to announce any management change in a business or a project. After all, if employees don’t know to whom they should report, any existing workflow can be disrupted.

A change in management communication plan should detail the information that you will communicate to stakeholders and employees. The main message, of course, is the change in management. The tone of your message, however, may vary across your different target audiences. 

For instance, you might need to be more reassuring when announcing the development to the rank-and-file employees. When doing the same with upper management, you might have to sound firm.

The purpose of the communication plan is to help everyone involved in the dissemination of the message understand their respective roles. Effective communication of the details of the handover, in turn, will help convince people about the benefits of the change. 

Here’s an excellent template for change management communications. 

The template specifies the different stakeholders, the communication methods, the frequency, and the responsible parties for the communication task. It also has room for notes. The more specific your communication strategy, the more effectively the change in management will be communicated. 

2. Marketing communication plan template

A communication plan is critical when you’re running marketing campaigns. After all, at the core of effective marketing is effective communication . You need to know how to communicate with your various audience segments so you can drive them to action.

But your potential customers aren’t the only people you need to speak to when it comes to your marketing efforts. Your plan (and template) should include how you should address media partners, too, especially if you’re holding events you’d like to have covered.

Check out the marketing communication plan template below. 

The key to creating a good communication plan is to look at your marketing campaign holistically. This way, you can determine the types of audiences that require different communication approaches. 

The platforms used for disseminating your messages should be specified, too. For instance, when talking to event coordinators for a marketing event, your preferred platform could be email or secure messaging app . When talking to your current customers, your preferred platforms could be social media, email, and your website.

If you’re planning to use marketing automation tools for your marketing campaigns, list them in your plan as well.

3. Product launch communication plan template

Launching a new product is exciting. A good product is half of the success equation. The other half requires a team working together to ensure proper communication of the product launch. After all, if you don’t get to communicate your launch, you can’t expect to generate sales, at least not as immediately as you would have wanted. 

This is where you need a product launch communication plan. 

Your template should have fields for the different product launch messages you’ll disseminate. For instance, you might decide to send a product feature kit to your customers. As for the media, you might decide to send them a press release instead. You’d need to specify the content of each of these product launch messages in your template.

You’ll need to include other specifics, too. For instance, will you use a custom sales email template as part of your email series to subscribers? What tone will you use in your product launch messages to each of your stakeholders?

Here is a product launch communication plan template that you can edit:

PRODUCT LAUNCH COMMUNICATION PLAN

TARGET MARKET

MESSAGING MATRIX

TEAM MEMBERS

You can customize the template so that it matches your brand colors, just for branding purposes. Then share the document with your marketing and sales teams through email, if you gave them communication tasks as well. 

You can just reuse the template for your next product launch.

4. Project management communication plan template

If you think about it, the plans and templates we talked about in previous sections (the marketing communication plan and template, for instance) are also project management communication plans. 

There are, however, other projects that aren’t covered by the templates we’ve so far discussed. So, we’ll discuss the project management communication plan in this section separately.

In general, a project manager should be clear about what their team needs to do when working together on a project. It’s their job to make sure everything is taken care of correctly and on time. The thing is, your team members might not be the only people you need to talk to for a successful project implementation.

If you’re designing a website for a client, for instance, you’d have to coordinate with the freelance web designer and that client at different stages of the project. If you plan to set up your own store but don’t know how to start a business , you’d have to talk to even more people. You’d need to ask a lawyer about permits, consult a business coach on the best strategies, and then later on ask a recruiter to help you hire the best talent.

This is where a project management communication plan comes in. The plan can help you organize your communication tasks that are relevant to the overall project’s success. 

If you’re not the only one coordinating with different project stakeholders, the plan can help your team members be on the same page. Just share the plan with them so they’ll know their specific communication tasks.

Here’s a great project management communication plan you can use as a template or get inspiration from:

PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION PLAN

Job Details

Client and Brand:

Job Name and Number:

Project Summary

Communication Goals

Stakeholders’ Overview

PERSON CONTACT INFO FREQUENCY       FORMAT/CHANNEL

1.  

Just adjust the specifics and the scope of your communication plan depending on the project type. 

As with your other communication plans, you’d need to outline the communication methods and the channels you will be using to contact stakeholders. These could include in-person or video meetings , emails, phone calls, DMs, social media, digital flipping books or any other methods. 

Also, include the hows. Will you be providing weekly or biweekly status reports to the client? Will you be talking to your building material suppliers on Wednesday or Thursday? Again, the more detailed your communication plan, the better for you.

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5. strategic communication plan template.

A strategic communication plan helps you communicate your organization’s vision for the future and its goals. The plan should specify the different ways you can make everyone in the company—from the upper management to the rank-and-file employees—aware of these. The goal of communicating these goals is to motivate everyone to take action so that the company can achieve them.

What are some sample business goals? For instance, you might want to improve your brand’s reputation in X months. Or you might want to enhance partnerships with other organizations.

Because business goals, the order in which these should be achieved, and the employees in a company tasked with communication roles change, you need a communication plan template in this situation, too.  

A good strategic communication plan template leaves room for the specific goals of the business. It also allows you to easily change each person’s communication responsibilities.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION PLAN

Initiative/Goal:

Communication Objectives:

Key Messages:

The template should also allow you to specify a timeline for the company-wide dissemination of the business goals. Don’t just give a general timeline. Everyone involved in the dissemination process should have a deadline to meet. For instance, you can say in your plan that X should have spoken to the senior managers by May. Y, meanwhile, should have informed the rank-and-file employees by August.

That’s the only way you can ensure the seamless dissemination of business objectives across the company.   

Above is a strategic communication plan template that you can adjust for your use.

6. Internal communication plan template

An internal communication plan ensures your stakeholders, including your team, are up-to-date on what’s going on in the company.

The change management communication plan we discussed above is, in fact, a type of internal communication plan. There are, however, other internal communication plans worth discussing.

For instance, you’d use an internal communication plan to communicate new onboarding strategies or workplace arrangements (i.e., a new arrangement that sees half of the workforce working remotely and the other half on-site). 

In the first case, a good communication plan template should allow you to specify what tools to use to onboard new employees. It should also allow you to explain the platforms you’ll use to disseminate your corporate values and policies to the new hires. You should be able to specify the messages you’ll give, too.

Meanwhile, a communication plan template for new workplace arrangements should allow you to specify the team collaboration tools to use. An internal communication plan template will help you with everything you need to keep your team on track. 

This template will work great as a starting point for your communication outreach within your organization. It’s free and you can print it for use. 

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION PLAN

OBJECTIVES AND GOALS

MESSAGES PER STAKEHOLDER

The template is quite self-explanatory. First, you’d need to decide what details to share with the stakeholders. Those stakeholders are essentially the people in your company who need to know about those new internal arrangements or policies. 

So, the stakeholders in our new workplace arrangement example would be practically everyone in the company. However, your messages would be different for different stakeholders. You’d tell half the workforce to report on-site and the other half to report online. 

You’d also have to include in your communication plan template the new policies you’ll communicate to the remote workforce (for instance, what time they should be online, how they should respond to co-workers’ messages, etc.).

How can a communication plan help you?

Communication plans can help you disseminate the correct information effectively to appropriate stakeholders. Business templates for communication plans, meanwhile, help you create these plans. So, instead of writing them from scratch every time a situation crops up, you just have to fill in the important variables to ensure effective communication of goals.

You saw examples of business templates for communication plans for different scenarios: a change in management, marketing, product launch, project management, strategic, and other internal changes.

Use the templates to your advantage or take inspiration from them. See how they can help you get the right messages to the right people. The other good news? You didn’t have to spend too much time writing.

Ammara Tariq

Ammara is a Marketing Manager at Chanty - a collaborative team chat, with a plan to take her team to new heights. With an everlasting love for marketing tactics, she’s also very fond of research writing and hopes to spread delight and knowledge to her readers.

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How to Write a Communication Plan

Sarah Mai & Samantha Scott

Aug 5, 2021

12 min. read

Communication is key to running a business. Full stop. The secret is to have a solid communication plan in place to keep all your teams and stakeholders aligned. But how do you write a communication plan and what exactly is it? In this blog, we’ll explore 10 key steps to writing a communication plan for easy reapplication across multiple channels.

Table of Contents

What is a Communication Plan?

What is the difference between an internal communication plan & external communication plan, what should a communication plan include.

A communication plan is a document and/or calendar that provides marketing & PR teams a cohesive structure for crafting their messages. It is designed so everyone has a clear understanding of which stakeholders should be contacted and when.

Your plan is the glue that helps your campaign from hitting any roadblocks and it’s a bible to refer to when marketers get stuck in a messaging rut (or rather, try too hard to get out of a well-established rut - not all ruts are bad when it comes to branding ). 

When writing a communication plan, think of it as a template that you'll be able to use for all different communication efforts. Speaking of templates, we have a free communication plan template available just for you!

Communication from a marketing and PR perspective covers a lot of bases, and cohesion in planning across all teams is super important.

An internal communications plan is the framework you use when communicating with all your employees. The types of communications in your plan can include company updates, product announcements, and other important business news. These internal updates will often be delivered by way of an internal newsletter . 

An external communication plan outlines how, when, why, and where you need to connect with your different audiences, such as social media followers and email subscribers, and other external stakeholders such as investors. 

Planning this communication, whether internal or external, requires having a clear strategy so you know who needs to be contacted first and what you want to accomplish when you deliver the message. Is the objective to encourage employee engagement around some exciting company news? Then you need to connect with your social media manager first. Is the objective to announce a new software update? Then you may want to connect with the product marketing team to anticipate some FAQs. 

The more specific you can be with times, dates, media contacts , goals, and objectives for each communique, the more useful your communication plan will be in keeping everyone aligned. 

An effective communications plan should include:

A clear schedule

Who needs to be communicated with and when? Have a list of all possible stakeholders, both internal and external, who will be receiving communication from your company.

For example, if you’re announcing a product update, will it include a press release? Does it need to be announced to investors first? How soon after the press release goes out will you send internal communications ? 

Make sure you include the specific goals behind each type of communication from your company. Note that the goals should apply specifically to the communication method (such as social or email). We'll go into this more below.

Key messages

What are the key messages you want to get across in your communication? This should be related to your goals. If your CEO is speaking at a conference, you make send him a communication plan that highlights key messages he/she must include in the presentation around your market share, your hiring expectations, or new markets you've recently entered.

These key messages should be tailored to the demographic you are trying to reach, and fit the medium you are using to communicate them through.

Tip: Remember to think about how your brand voice and personality when developing the key messages during your communications planning.

When crafting your plan, here are 10 steps that are important to keep in mind for effective communication with your key stakeholders. Your strategy will always evolve, and it's important to let it, however, the steps below provide a great starting point for building a template that can serve as a reference point for your organization:

1. Identify the current status

Start mapping out your communication plan based on the current status of your marketing strategy and the ROI you saw the previous year. Analyzing your social media reporting, or marketing reporting , in general, will be critical when it comes to informing the direction of your strategy.

This way, you can design your plan more confidently, based on the data. It is important to not get too hung up on historic data, however, given that the subject of your upcoming communication will usually be different. But you can still analyze receptiveness based on time of year, time of day, news outlets that performed better, multimedia style (video vs still image for example), etc.

You can do this analysis yourself, but it can be a lengthy process. If you already have a media intelligence solution like Meltwater, you can use it to gain in-depth insights into how your current and past communication strategy is working, track industry developments, and keep tabs on competitors.

To get you started use the below metrics and look for patterns to optimize your plan:

• Media exposure – tracks coverage (both editorial and social media) volume over time.
• Top sources – breaks down social media buzz by channel or publication.
• Google Analytics – provides a clearer picture of what types of posts generated website traffic.
• Share of voice – compares coverage volume for two or more topics/ competitors.
• Sentiment – assesses the tone of a brand’s coverage over time.
• Trending themes – uncovers conversational patterns surrounding a topic.
• Top locations – helps identify the top markets discussing a brand or event.
• Top social posts – explains the social content with the highest social reach value within a given date range.

2. Be clear about the objectives

Clearly define the communication goals and objectives within your plan. Specificity is extremely helpful in this step - write down the details of who you plan to communicate with and why. Ensure that your strategy goes hand in hand with the various department’s business objectives. It’s a lot easier to get buy-in if you can prove how your plan contributes to the wider picture, illustrating how it benefits the company and drives bottom-line ROI.

3. Craft your strategy

A well-thought-out strategy is where you can nail down the actual action items and assign responsibilities to bring your communication plan to life. There are several models and templates marketers can use to map these internal and external influences including SWOT analysis , Porter's 5 Forces,  and PESTEL .

A SWOT analysis is a good place to start when analyzing internal and external insights. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You can use this framework to benchmark the progress of your new communication activity to make sure your plan is as effective as it could be.

Porter's 5 Forces model is widely used to assess external forces, along with a PESTEL analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal). You can use this template when you'd like to determine if your plan needs to change based on competitor activity, large internal company shifts, or if you spot a potential crises brewing.

4. Who is your audience?

Your company probably already has a clear idea of who your target audience is and your various marketing personas . But it’s always a good idea to revisit these since trends can impact consumer behavior and this will affect how you communicate with them. Using a social listening and monitoring tool is a great place to start - allowing you to dip into the natural focus group of social media to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. 

Remember that your communication plan needs to take into account a lot of different audiences - and the messaging tone and context will differ depending on who you are communicating to. For instance, how you communicate the same piece of news to an investor is vastly different than how you should deliver it to your social media followers.

5. What is the message?

What message are you trying to communicate? Messaging that worked last year isn't guaranteed to work in the current year; this is especially true if there have been industry changes or internal shifts at your company. For example, a competitor may have come into your space, causing you to no longer be the most innovative supplier. 

Your communication should then be amended to convey a more enticing value-prop, and you should work to refine the way you represent your product. As you make this change, consider how your communication strategy should look for letting your key stakeholders know about it.

6. Channel selection

Where will your messaging be taking place? Determine the communication channels that will be used , when you’ll use them, and whom each channel is intended for. Each communication method will accomplish different goals as well, so have a place to define what you’re hoping to achieve.

For example, in a social media post, you may be looking for new followers, likes, or comments. Whereas for an email you’re probably looking for an increase in open rates or CTR.

Your communications should cover the many communication mediums you're using in your marketing strategy such as:

• Social media - engage with new and potential customers, find influencers, track competitors, and address customer complaints
• Email marketing - communicate with your subscribers to promote events, new blogs, and move them further down the marketing funnel
• Internal newsletter - keep your employees abreast of company news, changes, product updates, and announcements
• Print - connect with consumers through physical brochures, newspaper articles, or signage. 
• Push notifications - a particularly helpful strategy if your business has a mobile app, but push notifications and SMS marketing is not limited to apps. This is a useful way to get in front of eyes that may not check their email or social media regularly.
• Digital ads - make sure you’re well-aligned with your paid advertising team so you can ensure the ads you have running are relevant and topical to any current campaigns or upcoming events.
• Online media - reach out to journalists with story pitches or press releases to reach a wider audience than those who already follow you or are subscribed.  

7. Determine your budget

Budget is, of course, an essential part of the planning stage for your communication strategy. It’s important that you ensure you’re realistic in matching your plan with your resources: even a small budget can have a big impact if resources are used properly and you understand where your strengths lie.

8. Assign responsibilities

Make sure the appropriate point-person is clearly defined in your communication plan - and make sure their responsibilities lined are outlined carefully. Are they responsible for pushing campaigns live or is there another person's final "ok" needed for sign-off? Who should be contacted if they aren’t available? Who will be helping them with all the necessary assets? You’ll want to have all these questions answered in your plan.

9. Establish a clear timeline

Communications planning is most effective when your timeline is well laid out with target dates and times. This also makes it easy to identify certain next steps that need to happen, such as follow-ups or feedback requests. You’ll also be able to see where certain blockers are happening and can work to correct them.

A good place to start is with a Gantt Chart Template, which helps you map out each quarter and its specific objectives in one timeline. Ensure to leave room for unforeseen projects and activities that may occur during the year.

10. Follow up

Lastly, know that your communication plan is not infallible. There will always be changes, though they shouldn’t be made lightly or in a vacuum. Because so many departments and teams are involved in ensuring your communication plans go off without a hitch, it’s essential that you keep everyone involved.

Have a check-in with your team to evaluate your goals and performance regularly to see if you’re meeting your milestones and objectives. During these check-ins, there may be unexpected opportunities that you find to elevate your message, or you may spot a potential crisis brewing, meaning you’ll need to do an emergency adjustment to your crisis communications plan . 

Need help with ongoing follow-up on your communication plan?

With insights found using Meltwater’s media monitoring tools, you’ll be able to keep up to date with how your brand is featured in the media and keep track of important industry news and trends. And be sure to check out our free communications plan template to help you get started.

By using data-driven insights you can better understand how best to communicate with your target audience and internal stakeholders. Fill out the form below if you’re interested in learning more about optimizing your communication plan!

Continue Reading

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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 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:

• 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.

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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15 Free Project Communication Plan Templates: Excel, Word, & ClickUp

Vivian Tejeda

ClickUp Contributor

April 8, 2024

Communication plan templates are handy when planning effective rapport with customers, colleagues, partners, and other stakeholders.

With the help of a few well-built templates, it’s easier than ever to create a comprehensive strategy for communicating that everyone follows. 

To help, here’s a list of some of the best communication plan templates out there. 💡

What is a Communication Plan Template?

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A communication plan template is a document that outlines the strategies and objectives for internal and external communication within an organization.

It specifies the target audience, types of messages, and how to communicate them, as well as how often to communicate. It’s a crucial part of any organization’s success and should be updated regularly.

Some templates can work as a crisis communication plan, an organizational communication strategy , or a project management communication plan. Depending on your needs, a template is essential to boosting your overall communication efforts so everyone knows the exact details.

A good project management communication plan should include objectives, message structure, key communication channels, frequency, and a timeline within the template.

And a good communication plan example should also contain clear roles and responsibilities for each person on the team and your key stakeholders, as well as ways to measure success. An effective communication plan will ensure that everyone is working together to meet the organization’s goals. 📄

15 Project Communication Plan Templates

Create a comprehensive project management communication plan by using this template doc to easily plan out your business messaging strategy. The more comprehensive your communication plan, the better. That’s why this detailed ClickUp template is built with plenty of sections where you get specific about:

• Project details
• Executive summary
• Analysis and research
• A competitor analysis

ClickUp’s communication plan template , you set yourself and your team up for project visibility, which ensures everyone is communicating properly. Plus, it’s a way to have all your most important project information in one centralized doc.

If you’re looking for an easy way to stay on the same page with your team, ClickUp’s communication matrix report template is a great communication plan to keep your key stakeholders informed.

This detailed report helps you map out who is responsible for communicating with which parties and ensures everyone knows their roles. The template includes sections to jot down communication activity, purpose, and context, which is helpful for virtual teams . 💻

One of the more useful parts of the template is the communication activity table. It doesn’t only list what happened and when, but it also has sections to keep accurate records of facilitators, attendees, and even output from your communication plan .

Drafting an action plan is a solid way to put guardrails on your project journey. This ClickUp action plan template —created with ClickUp’s Whiteboard feature—makes sure you’re on track when it comes to your project’s progress.

Think of this action plan template like a Kanban view within a template that’s shareable and easy to update.

Rather than writing a list of tasks that need to get done and calling it a day, this template provides a clearer overview of what needs to get done, what’s in progress, and what has been finished across different project categories.

With the Whiteboard feature, it’s easy to add sticky notes, change section labels, draw shapes and lines, and just about any other type of annotation you might need for a strategic communication plan. It’s beginner-friendly, which makes it great for smaller teams that want to track progress with ease, without getting too bogged down with too many fields. 

If you work in marketing, you know a go-to-market strategy that’s spelled out in plain English is key. Thankfully, there’s a ClickUp template to help you reach your exact target audience.

Who is your target customer? What’s your competitive advantage? The answers to those questions can be organized within the color-coded sections of ClickUp’s GTM template for your communication plans. It also comes with two statuses and two view types so your team has plenty of flexibility with how they use it.

Even the most straightforward GTM communication strategy gets complex quickly. However, the built-in table of contents makes it easy to navigate no matter how big the sections get. Talking about sections, this GTM template has a space to clearly spell out your mission and vision.

Key messaging sections, a place to list all the tools involved in your strategy, and even a section that clearly spells out your budget will make this worth bookmarking. ✏️

Internal communications are critical to your team’s success. It’s how you keep your team on the same page, collaborate, and manage challenges that arise. Having the right internal communications template is essential in keeping your team aligned and productive.

ClickUp’s Internal Communications Template helps you do this by:

• Organizing conversations, announcements, and documents in one place
• Making it easier to communicate with your entire team
• Providing transparency into team-wide processes and initiatives

It’s important to have a comprehensive communication plan in place when incidents arise. With ClickUp’s Incident Communication Plan Template , you’ll have every tool needed to create an effective communication strategy for your team.

This template enables you to:

• Set up channels for clear and efficient incident communication
• Create detailed action plans with specific roles and responsibilities
• Outline procedures for updating stakeholders on progress of incident resolution

A solid employee communication template helps keep everyone on the same page, from daily check-ins to onboarding new team members. Employee communication is a key part of having a successful business.

ClickUp’s Employee Communication Template has everything you need to make sure you’re always in the loop:

• An intuitive visual layout for easy navigation
• Built-in collaboration and task tracking tools that help keep your team organized
• A centralized space to store all documents and messages, so that everyone is up-to-date with the latest info

With ClickUp’s Team Communication and Meeting Matrix Template, you can organize your team’s activities with ease! This template provides an easy way to track who is responsible for what tasks, establish clear lines of communication between team members, and set up effective meeting schedules.

The Team Communication and Meeting Matrix Template helps you:

• Define roles and responsibilities for each project or task
• Establish guidelines for regular check-ins or stand-ups
• Create a timeline for upcoming projects or tasks

The ClickUp Agency Client Health Tracker from Zenpilot Template is an essential tool for agencies looking to improve their communication plan with clients. This customizable template allows businesses to track the health of their customer relationships, all in one centralized location. By staying ahead of client needs and driving customer satisfaction, this template can help agencies create the right communication plan for each client .

With this template, agencies can track important data points such as client satisfaction levels, touchpoints, and feedback. This information is critical for forming the right communication plan for each client.

By understanding each client’s unique needs and preferences, businesses can tailor their communication strategy to maximize engagement and drive satisfaction. In today’s competitive business landscape, fostering strong client relationships is more important than ever.

Check out these competitor analysis tools !

You’re launching a product. Congrats! The good thing is you don’t have to start from scratch when you access a product launch checklist that ensures everything gets done on time. ⏰

ClickUp’s product launch checklist plan template is designed to make sure you never miss a beat in your communication planning. The product launch process is a tricky beast and needs to be monitored.

Especially if your team works asynchronously and isn’t always collaborating in real-time , a product launch checklist that centralizes each important task in one place will help clear up any confusion for everyone on your team. This template includes: 

• Timeline view

The template contains sections summarizing need-to-know information about a product launch as well as details on how best to use the checklist . Add team members to tasks and automate reminders to make sure you’re hitting your deadlines. Need to add a custom field? That’s doable too!

Sometimes you need a template to help you manage your team in one place. For that, try using the team communication hub template. It’s a folder-level template with every single feature you might need to organize and lead your team.

You’ll find everything from weekly task lists to an email management system so nothing falls through the cracks. Much like the other templates in this list, this one can work as a starting point.

If you’ve been thinking about designing a template for your own use from scratch—you can totally do it for free in ClickUp—but this custom-built template might help you save a few steps.

*It should be noted that this template is no longer free and costs $15. This template is not directly sold by ClickUp.

Check out these newsletter tools & newsletter templates !

This template is an easy way to organize and track your communication plan among project stakeholders. Make sure everyone knows their specific roles and responsibilities within the project, as well as the different types and frequency of communication. 

This template is an easy way to get started creating your project communication plans and to help ensure smooth, effective collaboration throughout the lifetime of the project.

Check out these fact sheet templates !

This Google Sheets template outlines easy matrix teams use to determine who they’re communicating with, how it’s being done, methods used, and who owns what task.

Easy right? As a bonus, the spreadsheet is color-coded and easy to share inside and outside your organization. The awesome thing about using a spreadsheet as a template for your communication plan is that looking across rows and columns gives you a high-level overview of all the specifics around that section. 📈

For example, taking a glance down the timeline column lets you visualize how the project will go and if the suggested timeline dates are realistic. Teams can also leave comments within each cell, which is great for communicating about the project in one place. 

The next time you need to fire up a communication plan with lots of moving parts, bookmark this template and start getting organized.

This template is a great resource for any team looking for a simple way to document the key objectives and strategies for effective internal communication. It can also work for your crisis communication plan as well.

Project managers can easily download the template for use in Word, Google Docs, or Apple Pages. The template ensures your communication plan is documented within a crisp framework.

Instead of using tables and color-coded cells, it’s designed to help project managers summarize each key section of their communication plan. The good thing is you can personalize it and add sections to your liking.

Prefer to use Microsoft Word? There’s a communication template for that too! 

This Microsoft Word template is an easy-to-use tool for planning a comprehensive marketing communications plan. The template provides sections for developing your strategy and objectives, conducting research, creating your tactics and channels, budgeting for the plan, and monitoring and tracking results.📊 

This template is a great communication plan example because it works as an essential tool for anyone looking to build a successful marketing communication plan from the ground up. The table of contents keeps everyone organized and makes sections easy to find. 

Some of the sections included are: 

• Strategy and objectives
• Company profile
• Summary of the current situation
• Indications
• Scope and timescales
• Message and value proposition

1. How to write a communication plan?

Writing an effective communication plan involves a series of precise and thoughtful steps. The result should be a detailed, well-structured document that lays down groundwork for strategic communication and tracks your business’s progress towards its goals. Let’s walk through the process:

• Set Defined Communication Goals and Objectives: Establishing your goals and objectives is the vital first step. They set the foundation and direction for your communication plan. It’s crucial to have specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives.
• Identify Your Target Audience: Know who you’re communicating with. Understanding your target audience informs the type of messaging you use, the platforms you choose, and the overall tone of your communication. This might include stakeholders, teammates, customers, or other businesses. Factor in the demographics, psychographics, and any other relevant characteristic about your audience.
• Articulate Your Key Messages: Create clear, concise messages that resonate with your target audience. These messages should be aligned with your business’s values, mission, and objectives. Remember to keep the audience in mind when crafting these messages to ensure they are engaging and relatable.
• Specify The Communication Channels: Determine where and how you’re going to communicate. This involves picking the right channels that will best reach your target audience. Communication channels could be anything from emails, newsletters, social media platforms, meetings, press releases, to webinars. The choice depends significantly on your audience’s behavior and preferences, and the nature of the messages.
• Construct a Communication Timeline: This is essentially your action plan. It indicates when each part of your communication strategy will be implemented and by whom. This timeline helps keep your team on track, providing a visual representation of key dates and milestones.
• Allocate Resources: Determine what resources you need for the successful execution of your plan. This may comprise the people involved, technology and tools, and budget allocation. By identifying the necessary resources, you can better plan and mitigate potential bottlenecks or issues down the line.
• Implement Measurement Tools: Finally, it’s essential to track the outcomes of your communication plan. Defining success metrics lets you assess how well your communication plan is working and allows you to adjust the strategy as needed. Factors might include the reach of your messages, the level of engagement, or the conversion rate.
• Regularly Review and Update: A communication plan is not a static document; it should be continually reviewed and updated. Regular audits allow you to adjust the plan to meet any changes in your business landscape, audience behavior, or even project specifications. This way, your communication strategy stays relevant, effective, and aligned with your evolving organizational goals and objectives.

2. How often should project communication plan templates be updated?

It’s a good idea to review and update your communication plan regularly, at least once a quarter or whenever significant changes occur in your business or industry.

This will help ensure that your messaging remains relevant and aligned with your objectives, and that you are using the most effective channels and tactics to reach your target audiences.

3. How do I measure the success of my communication plan?

Measuring the success of your communication plan depends on your specific goals and objectives. Common metrics include reach (the number of people who saw your message), engagement (how many people interacted with your message), and conversion (how many people took action based on your message).

Plan Your Next Project with Communication Plan Templates

Though useful, communication templates are just one tool that makes up a successful communication strategy. Additional elements like an effective project management system, a well-thought-out strategy, and tight collaboration between team members are essential.

To ensure a successful communication strategy, consider the tools, resources, and strategies you have available — a lot of these are free (like the ClickUp template library ). 

By taking the time to create an effective communication plan, you ensure that you have a successful strategy in place to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that your team is able to reach its goals.

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How to Write a Strategic Communication Plan Template

• May 1, 2022

Content Manager at SocialBee

We know why you are here, and we are prepared with both a communications plan template and a guide that will help you every step of the way.

Communication plans are great strategies that will not only take your branding objectives to the next level ,  but will also help you manage PR crises without damaging your image.

In this material, we will walk you through the benefits of a communication plan template and we will show you what are the steps you need to take in order to build your very own communication strategy. Are you ready?

Streamline your business communication planning with our easy-to-use template.

What Is a Communications Plan?

Communications plans are documents that outline the messages a business promotes, the  audience  meant for those messages, and the channels of communication. 

A strategic communications plan is a way to organize all your company’s messages in one place, define your goals , and ensure you maintain a consistent and positive image.

Moreover, it works as a foundation that will help with managing certain crises your company might face, pitching new ideas to your stakeholders, creating an effective communication strategy for a product launch, and more.

The Benefits of a Communication Plan

Before we get into how to write a strategic communication plan, let’s see how such a document can benefit your business.

Here are the advantages of a communications strategy plan:

• It improves client and stakeholder management
• It defines the communication process
• It creates a positive brand image

1. It Improves Client and Stakeholder Management

A well-written communication plan will help you improve the level of communication with both internal stakeholders and external audicences, as you will be able to convey your message through multiple channels.

2. It Defines the Communication Process

By having a communication plan, you will also be able to set communication objectives for your company and assess progress.

Writing a clear communication plan will help you identify:

• What  you need to communicate
• How  you should share your message
• Who  is the recipient
• Which  channels are best for sharing certain messages

Also, this way, you will discover the unique characteristics of your intended audience. Consequently, you will understand their point of view better than ever before, and communicate with them more effectively.

3. It Creates a Positive Brand Image

An effective communication plan has a positive impact on your company’s image because it makes sure that every message you share with the public is correct, on-brand, and consistent on every communication platform.

Additionally, with the help of a communication plan, you can handle crises much more effectively. In fact, big brands have a designated crisis communication team ready to go in case of a social media controversy.

Having a crisis communication plan and planning ahead of time for emergency situations will allow you to manage the public perception better. Also, rushing your response in critical situations without clearly thinking it through will allow other mistakes to slip through and make the situation worse. 

How to Write a Communications Plan

Now that you know what a communication plan is and how it can benefit your business, let’s get into the real reason why you are here — learning how to write an effective communications plan.

These are the steps you need to take to write a marketing communications plan:

• Audit Your Current Communications Strategy
• Set Communication Goals
• Define Your Target Audience
• Develop Your USP and Mission Statement
• Find the Best Communication Channels for Your Marketing Efforts
• Assign Roles to Your Team Members
• Identify Your Key Stakeholders
• Write Down Key Dates for Your Communication Strategies
• Craft Key Messages for Your Audience
• Outline Your Communication Methods and Campaigns
• Put Your Communication Plan in Action
• Monitor and Adjust Your Communication Strategy

1. Audit Your Current Communications Strategy

Before you create your communication plan, you need to run a situational analysis of your current communication strategy.

Here is what you need to evaluate when it comes to your marketing communication strategy:

• Communication channels – List all the different channels you communicate on both online and offline with your audiences (partners, clients, project stakeholders, customers, etc.).
• Communication materials – Make an inventory of all your marketing materials. Include anything from flyers to social media graphics, digital brochures , as well as your permanent branding guidelines (color scheme, fonts, logos, etc.).
• Tone of voice and communication style – How would you describe your communication style? You can use several adjectives to define it. 
• Results and performance – Which messages and communication platforms had the best/worst results. Add screenshots and links to understand the situation better.

To gather all this relevant information, you can go to the analytics you have for each communication channel, send surveys to your customers, partners, and stakeholders, and hold in-person meetings with your project team.

In addition, you can perform a SWOT analysis and discover both internal and external advantages and disadvantages:

👍 Strengths – Define what you do well, your best resources, and the aspects that give you an advantage over your competitors.

👎 Weaknesses – Focus on the critics you receive from others, the resources you lack compared to your competitors, and the areas that need improvement.

📈 Opportunities – Identify the opportunities and market trends that will allow you to transform your strengths into growth opportunities.

❌ Threats – Discover the external factors that can prevent your business from growing.

2. Set Communication Goals

Turn your business goals into specific communication goals. This way, your business needs will guide the way you think and write your communication goals. As a result, your chances of staying on track and enhancing your company’s performance will increase. 

Your communication goals need to provide perspective and direction for you and your team. So, make sure you offer them all the details they might need. 

When in doubt, respect the SMART goals structure:

• S pecific – State what you want to accomplish and how you plan to do it.
• M easurable – Mention how you plan to measure your progress.
• A chievable – Be realistic, and set goals that are achievable based on your company’s resources.
• R elevant – Write communication goals that align with your business needs.
• T ime-bound – Keep your team accountable by setting a clear deadline for your goals.

Here is an example of a SMART communication goal:

“Improve customer satisfaction in the next 6 months by replying to every review, comment, email, and message within 24 hours.” 

To measure success, you will have to check the reviews and feedback you receive as a result of your new initiative.

3. Define Your Target Audience

In order to write effective key messages, you first need to understand your target audiences . This doesn’t only include your customers but also your employees, partners, investors, government officials, media outlets, and more.

As a result of your research, you will be able to craft perfectly tailored messages while also discovering their preferred communication channel. Feel free to ask for feedback and suggestions that will improve their experience as well as your collaboration. Also, keep an eye on the way they communicate and try to match their approach.

When it comes to customers, you can generate multiple demographic details straight from your SocialBee dashboard. Based on the information you gather, you can create detailed buyer personas — fictional characters with the traits of different segments of your target market.

Get information about your audience from a single dashboard.

Start your 14-day free SocialBee trial now!

In this way, you structure all the audience data and make it easier for you and your team to remember. 

Here is what a buyer persona should contain:

• Demographic information
• Behavioral traits
• Pain points
• Buying habits

The goal is to reach the right people with customized messages that will resonate with them.

4. Develop Your USP and Mission Statement

Not all businesses are built the same. And this is a good thing.

Your unique selling proposition is very important for your communication plan, especially when it comes to your promotional content. Why?  Because you have to rely on that unique quality to differentiate your business from the competition and give your customers a reason to purchase from you.

To develop your USP, you first need to answer the following questions:

• What do you provide that your competition doesn’t?
• What customer issue do you solve through your business?
• Why should your customers choose you and not your competitors?

Furthermore, while your USP works as a way to make your brand stand out from the crowd, your mission statement provides meaning and purpose to your company.

A great mission statement reflects your customers’ values and provides an additional reason to invest in your products.

Image source

Let’s say you sell sweets. Your USP is that you don’t use sugar in your products. So, in your mission statement, you could state that through your business, you aim to provide healthy and delicious dessert alternatives and improve your customers’ lifestyles without compromising the taste of your sweets.

5. Find the Best Communication Channels for Your Marketing Efforts

It’s not only essential to know how to communicate with your audience, but also to discover the channel that you should use to reach them. Moreover, for better results, you need to keep your communication separate. 

For instance, with your stakeholders, you can plan online or in-person meetings and provide project reports regularly. Whereas, with media outlets, you can move your communication to email. All you need is to have the contact information of several relevant journalists and nurture your media relationships on this channel.

The same goes for the rest of your audience segments. The more you customize your communication to fit your audience’s needs, the more success you will have.

However, when it comes to your customers, you have more options. You can get creative with your communication when promoting your business. 

These are the main communication channels you can use to connect with your customers:

• Content marketing
• Search enginge optimization
• Email marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Affiliate marketing

A. Content Marketing

Your communication plan wouldn’t be complete without including your content marketing strategy.

In fact, did you know that 70% of customers would rather learn about a business from an article or blog post than from advertisements? So, it’s safe to assume that content marketing is quite a big deal.

This marketing strategy is used to attract, engage, and maintain customers by creating and distributing relevant content (articles, videos, social media posts). 

Apart from this, content marketing helps businesses establish themselves as credible and authoritative sources of information, build brand awareness and stay top-of-mind.

So, make sure you include your social media platforms, your blog, and other content creation platforms (Youtube, Udemy, etc.) and give details about your communication strategy on all of them.

Don’t forget that with SocialBee you can create, edit, schedule, and share content on all your social media platforms from one user-friendly dashboard. 

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Besides, SocialBee can generate automatic social media posts whenever you publish a new article, making the most out of your content marketing strategy.

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B. search engine optimization.

To optimize your communication plan and make sure your customers see your content, you must perform search engine optimization.  Statistics show that 68% of website traffic is generated by search engines, a great insight for businesses.

A good practice is to make a list of all the keywords your audience may use to search your products and services and add them to your communication plan. As a result, you will have them ready to use whenever you create content for Google.

Make sure to use keywords and key phrases that match your customers’ search intent, and combine both short-tail and long-tail keywords into your strategy.

Moreover, add them to your titles, headings, meta descriptions, image alt text, and body text.

C. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to not only generate new leads, but also nurture your relationship with your existing customers. You should also know that email marketing has an average ROI of $36 for every dollar spent.

It’s an essential part of your communication plan, so ensure you create a messaging strategy that will gain you more website traffic and keep your audience in the loop regarding company news, promotions, and newly posted blog articles.

D. Influencer Marketing

Amplify your messaging strategy with influencer marketing .

This marketing practice is used to generate brand awareness, gain trust, and improve sales.

The key is to find relevant influencers from your industry that your audience looks up to. 

Aside from that, you need to pick people that fit your image and share the same values if you want influencer collaborations to work. As a result, you will have a partnership that seems genuine and addresses the right audience.

Make a list of online personalities that you could collaborate with, and add them to your communication plan in the timeframes when you assume you will need a boost in visibility and sales.

E. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is another practice you can use to share your message with a larger audience. It involves paying other bloggers to promote your business on their website through link insertions, product/service reviews, and articles.

Besides, it’s an affordable way to generate traffic, boost sales and brand awareness, and build authority within your industry. 

6. Assign Roles to Your Team Members

You know your audience, and you picked the communication channels you will use, so it’s time to assign some roles to your internal communications team members.

For example, when it comes to communicating with media channels, you will need to assign a team member to prepare press releases and keep in touch with journalists.

Make sure you add your key team members along with their roles in the communication plan. This is useful for everyone on the team because:

• They know what their responsibilities are ahead of time.
• They know who to go to in case they need help or information.

7. Identify Your Key Stakeholders

As a business, you will have to run and manage multiple projects. And for some of them, you need the support of your stakeholders for your communication method to be successful. 

As you can imagine, this means that you need to maintain a fruitful and transparent relationship with your stakeholders. 

This is why you should add them to your communication plan. You should also include all your project deliverables, stakeholder information, and the main ways you plan to keep in contact.

8. Write Down Key Dates for Your Communication Strategies

Every business has peak moments throughout the year when their sales increase and the demand for their product rises, like flower shops during Valentine’s Day.

Some of them are obvious, while others require a little more digging through the data. So, start looking at your sales history from the past year and identify your most profitable intervals.

With this information, you can adjust your communication planning and improve the way you communicate with your customers. Plan some promotions, create new email campaigns, run ads , and basically do anything that can increase the visibility of your business.

Furthermore, you should also research holidays or international celebrations you can use to promote your brand.

Acess the calendar template and start planning your holiday posts with ease.

9. Craft Key Messages for Your Audience

For this step, you have to keep your audience in mind at all times. It’s essential that you create key messages that fit the needs and desires of your customers.

To customize your messages accordingly, you need to answer the next questions:

• What should your audience know about your company?
• What language and communication style would your audience prefer?
• What are the main benefits you should highlight?
• What values resonate with your customers?

Make separate sections for each segment of your audience and add your key messages into your communication plan.

We advise you to create a messaging matrix in order to define your communication strategy for each. This requires you to separate your audience into segments and create categories of key messages and channels you will use for that group.

For instance, let’s say you sell skincare products and your two main target audiences are young girls between 14 and 20 and women between 30 and 45. The girls encounter problems like acne and dry skin, while the women see signs of aging such as wrinkles and depigmentation.

So you decide to address their issues and promote products that will provide a solution. With the girls, you can communicate on Instagram and TikTok, while with the women you can go for platforms like Facebook. 

10. Outline Your Communication Methods and Campaigns

Your action plan is the meat of your communication strategy.

In order to establish the main activities of your communication plan, you first have to follow these three steps:

• Align your communication plan with your marketing calendar
• Create communication campaigns
• Plan activities to achieve your communication goals

A. Align Your Communication Plan With Your Marketing Calendar 

Take a look at your marketing calendar , and find out what your marketing team has planned to improve your company’s performance. Then create your customer communication strategy to increase the results of those marketing initiatives.

B. Create Communication Campaigns 

To organize all your marketing activities and keep track of your progress, you must plan different communication campaigns throughout the year.

This is what you need to establish when creating communication campaigns: 

• A theme or a goal that provides purpose and direction.
• Strategic activities that will help you achieve your goals.
• Clear dates for the beginning and the end of your campaigns.

C. Plan Activities to Achieve Your Communication Goals 

The activities you include in your communications plan should be aligned with your internal and external communication goals. After all, you want to accomplish them in a certain time frame.

That being said, your communication tactics should deal with the following aspects:

• Where will you share your message
• How will you communicate it
• When/how often will you communicate

11. Put Your Communication Plan in Action

Now that you included all the necessary elements in your communication plan, it’s time for action.

It’s a good idea to share your plan with your team and go over it together to ensure that everybody is on the same page before you implement it.

12. Monitor and Adjust Your Communication Strategy 

Your communication plan is a work in progress, it’s not a finished product. So, establish a few monitoring tactics that will allow you to track your success and identify mistakes that affect your business’ growth.

Gather all your analytics, create reports, and hold meetings with your team to gain feedback and find solutions for potential issues. You should also use the communication goals you previously set to find out if you are on the right track.

Communication Plan Examples

To give you a better idea about how you should structure your strategy, we prepared three examples you can take inspiration from:

• A project management communication plan from VENNGAGE
• A strategic communication plan from Lean Methods Group
• A communication plan example from TemplateLAB

First, we have a project management communication plan from VENNGAGE . You can see that it has a deadline, an assigned project manager, business objectives, tools, audience information, and messaging frequency. Also, the nice colorful design is a plus.

The next communication plan template is from Lean Methods Group , and it provides details about:

• Media or vehicle
• Assigned team member
• Feedback mechanism

This last example is a communications plan template from TemplateLAB that contains information about audience segments, key messages, means of communication, and deadlines for each initiative.

Although these are great documents you can use in your communication plan creation process, we have an alternative that will save you hours of work.

So, make sure you access our free template below, make a copy, and add your magical touch.

Make the Most Out of Your Communication Plans

Now that we went through what a communication plan is, its benefits, and the necessary creation process, we reached the end of this article. However, it’s only the beginning of your work.

But don’t worry, our template is waiting for you, ready to aid in your business strategies and give you a head start on the competition. Just access it below and let us know if you enjoyed our communication plan example!

Article written by

Content writer at SocialBee

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Free Communication Plan Templates

By Kate Eby | February 27, 2023

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Below, you’ll find the best free communication plan templates for your organization. These templates are fully customizable and available in multiple formats. Pick the one that’s right for you.

On this page, you’ll find a communication plan template that allows for full customization and the inclusion of numerous important details; a strategic communication plan template that helps you develop a granular and highly focused communication strategy; and a business communication plan template that enables you to align your business plan and mission statement with your communication plan.

Communication Plan Template

Download a Communication Plan Template for  Excel | Microsoft Word | Google Sheets

Use this communication plan template to develop a clear and organized plan for disseminating information throughout your organization. Enter important details, such as stakeholders, deliverables, priority, delivery method, and frequency of communication. You can use this template in its current form, or you can adapt it to suit your specific needs. A good communication plan streamlines your workflow and reduces redundant or unnecessary communication while ensuring the efficient distribution of all vital details to every interested party. 

For additional information on communication plans, including more templates and professional advice, check out this comprehensive guide to project communication plans .

Strategic Communication Plan Template

Download a Strategic Communication Plan Template for  Excel | Adobe PDF | Google Sheets

Use this strategic communication plan template for a complete and detailed look at your organization’s communication needs. This template helps you develop a strategic plan that takes into consideration your mission, executive strategy, situational analysis, stakeholders, key messages, and more. This tool gives you the ability to create a customized plan that encompasses all your needs.

Check out these free communication templates for more options and information about communication plans.

Business Communication Plan Template

Download a Business Communication Plan Template for  Excel | Adobe PDF | Google Sheets

A business communication plan is crucial for setting and meeting organizational goals. Use this template to align your business plan and mission statement with your communication plan. Fill in all the crucial details concerning your business and mission to create a fully formed communication plan that streamlines and strengthens the connection between your business, clients, and stakeholders. 

To learn more about creating your own communication plan, visit this highly informative page of free communication strategy templates, examples, and expert tips .

What Is a Communication Plan Template?

A communication plan template is a tool for organizing and planning a communication strategy for a project or program. The template format can range from a simple chart to a multistep plan. Adapt the template to meet your organization’s needs.

A communication plan is essential for creating and implementing a predictable, reliable, and timely system of communication within your organization. Use a communication plan template to ensure that you’re accounting for all stakeholders and disseminating key information in a timely and constructive manner.

What Should a Communication Plan Include?

A communication plan should include goals and objectives; stakeholders and audiences; key messages; and a timeline for the dissemination of important communication. As your plan evolves, you can add details, such as multistep solutions or changes of task ownership. 

The nature of your plan’s content depends partially on the type and size of your organization. Still, most communication plans share a basic framework. To learn more, check out the key elements of a communication plan .

How to Write a Strategic Communication Plan

When writing a strategic communication plan, first decide on your goals. Next, consider what you need to communicate and to whom. Then write and obtain approval for your message. Finally, create a schedule and share your message with the team.

Your plan will vary, depending on your specific circumstances, but expect to follow these steps:

• Establish Your Communication Needs Figure out what you require in order to communicate important messages within your organization: What types of technology do you need to share information? With whom do you need to share information? What is the appropriate tone for sharing information? By answering these questions, you gain a firm grasp of what you need before you move on to the next step. 
• Decide on Your Communication Goals Determine what you want to say, to whom you want to say it, and how and why you want to say it. Write down the answers to these questions. Stay focused on your communication goals by making sure that you don’t include redundant or unnecessary information. Follow these steps to create the basis of your written plan. 
• Develop a Communication Schedule Establish the time frame of your project. Is it a short- or long-term project? An ongoing project requires consistent, recurring updates; a short-term project requires only a few updates (e.g., at the outset of the project, at the midway point, and at the conclusion). Once you determine the frequency of your communication, then you can pinpoint the timing of your updates based on the nature of your content. Deliver a recap or a low-priority message at or near the end of the week; share an important message early in the week or at a team meeting. Follow these steps to develop a precise communication schedule. 
• Consolidate Information into One Document Adapt one of the templates on this page to meet your needs. Once you’ve done so, make sure the entire team has access to the document. That way, you can ensure that everyone is working in lockstep.

How to Use Communication Plan Templates

As communication plans evolve, you can easily adapt by using a template. Pick an editable template that meets your needs. Complete the relevant fields with your specific information. As clients or stakeholders change, so should your communication plan. 

Use the following step-by-step instructions to get the most out of the templates on this page:

• Download the communication plan template in Microsoft Word.
• Save the template to your drive using a meaningful and unique title (e.g., “Marketing Department Communication Plan”).
• Stakeholders
• Deliverables for each stakeholder
• Frequency of communication
• Preferred delivery method
• Team or owner of each project
• Fill in the corresponding fields in your template.
• Review and adjust your plan as necessary.
• Share your plan with key stakeholders.
• Revisit and adapt your plan as necessary using your downloaded template.

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3 Templates and Examples: Craft an Effective Communication Plan Easily

By Status.net Editorial Team on February 28, 2024 — 28 minutes to read

• Fundamentals of Communication Planning Part 1
• Setting Communication Objectives Part 2
• Small Business Communication Plan Template Part 3
• Example: Small Business Communication Plan Part 4
• Non-Profit Organization Communication Plan Template Part 5
• Example: Non-Profit Organization Communication Plan Part 6
• Corporate Communication Plan Template Part 7
• Corporate Internal Communication Plan Example Part 8
• Implementing the Communication Plan Part 9
• Communication Plan Monitoring and Adjusting Part 10
• Measuring Impact and ROI of a Communication Plan Part 11
• Best Practices for Communication Plans Part 12
• Tips for Maintaining Stakeholder Engagement Part 13
• Frequently Asked Questions Part 14

A well-structured communication plan helps you to ensure that all the pertinent information is relayed to the right stakeholders at the right time. Crafting a detailed communication plan not only helps to avoid miscommunication, but it may also foster deeper connections and support collaboration among team members.

Part 1 Fundamentals of Communication Planning

A well-thought-out communication plan is key to successfully meeting your project goals and objectives. In this section, we will walk you through the essential elements that should be included in your communication plan.

• To begin with, you need to define your communication objectives . This means determining the desired outcomes of your communications, such as raising awareness about a product, informing employees about a change, or motivating your team. Setting clear objectives will help you stay focused on what’s important throughout the project.
• Next, identify your target audience . This means specifying the groups of people who need to be informed or influenced by your communications. Different audiences may require different methods and messages, so it’s important to consider this when crafting your plan.
• Once you’ve identified your target audience, it’s time to map out your key messages . These are the main points you want to convey to your audience. Make sure your messages are clear, concise, and relevant to your audience’s needs and concerns. For example, if you’re informing employees about changes in their work schedule, your key message might be: “We’re shifting to flexible hours to better accommodate your personal lives, and here’s how it will work.”
• Now it’s time to select your communication channels . This involves choosing the medium or platforms that will best reach and engage your target audience. Examples include face-to-face meetings, emails, town halls, or social media. When selecting your channels, consider your audience’s preferences and the nature of the message you want to convey.
• Timing and frequency are significant aspects of a communication plan. You need to plan when you’ll communicate your key messages, and how often you’ll need to update or reinforce them. You might decide, for example, to hold a team meeting on a specific day of the week, or to send out reminders every month.
• Another important element in your communication plan is the responsibility and ownership of your communications. This includes assigning roles and responsibilities to the team members who will be delivering your messages. Make sure to specify who is responsible for writing, reviewing, approving, and distributing your communications.
• Lastly, establish a system for monitoring and measuring the success of your communication plan. This means setting up metrics and gathering data to evaluate the effectiveness of your messages, channels, and timing. By doing so, you can identify areas for improvement and make adjustments as needed.

Part 2 Setting Communication Objectives

Identify target audiences.

When developing a communication plan, it’s important to first identify your target audiences. These groups are the people who will be receiving and acting upon the messages you create in your plan. Consider demographics, psychographics, and any other relevant factors while doing this. For example, if you’re launching a new product, your target audiences might include potential customers, existing customers, and industry influencers.

Outline Key Messages

Next, you’ll want to outline the key messages you want to convey to your target audiences. These messages should be clear, concise, and relevant to each audience. To ensure each message addresses your audience’s needs and concerns, consider using the following structure:

• Problem: Explain the issue or challenge your audience is facing.
• Solution: Describe how your product, service, or initiative can help solve the problem.
• Benefit: Highlight the advantages or value your solution provides.

For instance, if you’re promoting a project management app, a key message for potential customers might be:

• Problem: Managing multiple projects with teams can be chaotic and time-consuming.
• Solution: Our app streamlines project planning and collaboration, making it easier to manage projects and teams.
• Benefit: With our app, you can save time, reduce stress, and boost overall productivity.

Define Success Metrics

Lastly, defining success metrics is an essential part of your communication plan. These metrics are measurable indicators that help you evaluate the effectiveness of your communication efforts. By setting and tracking specific goals, you can continuously refine your communication plan because you’ll know what works and what doesn’t.

Some common success metrics for a communication plan include:

• Increase in website traffic
• Number of new leads or inquiries
• Growth in social media followers
• Improved customer satisfaction ratings
• Sales growth or revenue generation

For example, if your communication plan focuses on promoting a new product, you could set success metrics like: achieve a 15% increase in website traffic, generate 100 new leads, and increase sales by 10% within the first three months.

Communication Plan Templates and Examples

Communication plans are essential tools for creating effective and organized strategies within any company or organization. They facilitate clear communication, alignment of objectives, and smooth collaboration among team members. It’s important to find a template that works best for your company’s specific needs and modify it accordingly. Here are three templates for different types of companies along with examples to help illustrate how to use them.

• Small Business

For small businesses, a simple yet detailed communication plan is important. The main elements to focus on include:

• Communication objectives
• Target audience
• Key messages
• Responsibilities

Part 3 Small Business Communication Plan Template

I. Executive Summary – Brief overview of the communication plan’s purpose and importance for the business.

II. Introduction – Description of the current communication situation and the need for a structured plan.

III. Communication Objectives – Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for the communication plan. Objective 1: Objective 2: Objective 3:

IV. Target Audience – Identification and segmentation of the key audiences for the communication messages. Audience 1: – Demographics: – Psychographics: – Preferred Communication Channels: Audience 2: – Demographics: – Psychographics: – Preferred Communication Channels: Audience 3: – Demographics: – Psychographics: – Preferred Communication Channels:

V. Key Messages – Main points that need to be communicated to each target audience. For Audience 1: – Message 1: – Message 2: For Audience 2: – Message 1: – Message 2: For Audience 3: – Message 1: – Message 2:

VI. Channels – The mediums through which the key messages will be delivered. Offline Channels: – Print Media (Flyers, Posters, etc.) – Events (Workshops, Seminars, etc.) Online Channels: – Email Newsletters – Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) – Company Website/Blog

VII. Timeline – Schedule for when communications will be developed, delivered, and reviewed. Initial Launch: – Date: – Activities: Ongoing Communication: – Frequency: – Activities: Review Points: – Dates: – Evaluation Activities:

VIII. Responsibilities – Roles and responsibilities for each part of the communication process. Strategic Oversight: – Person/Team: Content Creation: – Person/Team: Distribution: – Person/Team: Monitoring and Evaluation: – Person/Team:

IX. Budget – Estimated costs associated with the execution of the communication plan. Development Costs: Distribution Costs: Miscellaneous Costs:

X. Monitoring and Evaluation – Methods and metrics for assessing the effectiveness of the communication efforts. Metrics: – Reach: – Engagement: – Conversion: Evaluation Frequency: Tools for Measurement:

XI. Contingency Plans – Alternate strategies for potential challenges or changes in the communication plan.

XII. Appendices – Any supporting documents or additional information relevant to the communication plan.

Part 4 Example: Small Business Communication Plan

I. Executive Summary – This document outlines the communication strategy for “Fresh & Local Groceries” , a small business focused on providing locally sourced produce to the community.

II. Introduction – “Fresh & Local Groceries” has been experiencing a disconnect in communicating its values and services to potential customers. This plan aims to enhance visibility and customer engagement through targeted communication efforts.

III. Communication Objectives Objective 1: Increase brand awareness within the local community by 25% within the next six months. Objective 2: Grow our email subscriber list by 40% by the end of Q3. Objective 3: Boost customer engagement on social media by 30% in the next quarter.

IV. Target Audience Audience 1: Local Residents – Demographics: Ages 25-45, health-conscious individuals, parents. – Psychographics: Values sustainability, quality produce, community involvement. – Preferred Communication Channels: Social media, community events. Audience 2: Local Businesses – Demographics: Local restaurant owners, cafe operators. – Psychographics: Interested in quality ingredients, reliable suppliers, bulk purchasing. – Preferred Communication Channels: Email, direct meetings, networking events.

V. Key Messages For Audience 1: – Message 1: “Your local source for fresh, organic produce.” – Message 2: “Join our community-focused initiatives and events.” For Audience 2: – Message 1: “Reliable partnerships for sourcing high-quality, local ingredients.” – Message 2: “Support local farming with our business-to-business bulk offers.”

VI. Channels Offline Channels: – Print Media: Monthly flyers in local community centers. – Events: Bi-weekly farmer’s markets, cooking classes. Online Channels: – Email Newsletters: Weekly newsletter with recipes and store updates. – Social Media: Daily posts on Instagram, weekly Facebook live sessions.

VII. Timeline Initial Launch: – Date: April 15, 2024 – Activities: Launch of new Instagram campaign with hashtag #FreshLocalLove. Ongoing Communication: – Frequency: Daily for social media, weekly for newsletters. – Activities: Regular posts, updates, and newsletter content creation. Review Points: – Dates: End of each month for social media, quarterly for email campaigns. – Evaluation Activities: Analytics review, customer feedback surveys.

VIII. Responsibilities Strategic Oversight: – Person/Team: Marketing Manager Content Creation: – Person/Team: Social Media Coordinator, Content Writer Distribution: – Person/Team: Social Media Coordinator, Email Marketing Specialist Monitoring and Evaluation: – Person/Team: Marketing Analyst

IX. Budget Development Costs: $1,000 for content creation tools and software. Distribution Costs: $500 for social media advertising, $200 for email marketing services. Miscellaneous Costs: $300 for unexpected expenses.

X. Monitoring and Evaluation Metrics: – Reach: Number of new followers on social media, email open rates. – Engagement: Likes, comments, shares on social media, click-through rates on emails. – Conversion: Sign-ups for the newsletter, inquiries from local businesses. Evaluation Frequency: Monthly for social media, quarterly for email campaigns. Tools for Measurement: Google Analytics, social media insights, email marketing analytics.

XI. Contingency Plans – Adjust social media ad budget based on performance. – Explore alternative channels such as local radio if the targeted reach is not achieved.

XII. Appendices – A: Social Media Content Calendar – B: Email Newsletter Schedule – C: Flyer and Poster Designs – D: Community Event Calendar

• Non-profit Organization

Non-profit organizations often require clear communication plans to get their message across to their audience and garner support. Key components of a non-profit communication plan include:

• Communication goals
• Monitoring and evaluation

Part 5 Non-Profit Organization Communication Plan Template

I. Executive Summary – A concise summary explaining the purpose and overarching goals of the communication strategy for the non-profit organization.

II. Background – A brief description of the non-profit’s mission, vision, and the role communication plays in achieving its objectives.

III. Communication Goals – Clearly defined goals that the communication efforts aim to achieve, aligned with the organization’s overall mission. Goal 1: Goal 2: Goal 3:

IV. Target Audience – Detailed profiles of the key audience segments the non-profit aims to reach and influence. Audience Segment 1: – Characteristics: – Communication Preferences: Audience Segment 2: – Characteristics: – Communication Preferences: Audience Segment 3: – Characteristics: – Communication Preferences:

V. Key Messages – The core messages that need to be conveyed to each target audience to support the communication goals. For Audience Segment 1: – Key Message 1: – Key Message 2: For Audience Segment 2: – Key Message 1: – Key Message 2: For Audience Segment 3: – Key Message 1: – Key Message 2:

VI. Channels – The communication mediums to be used for message dissemination. Traditional Media: – TV/Radio – Print Media (Brochures, Newsletters) Digital Media: – Social Media Platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) – Email Campaigns – Organization’s Website/Blog Community Outreach: – Public Speaking Engagements – Community Events and Workshops

VII. Timeline – A detailed schedule for the planning, execution, and review of communication activities. Campaign Launches: – Dates: – Key Activities: Ongoing Activities: – Frequency: – Types of Content: Review and Adjustment Periods: – Dates: – Review Activities:

VIII. Monitoring and Evaluation – Strategies and tools for tracking the effectiveness of communication efforts and making data-driven decisions. Metrics: – Reach and impressions – Engagement rates – Donation or volunteer sign-ups Tools: – Social Media Analytics – Google Analytics – Survey Feedback Reporting Frequency: – Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly (as appropriate)

IX. Roles and Responsibilities – Clear delineation of who is responsible for each component of the communication plan. Strategic Planning: – Assigned Leader/Team: Content Creation and Curation: – Assigned Leader/Team: Distribution and Outreach: – Assigned Leader/Team: Monitoring and Evaluation: – Assigned Leader/Team:

X. Budget – An outline of the projected costs associated with the implementation of the communication plan. Content Development: Channel Utilization: Monitoring Tools: Miscellaneous Expenses:

XI. Approval and Implementation – Steps for plan approval from the organization’s leadership and the process for putting the plan into action.

XII. Appendices – Any supporting documents, additional information, resources, or templates that support the communication plan.

Part 6 Example: Non-Profit Organization Communication Plan

I. Executive Summary – This communication plan outlines the strategy for “Green Future Initiative,” a non-profit focused on environmental preservation, to raise funds for its new “Save the Wetlands” conservation project.

II. Background – “Green Future Initiative” has a mission to protect and restore natural habitats. Communication is a vital tool to mobilize resources and public support for our conservation efforts.

III. Communication Goals Goal 1: Raise $50,000 for the “Save the Wetlands” project within the next four months. Goal 2: Increase awareness about the importance of wetland conservation by reaching 100,000 people through various communication channels. Goal 3: Recruit 200 new volunteers for upcoming conservation events and activities.

IV. Target Audience Potential Donors: – Characteristics: Environmentally conscious individuals, previous donors, philanthropists. – Communication Preferences: Email campaigns, social media updates, direct mail. Community Supporters: – Characteristics: Local community members, schools, environmental groups. – Communication Preferences: Community events, local media, educational workshops.

V. Key Messages For Potential Donors: – Key Message 1: “Your donation helps protect vital ecosystems and combat climate change.” – Key Message 2: “Join us in leaving a lasting legacy of conservation for future generations.” For Community Supporters: – Key Message 1: “Get involved locally to make a global impact on environmental preservation.” – Key Message 2: “Every action counts – volunteer, educate, and help us spread the word.”

VI. Channels Traditional Media: – Press Releases to local newspapers and radio stations. Digital Media: – Social Media Campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. – Monthly Email Newsletters with updates and donation appeals. – Blog Posts on the organization’s website featuring success stories and project impacts. Community Outreach: – Hosting informational booths at local farmers’ markets. – Educational seminars at schools and community centers.

VII. Timeline Campaign Launch: – Date: May 1, 2024 – Key Activities: Kick-off social media campaign, send initial email blast, press release distribution. Ongoing Activities: – Frequency: Weekly social media posts, monthly email newsletters. – Types of Content: Donor spotlights, project updates, volunteer testimonials. Review and Adjustment Periods: – Dates: Bi-monthly reviews on the 15th of each month. – Review Activities: Analyze campaign metrics, adjust strategies as needed.

VIII. Monitoring and Evaluation Metrics: – Fundraising progress towards the $50,000 goal. – Social media engagement and reach. – Email open and click-through rates, number of new newsletter sign-ups. Tools: – Social Media Insights tools. – Email Marketing Software Analytics. – Donation tracking software. Reporting Frequency: – Bi-monthly to coincide with review periods.

IX. Roles and Responsibilities Strategic Planning: – Assigned Leader/Team: Communications Director Content Creation and Curation: – Assigned Leader/Team: Marketing Coordinator, Volunteer Writers Distribution and Outreach: – Assigned Leader/Team: Social Media Manager, Email Marketing Specialist Monitoring and Evaluation: – Assigned Leader/Team: Data Analyst

X. Budget Content Development: $2,000 for professional copywriting and graphic design. Channel Utilization: $1,500 for social media advertising and email marketing platforms. Monitoring Tools: $500 for analytics software subscriptions. Miscellaneous Expenses: $1,000 for unforeseen costs.

XI. Approval and Implementation – The plan will be presented to the Board of Directors on April 15, 2024, for approval. Upon approval, the implementation phase will begin according to the outlined timeline.

XII. Appendices – A: Detailed Social Media Strategy and Calendar – B: Email Newsletter Templates – C: Press Release Template and Media Contact List – D: Community Outreach Schedule and Materials

• Large Corporation

Large corporations usually need comprehensive communication plans that ensure everyone is on the same page. Elements of a corporate communication plan include:

• Stakeholder analysis
• Crisis communication strategies

Part 7 Corporate Communication Plan Template

I. Executive Summary – A brief overview of the communication plan, highlighting its significance and alignment with corporate goals.

II. Introduction – An explanation of the context and need for a structured communication approach within the corporation.

III. Communication Objectives – Clear and measurable objectives that the communication efforts aim to achieve. Objective 1: Objective 2: Objective 3:

IV. Stakeholder Analysis – Identification and categorization of all stakeholders relevant to the corporation’s communication efforts. Internal Stakeholders: – Employees – Management – Board Members External Stakeholders: – Customers/Clients – Suppliers – Media – Investors – Community

V. Key Messages – Central themes and information points that need to be consistently communicated to stakeholders. For Internal Stakeholders: – Message 1: – Message 2: For External Stakeholders: – Message 1: – Message 2:

VI. Channels – The mediums through which the corporation will deliver its key messages. Internal Channels: – Intranet – Email Bulletins – Town Hall Meetings External Channels: – Press Releases – Corporate Website – Social Media Platforms – Public Relations Events

VII. Timeline – A schedule detailing when and how communication activities will be carried out. Initial Rollout: – Date: – Activities: Ongoing Communication: – Frequency: – Activities: Milestone Reviews: – Dates: – Review Activities:

VIII. Responsibilities – Allocation of roles and duties to team members for executing the communication plan. Strategic Planning: – Person/Team: Content Development: – Person/Team: Message Distribution: – Person/Team: Monitoring and Feedback: – Person/Team:

IX. Crisis Communication Strategies – Predefined actions and protocols for managing communication during potential crises. Crisis Identification: – Signals and Triggers: Crisis Communication Team: – Roles and Contact Information: Key Messages During Crisis: – For Employees: – For Media: – For Other Stakeholders: Communication Channels for Crisis: – Primary: – Secondary:

X. Monitoring and Evaluation – Methods for assessing the effectiveness of the communication efforts and making necessary adjustments. Metrics: – Employee engagement levels – Media coverage quality and sentiment – Social media analytics Evaluation Tools: – Surveys – Media Monitoring Software – Social Media Listening Tools

XI. Appendices – Any additional documents, guidelines, or resources that support the communication plan

Part 8 Corporate Internal Communication Plan Example

I. Executive Summary – (Summary of the plan’s purpose, which is to enhance internal communication and collaboration through the implementation of a project management tool.)

II. Introduction – (Explanation of the current state of internal communication and the need for improved processes and tools to facilitate better teamwork and project tracking.)

III. Communication Objectives Objective 1: Achieve 100% team member adoption of the project management tool within two months of rollout. Objective 2: Reduce email reliance for project updates by 50% within three months. Objective 3: Increase project delivery efficiency by 20% within six months as measured by project completion rates and stakeholder feedback.

IV. Stakeholder Analysis Internal Stakeholders: – Employees: All levels of staff who will be using the project management tool. – Management: Supervisors and managers who will oversee and track project progress. – IT Department: Support staff responsible for implementing and maintaining the tool.

V. Key Messages For All Employees: – Message 1: “The new project management tool will streamline our workflows and enhance collaboration.” – Message 2: “Comprehensive training and support will be provided to ensure a smooth transition.” For Management: – Message 1: “Real-time project tracking will provide better oversight and resource allocation.” – Message 2: “Your leadership is key to the successful adoption of the project management tool.”

VI. Channels Internal Channels: – Intranet Announcements – Email Bulletins with progress updates and tips – Training Workshops and Webinars – Q&A Sessions and Feedback Forums

VII. Timeline Tool Launch: – Date: August 1, 2024 – Activities: Initial tool training session, access provision to all team members. Ongoing Communication: – Frequency: Weekly updates, monthly training refreshers, quarterly feedback collection. – Activities: Progress tracking, success stories sharing, addressing questions and concerns. Milestone Reviews: – Dates: End of each month for the first three months, then quarterly. – Review Activities: Assess tool adoption rates, survey employees for feedback, adjust training as needed.

VIII. Responsibilities Strategic Planning: – Person/Team: Internal Communications Manager Content Development and Training: – Person/Team: HR and IT Department Collaborative Effort Message Distribution: – Person/Team: Departmental Team Leaders Monitoring and Feedback: – Person/Team: Project Management Tool Implementation Committee

IX. Crisis Communication Strategies Crisis Identification: – Signals and Triggers: Low adoption rates, negative feedback, technical issues with the tool. Crisis Communication Team: – Roles and Contact Information: Internal Communications Manager, IT Support Lead. Key Messages During Crisis: – For Employees: “We are aware of the issues with the tool and are working diligently to resolve them.” Communication Channels for Crisis: – Primary: Intranet, direct emails. – Secondary: Impromptu meetings or conference calls if needed.

X. Monitoring and Evaluation Metrics: – User login and activity rates in the project management tool. – Reduction in project-related email traffic. – Feedback from employee satisfaction surveys regarding internal communication. Evaluation Tools: – Project management tool analytics. – Internal survey tools. – Email analytics for tracking communication volume.

XI. Appendices – A: Project Management Tool User Guide – B: Training Workshop Schedule – C: FAQ Document for Tool Implementation – D: Feedback Form Template

Part 9 Implementing the Communication Plan

Action plan and timeline.

To effectively implement your communication plan, it’s important to create an action plan and timeline . This will help you structure your project in a way that ensures your objectives will be achieved. Start by breaking down your goals into smaller tasks or steps, and determine the deadlines for each task.

For example, suppose your goal is to launch a new marketing campaign. Your action plan might include:

• Researching your target audience (by March 10th)
• Creating marketing materials (by March 20th)
• Distributing materials (by March 25th)
• Monitoring responses (from March 25th to April 10th)

Having a clear timeline allows you to stay on track with your project, and it provides a useful reference for you to update your stakeholders on the progress of the communication plan at any given time.

Assigning Roles and Responsibilities

Another crucial aspect of implementing the plan is assigning roles and responsibilities to your team members. Determine who is best suited for each aspect of the plan and delegate the tasks accordingly.

• Identify the desired outcomes for each project/task
• List the skills and resources needed to achieve those outcomes
• Match team members based on their skills, expertise, and availability

For example, in the marketing campaign mentioned earlier, you might assign roles like this:

• Research: marketing analysts
• Creating materials: graphic designers and copywriters
• Distribution: social media managers and email marketing specialists
• Monitoring: data analysts

By doing so, you ensure that everyone understands their part in the project and can focus on their assigned responsibilities. This also makes it easier for you to track and manage progress on each aspect of the communication plan, leading to a smoother and more efficient implementation overall.

Part 10 Communication Plan Monitoring and Adjusting

In a well-structured communication plan, it’s important to regularly monitor progress and make adjustments as needed. This is where the “Monitoring and Adjusting” section comes into play. By keeping an eye on the implementation of your plan and gathering feedback, you can refine your approach and maximize effectiveness.

Feedback Mechanisms

To ensure your communication plan is on the right track, you’ll need to establish feedback mechanisms. These help you understand if your messages are well-received or if they need adjustments. Some options for gathering feedback include:

• Surveys or questionnaires
• Focus groups with your target audience
• Observations of communication in action
• Social media monitoring and analytics

By using these tools, you’ll identify areas where your communication plan could be more effective. Keep in mind that understanding your audience’s needs, preferences, and concerns is key to effectively adjusting your strategy.

Iterative Process

Your communication plan is an evolving document. As you gather feedback and learn more about your audience, you should be open to making changes. This continuous improvement is essential for achieving your goals. Here’s how you can implement iterative improvements:

• Monitor the effectiveness of your communication channels and tactics.
• Identify areas where your plan can be improved, and prioritize these improvements.
• Make adjustments to your plan based on the data you’ve gathered.
• Continue monitoring your plan’s effectiveness and make changes when necessary.

Embracing this iterative process is important, as it helps you stay flexible and adapt your approach as needed. By continuously refining your communication plan, you’re better equipped to reach your objectives and maintain a strong connection with your audience.

Part 11 Measuring Impact and ROI of a Communication Plan

In order to gauge how effective your communication plan is, it’s important to conduct accurate measurement and analysis. This section discusses two key methods for evaluating the success of your plan: quantitative analysis and qualitative insights.

Quantitative Analysis

When it comes to measuring the impact of your communication plan, numerical data can provide valuable insights. You may want to consider tracking metrics such as:

• Engagement : Track the number of likes, shares, comments, and click-throughs on your content.
• Reach : Measure how many people your messages are reaching by monitoring the total number of impressions or views.
• Conversion : Assess how well your communication plan is driving users to take desired actions, like signing up for newsletters, making purchases, or registering for events.
• Retention : Examine if your messages are keeping your audience engaged and invested by reviewing metrics like repeat visits or subscriptions.

For example, if you’re using social media to communicate with your customers, look at the engagement rate of your posts. This can help you determine which types of content resonate the most with your audience and how well your communication strategy is performing overall.

Qualitative Insights

While quantitative data is crucial for understanding the impact of your communication plan, it’s also important to gather qualitative feedback. This means collecting opinions, thoughts, and experiences from your target audience. Some ways you can gather this information include:

• Surveys: Send out surveys or questionnaires to your audience to gather their thoughts on your communication efforts.
• Focus groups: Organize a focus group with a representative sample of your target audience and facilitate a discussion on your communication plan.
• User tests: Invite users to test your communication materials or channels and provide feedback on their experiences.

For instance, you may conduct a survey asking your employees about their experiences with your internal communication tools. By understanding their experiences and preferences, you can improve your communication plan to better serve their needs.

Measuring the impact and ROI of your communication plan is essential in ensuring its effectiveness. By using both quantitative analysis and qualitative insights, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of how well your plan is performing and how to improve it for greater success.

Part 12 Best Practices for Communication Plans

When creating a communication plan, it’s important to consider some best practices to ensure that your plan is effective and reaches its intended audience. Below are a few key points to keep in mind:

• Goals and Objectives : Clearly define your communication goals and objectives. Be specific about what you want to achieve and how you plan on measuring success. For example, if your objective is to increase team engagement, consider using metrics such as response rates or participation in events to determine if your plan is successful.
• Know Your Audience : It’s important to consider who your target audience is so that you can tailor your messages accordingly. Make sure to understand their needs, preferences, and communication channels because audience plays a crucial role in determining how effective your plan will be.
• Prioritize Messages: Determine which messages are most important or relevant to your audience. Having clear priorities for the topics and key messages you want to communicate will help ensure that the most important information is conveyed effectively.
• Choose the Right Channels: Use the appropriate channels to reach your target audience. This could include email, internal platforms, face-to-face meetings, or social media platforms, depending on your audience and objectives. Be sure to consider their familiarity and comfort level with the selected channels.
• Clear and Concise Messaging: Keep your messages simple, easy to understand and to the point. Avoid using complex language or jargon that may be confusing to your audience. Clear communication is essential for conveying the most important information.
• Create a Timeline: Develop a timeline to plan and schedule your communication activities. This will help ensure that communications are consistent and messages don’t get lost in the shuffle. Include key dates, milestones and desired outcomes on the timeline to keep everyone informed.
• Be Flexible and Adaptable: While it’s important to have a plan, be prepared to adjust your approach if necessary. Be willing to adapt and change your communication strategy if it’s not meeting your objectives. Keep an open mind and be receptive to feedback from your audience.
• Evaluate and Improve: Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your communication plan by measuring its success against your objectives. Use the insights gathered to refine your approach and make improvements as needed. Learning from your successes and failures will ensure that your communication plan continues to evolve and improve.

Part 13 Tips for Maintaining Stakeholder Engagement

To ensure the success of your communication plan, it’s important to maintain stakeholder engagement throughout the process. Here are some tips to help you achieve this goal.

First, create a list of all stakeholders involved in the project. Being aware of who they are and their roles will help you tailor your communication strategies accordingly. For example, if you’re working with a branding team, consider holding regular meetings to provide updates on the latest designs and their impact on the project.

When communicating with stakeholders, make sure to be transparent and open. This means being honest about the project’s progress as well as any obstacles or challenges you may face along the way. By maintaining transparency, you can build trust with stakeholders and effectively manage their expectations.

To further boost stakeholder engagement, consider using a variety of communication channels. You might use different channels depending on the information being shared, the urgency of the message or the preferences of your stakeholders. Examples of effective communication channels include:

• Newsletters
• Social media platforms
• Instant messaging tools
• Video conferencing

In addition, give your stakeholders the opportunity to provide feedback on the project’s progress. This can be done through meetings or online surveys, for example. By opening up lines of communication and actively seeking their input, you demonstrate your commitment to collaboration and partnership.

Another important aspect of maintaining stakeholder engagement is providing regular updates on the project’s progress. Schedule periodic status updates, which allow stakeholders to see the current state of the project and understand any changes that have occurred. Be sure to emphasize accomplishments as well as challenges, because highlighting both will offer a balanced view of the project’s development.

Lastly, show appreciation and recognition for your stakeholders’ time and effort. This doesn’t have to be an extravagant gesture, a simple thank you email or acknowledging their contributions in a meeting can go a long way. By expressing gratitude and acknowledging their hard work, you can foster a positive working relationship that benefits everyone involved.

Maintaining stakeholder engagement in your communication plan is vital to ensuring project success. By incorporating these tips into your strategy, you can effectively keep your stakeholders informed, involved, and committed to the project’s objectives.

Part 14 Frequently Asked Questions

What are the key elements to include in a communication plan.

A communication plan should include the following key elements:

• Goals and objectives: Clearly define the purpose of your communication efforts, outlining your desired outcomes.
• Target audience: Identify your intended recipients, understanding their needs and preferences.
• Key messages: Determine what information you want to convey, ensuring it is clear and concise.
• Communication channels: Choose the most effective means for delivering your messages, such as email, social media, or in-person meetings.
• Timelines and milestones: Establish a schedule for your communication activities, setting deadlines for important tasks.
• Resources and budget: Assess the financial and human resources available to support your communication efforts.
• Measurement and evaluation: Set criteria for tracking progress, and be ready to adjust your plan as needed.

Can you provide an outline for constructing an effective communication strategy?

Here’s a simple outline to help you construct an effective communication strategy:

• Establish your goals and objectives.
• Identify your target audience.
• Develop key messages tailored to your audience.
• Select appropriate communication channels.
• Create a timeline and milestones for your communication activities.
• Allocate the necessary resources and budget.
• Monitor progress and measure success, modifying the plan as necessary.

How do I tailor a communication plan to suit my organization’s needs?

To create a communication plan that addresses your organization’s unique needs, consider the following steps:

• Assess your organization’s values, mission, and objectives.
• Identify your communication goals, aligning them with your organizational objectives.
• Understand your target audience, considering their communication preferences and needs.
• Develop key messages that resonate with your audience and reflect your organization’s values.
• Choose communication channels that are best suited for your audience and message.
• Create a schedule for your communication activities, ensuring it aligns with your organization’s timeline.
• Evaluate success regularly, adapting the plan to meet changing needs and opportunities.

How can different types of communication plans be applied to various projects?

Different types of communication plans can be adapted to fit different project requirements. For example:

• Internal communication plans can be tailored to the specific needs of your team, focusing on improving communication within your organization.
• Crisis communication plans can be designed to address potential challenges and unexpected situations, guiding your team’s response during a crisis.
• Marketing communication plans can be developed to promote your product or service, shaping public perception and driving sales.
• Stakeholder communication plans can be customized to address the diverse interests of various stakeholders, ensuring transparent and open communication between your organization and these key groups.

The key to creating a successful communication plan is to understand the unique needs of your project and tailor the plan to meet those needs.

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Communication plan template

The importance of having a communication plan

How to title a communication plan.

The title of this document should reflect its purpose, which usually (but not always) means including “communication plan” and some specific details. This way, everyone who comes into contact with the document will know what it is for and can easily reference it when needed.

Communication plan subject line examples

How to write a communication plan, what to include in a communication plan, communication plan examples and templates, new product launch communication plan, [title]: marketing campaign communication plan, [company name] internal communication plan, strategic communication plan: [company name], [project name] management communication plan, new [change in company] communication plan, plan for communication with stakeholders: [company name], [start date] – [end date]: communication plan, communication plan good practices, frequently asked questions, when should i create a communication plan, what is different about a crisis communication plan, how often should i update my communication plan, who can benefit from a communication plan.

Plan your product launch properly with email marketing templates to generate enthusiasm and attract attention. Use clear CTAs and align your email marketing with your overall promotional plan. Send your product launch email when your product is ready for purchase.

A successful customer retention strategy should focus on building a strong customer experience from initial contact to post-purchase. Personalization is essential for building customer engagement, as customers want to be treated as individuals rather than being generalized. Defining and promoting a unique brand voice also helps to differentiate from competitors. Creating tailored content is key to keeping customers engaged, with personalized promotions and recommendations being effective for e-commerce brands. Overall, having a solid customer engagement strategy is crucial for establishing a meaningful connection with customers and leads to better loyalty, increased spending, and positive feedback.

Improve customer service communication by using live chat auto translation, dynamic chat invites, live web analytics, and customized chat windows. Ensure prompt issue resolution and place live chat buttons upfront. LiveAgent software can help manage customer inquiries from multiple channels. Effective communication is crucial for building long-lasting customer relationships.

The article discusses various templates and checklists related to marketing and graphic design. It covers product launch templates, invitation email templates, and survey email templates, along with a graphic design checklist for creating high-quality visuals. The importance of personalizing emails, identifying clear calls to action, and offering incentives for survey responses is emphasized. In the end, the article mentions the process of building a LiveAgent dashboard after sign-up.

You will be in Good Hands!

How to Write A Communication Plan in 9 Steps + Free Templates

These templates help save time and ensure your next communications land with your audience and deliver the impact you want.

You’ve just launched a new product, after five years of building a prototype, testing, and ensuring the product is market-ready. But the launch didn’t go as planned. Within the first week of release, angry customers blow up your customer support lines to complain about faulty products that have become fire hazards. 

Thankfully, your communications team already has a communications plan for this scenario. They start the campaign quickly to address safety concerns, rebuild trust with consumers and still relaunch the product (after updates) to great success.

However, a communication plan isn’t just for putting out fires. It’s also helpful when launching a new product or releasing an important update. It ensures you get the most visibility from your target audience.

Internally, a communication plan is essential to keep stakeholders and team members on the same page during project management. A communication plan also establishes a structure so employees can find information when they need it and follow up if they can't.

In this guide, you’ll learn the benefits of using a communications plan, how to write one, and details to include in your plan. We’ve also included several downloadable templates to simplify the process for you.

What is a communications plan? 

A communications plan is a comprehensive strategy that enables you to deliver information to your audience and drive positive business outcomes. 

A communications plan helps you identify needs, prioritize your budget, structure timelines, and tailor communications methods to suit the audience. It ensures that any message from your organization is consistent across channels and received by the right target audience. 

While most people associate communication plans with crisis management, they can also be used to launch new products or pitch new initiatives.

A communications plan describes:

• Whom you want to reach
• How you’ll present your brand
• The message you want to communicate
• The channels for communication

When you use this structure to build a communication plan, you’ll have the messaging you need to achieve your organization’s goals. 

What is a communications plan in project management? 

A communication plan in project management outlines how you’ll communicate important information about an ongoing project to the major stakeholders. The communication plan specifies when team members should share project updates, and with whom they should share those updates. 

A project management communication plan is not a PR plan. It doesn’t help you identify your audience, align social media or establish messaging for your audience segments. Instead, consider using a business strategy or social media planner for these purposes.

Team members should use the communication plan to answer these project questions:

• How do we communicate with the project stakeholders?
• What is each channel used for?
• Do we communicate asynchronously or synchronously ?
• Who is the project manager?
• Who is on the project team, and what are their roles?
• How frequently will we share important project details with stakeholders?

What is the importance of a communication plan?

Increase collaboration and productivity.

Knowledge workers currently spend 60% of their time chasing approvals, searching for documents, switching between apps, and doing other tasks outside their core job function. It mostly happens when employees don’t know where information is shared. Hence, they waste time asking colleagues for information.

With the rise of distributed or remote teams, it’s easy to get comfortable with communication. Managers send emails after working hours, information isn’t centralized and employees are unsure when or how to communicate. Ensuring the security and legitimacy of your email communication with an SPF record checker becomes important.

Effective team collaboration doesn’t happen naturally. It’s a skill your team builds. One crucial aspect of effective team collaboration is to outline how your team communicates. 

With a communication plan, team members know where, when and what to communicate. You also clarify conventions for “Do not disturb” or snoozing notifications on platforms like Slack. Providing guidelines removes barriers to accessible communication and collaboration between teams. Team members are more confident sending messages and sharing ideas when they know where to communicate and at the right time.

Creates transparency

Transparency is the extent to which information is available and shared with employees, managers, and stakeholders in an organization. Employees can visualize the bigger picture and understand how their contribution makes a difference when information is readily available.

Transparency is essential for knowledge sharing , building trust, and keeping employees updated with verified information.

Even when the information is not always positive, transparent communication helps employees adjust to changes and continuously work smarter.

Minimizes misunderstanding and duplicative work between team members

A communication plan minimizes confusion and misunderstanding through documented processes . As a result, your team has clarity about where information lives and whom to ask questions when faced with difficulty. They’re more efficient and less frustrated, which leads to a happy workforce and higher revenue for your company.

Ensures the right people receive your message

There’s nothing more frustrating than hearing the words, “I don’t know,” or being told to ask the next person to answer your question. A good communication plan describes who receives messages and how the communication process works. 

In this environment, your team members know who to ask questions, and those who should have the answers are armed with the correct information.

How to write a communication plan?

1. audit your current communications materials .

Steps to follow when conducting an audit include:

• Before you write your communication plan, lay the groundwork. Take inventory of all the existing communication materials.
• Look for patterns in your past and current communications. Look for messages that got the best or worst results. Take note of changes in communication style over time and how they affected results.
• Ask team managers and employees how effective they think the current communication plan is. Use qualitative research methods such as survey tools, interviews, and focus groups to collect feedback. For surveys, you can use Typeform in Guru to create interactive quizzes and quickly collect feedback.
• Use a SWOT analysis to highlight weaknesses, strengths, threats, and opportunities in your communications. What factors are hurting your communications, and what could help your strategy?

2. Set SMART goals based on audit results 

After the audit, use the results to set achievable goals for the communications plan. Your SMART goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. 

For example, the HR team writes a communications plan to design a growth matrix for employees who don’t want to be managers. They need to identify specific goals the plan will achieve, even if it isn’t quantifiable. 

The goal could be to increase the employee retention rate by 30% over the next six months or improve employee satisfaction over the next year. You can use a communication plan to pitch these goals to management. 

3. Define your unique selling proposition (USP) 

Your USP is how you show customers and prospects the key feature that sets you apart from competitors. It’s a solution that only your brand offers, and customers can’t find it anywhere else.

Answer these questions to identify your USP:

• What problems do I solve with my service or product?
• What is the one thing I offer that competitors are missing?
• Do I have specific features that are hard to copy?

Frame your USP to show the benefits to customers and use it in your communications plan template. 

4. Tie your USP to your mission statement

Next, move on to your mission statement, which should communicate your entire brand identity. 

For example, Tesla’s USP is to make eco-friendly, high-quality, high-performance cars. They’re unique because they’re not just selling cars but innovative technology. It ties into their mission statement to create the most compelling automobiles of the 21st century and lead the world’s transition to electric vehicles.

Here’s a comprehensive guide to writing a mission and vision statement .

5. Identify your audience

Connecting with your ideal customer requires a deep understanding of your audience needs and preferences. While you want to reach as many people as possible, your message has the most impact when it’s tailored for a specific audience. Targeting also ensures that you get more qualified leads.

If you’re writing the communication plan for a project, it’s essential to know your audience. 

Who are you writing for?  Who are the stakeholders? 

Examples of stakeholders include investors, media outlets, government officials, or customers. If you’re writing for internal teams, create a comprehensive document that employees can refer to in your knowledge base platform . Make sure you include information about whom to ask follow-up questions.

If your audience includes the press and media outlets, write a press release that describes your goal for the public. We suggest using a press release template that details what the PR team should say.

Here are some tips to help you identify your target audience:

• Use survey tools like Typeform in Guru to collect information about preferences and demographics.
• Google Analytics provides information about user behavior on your site as well as demographic data such as gender, age, and location.
• Check for patterns in your social media followers. What is the age group of most of your followers? Where are they based? What type of content do they engage with? If you have a small following, you can spy on your competitors to see the type of audience they attract.

6. Outline and write your communication plan for each audience 

At this point, you know your different audience segments and the goals for your communication plan. As you craft a message for each audience group, use your overarching brand message as the base for communication. 

Start with a table to identify the audience, the messages you need to promote, and the channels to promote them.

When you have a general outline, answer these questions:

• What is the essential information the audience should know?
• What misconceptions am I clearing up?
• Which common values exist between the audience and my brand?
• What language will make the audience feel comfortable and understood?

Add the answers to your communications plan template under the key message section. As you write, invite representatives who already work with that audience group to improve the personalization and accuracy of your message. 

7. Determine distribution channels based on your audience 

The communication channels you choose depend on where your audience hangs out. 

For example, if you’re communicating with customers, you might send out a newsletter or press release. If you’re communicating with a cold audience, paid advertising might be helpful. And if you’re creating a communications plan for employees, using your knowledge management software is the best way to deliver your message.

Popular communication channels include:

• Email marketing to send sales offers, newsletters, and marketing outreach messages
• Your company blog where you share company news and helpful information with your target audience
• Text messages for discounts, event reminders, and sales announcement
• Print materials such as direct mail, flyers, signage, and brochures
• Podcast advertising through your company podcast or appearing as a guest on industry podcasts
• Pay-per-click advertising to show your ads to users browsing the internet
• Traditional advertising such as billboards, radio, and TV ads
• Social media to interact with your audience
• Intranet platforms where you can share content with employees, partners, vendors, and other stakeholders

8. Create a messaging matrix

A messaging matrix is a chart that brings together your target audience, the core problem, brand statement, and communication channels. It ensures that your communication plan always aligns with your value proposition. 

Most organizations have several audiences with different needs your product solves. You need a unique message, marketing campaign, and distribution channel for each audience. Your messaging matrix provides an overview of how your messages will adapt to each audience and channel.

9. Measure results based on established metrics of success

As you execute your communications plan, measure results on the go. Some projects, such as social media marketing, have quantifiable results. Others, such as improving employee satisfaction, may have abstract goal completion based on brand sentiment.

Take note of what worked and areas of improvement. If you didn’t meet your goal, perhaps try increasing the timeline or rework your goals to make them more achievable. 

What are the components of a communication plan?

1. the objectives of the communication plan.

The objectives of your communications plan should answer these questions:

• Who am I reaching?
• Why do I need to reach them?
• What will I say?
• What channels will I use to deliver my message?
• What is the best time to deliver this message for the most impact?

2. Your target audience

For project-based communication plans, target communication to stakeholders. Which departments or individuals will be affected by the communications plan? What information should they know about the project?

Audiences differ and may include employees, customers, or the media. Use an audience map to segment your audience and create unique messages for each audience.

3. The message

Think of the end goal when writing the message. What is the action you want the audience to take as a result of the communications plan? Lead with the purpose early on. 

Answer these questions in your message:

• Why are we doing this?
• How does this fit with our overall mission?
• What will change after the communications plan?

Embracing empathy helps you understand what your audience needs to hear. The message should be simple, consistent, accurate, and clear.

Timing is crucial to the success and effectiveness of your communications plan. The best communication takes place over time, not at once. 

People have short attention spans and limited time. You may need to communicate repeatedly to reinforce the key message and stay top of mind with your target audience. You also need a second communications plan to cushion you against unexpected events that happen down the road.

5. The delivery method

Your communication strategy lays the groundwork for your outreach activities. This includes what message to communicate and the channels for each message. 

For example, if you’re communicating with a professional audience, LinkedIn and Twitter might be more effective than Instagram or TikTok, which are (generally) for more casual use.

6. The communicator

If you have an in-house communications team, they should handle creating and executing the communication plan for internal and external audiences. However, the PR and HR teams should work together on internal-facing communications that may affect employees.

Great communicators usually tend to be:

• Great listener
• A trusted source capable of connecting with a cold audience
• Thoughtful about asking the right questions to collect meaningful information

7. The follow-through

Effective communication is more than sharing information. It requires follow-through to ensure that the right people see the data and provide feedback to improve future communications.

Did they read and understand the message? Will they take the desired action? What happens if they don't read the message?

Want to know if your employees have read an important piece of information you shared? Use Guru’s Card-level data to share information with specific teams and employees within your organization. Guru makes it easy for employees to consume information at their own pace and allows you to track what they’ve read. If they haven’t read a Card, you can send a follow-up and remind them.

8. Who is in charge?

Designate a communication coordinator to manage the creation and execution of the communication plan. While this role often falls to the project manager or departmental head, it’s a wiser choice to designate someone with fewer responsibilities who can listen to where communication is needed, discover what’s missing, and resolve communication breakdowns when they occur. The manager or team lead already has a lot on their plate, so communications might get relegated to the background. 

Ask colleagues from relevant departments to create a list of challenges that may come up during the execution of the communications plan. For example, what are the challenges to adoption for internal teams? As you launch a new product, do you foresee any obstacles that could become a PR nightmare? Creating a list of expected challenges can help you prepare a communication plan to mitigate the issues.

9. Executive summary 

The executive summary is a one-page recap of your communications plan. It should include:

• Core values
• Key message
• Differentiators
• Challenges you discovered during the planning meetings
• Objectives you’d like to achieve if resources become available but are not currently part of the communication plan
• Business goals

Communication plan examples

Marketing communication plan .

A marketing communications plan is a strategy for sharing information about your product or service with your target audience. It provides focus, so you know what you need to say when promoting your product to your customer.

The marketing communications plan includes:

• Description of your target market and ideal customer
• Goals and objectives
• SWOT analysis
• Your unique selling proposition
• The problem your audience faces
• The intersection between those pain points and your product solutions
• Your messaging
• Channels of distribution
• Project management communication plan

A project management communication plan describes how you’ll communicate important information to stakeholders throughout the project’s lifetime. It also keeps your team on track when collaborating on a project, so everyone knows what they should do, who’s responsible for each task, and when it’s due.

The project management communication plan should include:

• Goals of the project
• Stakeholder details
• Type of information to share with stakeholders
• Channels of communication
• Frequency of communication
• Product launch communication plan

A product launch communications plan ensures your new product gets the visibility it needs to connect with your target audience. If it’s a product update, the story should clearly show the differentiator from competitors and previous versions.

Segment product launch plans into five phases:

• Sales and channel readiness
• Post-launch follow-up

Details to include in a product launch communication plan:

• Primary objectives of the product launch
• Your target audience
• Positioning statement
• Problems your product solves
• Product description
• Key activities and timeline for each activity to happen
• Awareness campaign
• Internal communication plan

When practiced correctly, internal communication should promote efficient collaboration and conversation between employees in an organization. It involves producing and sharing messages, as well as facilitating healthy dialogue with employees. 

Good internal communications ensure that employees never hear the words “nobody told me.” It’s a frustrating experience in organizations of all sizes where information doesn’t get to the right people, is ignored, or lost in transit.

An internal communications plan equips your organization to manage the growing impact of a modern work environment.

Include the following details in an internal communications plan:

• Audience personas
• SMART goals
• Key metrics to track
• Timeline to achieve goals and objectives
• Approval process
• Internal communication tools

Change management communication plan 

Change is hard for everyone to accept. A change management plan encapsulates all the strategic plans, processes, and tools to deliver organizational changes and help employees adapt to these changes. 

Done right, a change management plan reduces the risk of an unsuccessful organizational change in the event of restructuring, moving to a new location, or upgrading processes. It’s the only way to get buy-in from employees without antagonizing them.

65% of senior managers surveyed by Robert Half believe that communication is the most essential element for leading teams through change successfully. Sadly, 70% of organizational change initiatives are unsuccessful because of ineffective communication. 

Details to include in a change management communication plan:

• Change project name
• Project owner
• Stakeholders for each communication
• Reason for communication
• Description of the required communication
• Methods of communication
• Key messaging

Great public and employee relations begin with a communication plan

Without a structure for communications, you can’t connect with your target audience or collaborate efficiently. A communication plan ensures that you stay ready for when a crisis occurs. Internally, you disseminate information properly when making business decisions, or effecting big changes. And externally, you take control of your narrative to shape public perception of your brand and its offering.

Guru is the internal communication software that complements employee communication with expert-verified information. With Guru, your employees have access to information when they need it, so they never feel out of the loop.

FAQ for communication plan template 

What is included in a communication plan.

• Purpose of communication
• Target audience
• Expected obstacles
• Delivery method
• Executive summary

How do you write a communications plan?

• Audit your current communications materials
• Set SMART goals
• Identify your audience
• Define your mission statement and unique value
• Write a communications plan for each target audience
• Determine distribution channels
• Execute and measure results

What are communication plan examples?

Examples of communication plans include:

• Change management communication plan
• Marketing communication plan

Communication plan 101: Overview, content and examples

Last updated

22 February 2024

Reviewed by

Jean Kaluza

Strategic communication plans help businesses to run efficiently by relaying the right information to the right people at the right time. They ensure that everyone who needs to be informed is kept up to date with the task or event at hand, and serve to minimize consequences if issues arise.

Take, for example, a large university hospital spread across many campuses. A project manager in charge of transitioning the institution’s paper record-keeping to a digital platform will need an effective communication plan for a successful outcome. Or, a communication plan will help a retail chain's chief operating officer (COO) navigate and reduce adverse outcomes from retail thefts, inflation, controversial backlashes, and store closures.

After reading this article, you’ll know what a communication plan is and how to implement one effectively. You'll understand the elements of a communication plan and who to include to create a functional plan for a successful outcome.

• What is a communication plan?

The point of a communication plan is to make sure everyone with a stake or interest in a business or project and the outcomes of its actions are informed, updated as events unfold, and made aware of goals and objectives.

This leads to educated decisions and coordinated efforts, resulting in a productive, efficient business or project.

• The importance of communication plans

Communication failure can result in:

Higher costs

Late milestone deliveries

Business interruptions

Misunderstandings

These can have severe consequences for your business. A communication plan prevents such lapses because it defines strict parameters for everyone to follow.

• How communication plans are used

There are various types of communication plans, serving different purposes and with different advantages. These plans can be for:

Information: ensuring the recipients are provided with facts and resources to help them make an informed decision.

Persuasion: changing how the recipients of the message think or behave by using emotional messages rather than factual ones.

Collaboration: useful as a project management tool because it involves two or more parties working together to achieve a common goal. These project communication plans ensure all involved know their communication requirements' precise goals and objectives. It also can be a way for all team members to be held accountable for their part in the collaboration and to measure the progress of the project at each milestone.

Crisis management: these are plans business owners hope they never have to activate but should have in place to respond to unforeseen events. To prepare an emergency plan, identify potential risks and develop communication plans for each.

• Elements of a communication plan

Your plan should provide coordinated and consistent messaging to specific stakeholders or target audiences. It will achieve a clear and strategic purpose when put in place.

What should a communication plan include?

There are certain elements that an effective communication plan must contain.

Stating the communication plan’s objective upfront will direct the rest of the content.

Note who will receive and send content, when and where it will be delivered, why it is required, and how it will be provided.

Also, define communication channels, for example, email, Slack, or phone calls.

What shouldn't be included in a communication plan?

A communication plan should not include sensitive information like passwords, credit card details, or personal information. Also avoid offering personal opinions or displaying biases relating to individual stakeholders.

If your business has to follow compliance standards or government regulations, make sure any information in the communication plan doesn’t go against these.

Your communication plan should not contain ambiguities that might cause confusion or uncertainty. It should be clear and concise about the kind of communication you expect and when it should be supplied or received.

How should you communicate sensitive information?

If you need to communicate sensitive or confidential information, follow cybersecurity compliance standards and assign an appropriate secure communication channel.

Face-to-face meetings or encrypted, password-protected, or multi-factor authenticated platforms are secure methods of transmitting sensitive information. Limit these communications to the stakeholders who need to know that particular information.

• How to create a communication plan

Before you create a communication plan, identify your stakeholders and how elements of the plan correspond with those stakeholders. Communication goals, methods, and frequency may not all be applicable or may differ from one stakeholder to another.

1.  Set a communication goal

Suppose you want to reinforce a positive perception of your brand. Your communication goals might be to persuade the general public, shareholders, and prospective customers of the positive aspects of your company and its culture and to pass on facts that strengthen this claim.

Another communication goal may be to gather reports and other data on whether those efforts are productive.

2.  Choose a format

Communication plans come in various formats, including specifically designed software platforms. However, you can easily formulate a communication plan in a spreadsheet, on chart paper, or on a whiteboard.

3.  Identify stakeholders

Determine the stakeholders to include in the communication plan depending on the goal you are working toward. Identifying the stakeholders may require analyzing stakeholder relationships, such as:

How they are positioned in organizational charts

Their responsibilities and how they relate to your goals

Internal and external information needs

The location of the stakeholders

Once you identify the stakeholders you'll include in the plan, determine their level of demand for information to help achieve your goals and prioritize them accordingly. For example, invested stakeholders who might be involved when trying to reinforce a brand perception could include:

Loyal customers

The general public

Shareholders

The marketing team

The executive team

You would create a plan that includes who will be sending content, who will be receiving it, the kind of content that will be sent and its priorities, how it will be sent, and the frequency of the communication.

The difference between stakeholder engagement and communication management plans

A stakeholder communication plan should not be confused with a stakeholder engagement plan. When your business establishes a communication plan with stakeholders, it's usually a one-way channel from you to the stakeholders and typically does not result in a conversation.

Stakeholder communication plans may include:

Newsletters

Text messages

Social media posts

When businesses create stakeholder engagement plans, their purpose is to form relationships and connections with stakeholders, not just to inform and update them. These plans encourage participation in the form of dialogue or two-way communication between you and the stakeholders. They are usually people with an interest in your business’s decision-making or problem-solving processes.

4.  Identify methods of communication

The method by which information is dispersed will also differ between stakeholders. If stakeholders are not readily available because they're located elsewhere, internal reports, face-to-face meetings, and presentations, may not work under these circumstances.

When including stakeholders in other locations, consider using:

Online databases

Digital communication platforms

SMS texting

Video conferencing

5.  Determine who provides communication updates

Certain members of the business or team will be responsible and held accountable for the results of a communication plan.

For example, if the goal is to reinforce positive brand perception, the chief communications officer (CCO) on the executive team might use press releases sent by email to media outlets to inform the general public. The chief financial officer (CFO) may generate reports for the shareholders or convey information via video conferencing. The marketing team may use websites, advertising materials, and social media to remind prospective and loyal customers of a lasting positive impression.

The marketing team may also research whether the communication efforts are successful. If they find the efforts inadequate, they may advise the executive team and other marketing team members. This may be done through reports, presentations, meetings, and online communication platforms so they can make corrections before the positive perception decreases further.

6.  Determine the frequency of communication

Scheduling the frequency at which you expect team members to update stakeholders is an efficient way to hold them accountable. They can adhere to the schedule without you having to spend time sending reminders.

However, your plan should not include unrealistic or ambiguous expectations. It should also should assign appropriate priority levels to any communication content.

• How do you create a communication schedule?

Depending on your goal, whether a product launch, other event, project completion, or marketing campaign, teams will need to follow a timeline from start to finish. That's when a communication schedule becomes important.

It must display critical times when communication content is due. These timelines make it easy for everyone involved to plan their part in these efforts and deliver their content when the appropriate stakeholders need it.

• How to use a communication plan for project management

Whether you're a project manager for large or small projects, it might be necessary to convey information between team members, departments, employees in different professional roles, government employees, and other roles required for your project.

You can start by creating a directory including the emails, phone numbers, and locations for each role involved in the project. Then, the communication plan you create will identify these roles and your expectations from the people in them.

Don't get lost in the details

Don't include too many details in your project management communication plan, as this can cause confusion or uncertainty. A communication plan's purpose is not to provide a project roadmap but to ensure everyone involved is aware of their expected communication contributions (not their actionable contributions).

Standardize the process

Standardized communication plan formats so they’re the same for all projects will minimize effort and confusion, especially if the same team members work on different projects.

Team members will easily recognize what's expected of them when you consistently list criteria in a communication plan based on a template.

Keep your plan up to date

As goal phases or milestones start and end during the project, adjust the communication plan by adding or deleting stakeholders or changing other elements as needed to reduce wasted effort and time.

• What should you do if your project changes?

If the scope or direction of your project changes, explain to all stakeholders why the changes are necessary and how their communication process and expectations may also have to change.

Alerting them as soon as possible will get your project back on track. In addition, remember to update the plan.

• Communication plans aid efficiency and successful outcomes

Effective communication plans are essential for the profitability and reputation of a business. Whether using communication plans for project management or crisis management, they can help reduce costs, minimize missteps and errors, and efficiently propel your business to success.

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How to create a business analysis communication plan

Lucid Content

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.

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.

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 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. 

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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