COMMUNICATIONS PLAN - PKIDs



Communications Plan (CP)

What is it? | Budget | Goal | Audience | Objectives | Tactics | Messaging Communication Conduits | Resources | Timeline | Evaluation | Measurements | Sample Plan

What is a communications plan?

A communications plan (CP) is a blueprint for your group’s communications efforts. It describes your communication objectives and goals, work plan and target audiences, and explains how you will evaluate your results.

It’s important to create a plan, and for everyone in the group to stick to it. This will allow you to produce clear and consistent messages for your audiences and will reduce the risk of communication errors. It also keeps your group on track throughout the year or the length of a particular program, helps with prioritization, makes sticking to a budget easier, and allows for continuity should personnel change.

If you don’t have a communications department, form a small committee to develop your plan and tools using this eTool as your guide.

Remember, communications include any interaction, written or oral, with those outside your group. Your plan may be for a particular program, such as is in the sample plan at the end of this document, or it may be a broader, general plan for how your group will communicate with others. This document will walk you through the thought and planning processes required for developing a basic communications plan. The plan for your group will be unique and should be designed to be useful to your specific program and group.

Elements of a Communications Plan

Budget

Whether you’re designing a CP to broadly promote your coalition or health department during the next fiscal year as a resource for the community, or designing a CP to promote a specific program or even one message, you’ll need a budget. The plan may need to adapt in size to fit an existing budget, or the budget may be there for any size plan your organization makes – either way, a budget will be required.

Goal

What do you want to accomplish? Once you identify the goal, however broad or narrow, your CP components will all be geared toward successfully reaching that end.

Examples of goals might be:

• To communicate the need for, and effectiveness of, immunization as a primary method of disease prevention for school-age children.

• To raise awareness among teens and their parents of the need for and availability of adolescent vaccines.

• To inform the citizens in and around Phoenix, AZ, of an upcoming flu clinic.

• To publicize the formation of a new immunization coalition and acquire new coalition members.

Audiences

Who will be on the receiving end of your message(s)? If your goal is to raise awareness among teens and their parents of the need for and availability of adolescent vaccines, then your audiences could be adolescents, parents and guardians of adolescents, school staff and administrators, teen social services, or other groups, depending on the range of your goal. Keep in mind that your message will change depending on your audience and the more audiences you choose to reach, the more time, staff and funds will be needed to be effective.

Some examples of audiences might be:

• Parents

▪ By income

▪ By location

▪ By school

▪ Vaccine-hesitant

• Youth

▪ Grade-school

▪ Teens

▪ College/young adult

• School and daycare staff

▪ Nurses

▪ Teachers

▪ Administrators

▪ Coaches

• Minority groups

▪ By culture

▪ By language

▪ By location

• Physicians

▪ Practicing

▪ Residents

▪ Medical students

▪ By specialty

• Pediatricians

• OB/GYNs

• Family practice

• Emergency department

• Nurses

▪ Practicing

▪ Nursing students

Objectives

For each target audience, you should list 2-3 objectives that are tailored to that audience. Each objective should be something that, when achieved, will help with the success of the goal of your plan.

Examples of general objectives that you can make audience-specific might be:

• To position (Your Group) as an expert pediatric resource for vaccine and disease prevention issues.

• To educate (Geographic Location) parents about the risks of vaccine preventable diseases and the benefits of vaccination.

• To educate this audience about the programs (Your Group) offers to facilitate, encourage and support families through the vaccination process.

• To increase (Audience)’s awareness and understanding of each vaccine preventable disease and how to prevent infection by getting vaccinated.

• To position (Your Group) as a fun and appropriate source of information.

• To promote communication about vaccination between (Audience A) and (Audience B).

• To educate (Geographic Location) school staff and administrators about the risks of vaccine preventable diseases and the benefits of vaccination.

• To educate (Audience) about the programs (Your Group) offers for the enhancement of their disease prevention outreach.

Tactics

In this section, for each target audience you’ve chosen, you’ll determine:

1. What messages you’ll convey.

2. Appropriate venues for each message.

3. What tools/resources you’ll need to do the job.

Messaging

For each target audience, develop messages that are brief and appropriate for that audience. Consider language, terminology, and phrasing used by the members of the target audience. Examples of messages might be:

• (Parent audience): Disease prevention through vaccination is important, safe and effective, and protects the health of your children, your family, and vulnerable friends and relatives.

• (Child audience): Kids are people, too! Be strong, take control of your health, get vaccinated, not infected!.

• (School Staff audience): Schools are breeding grounds for infectious disease and the perfect location to stop the spread of disease before it starts.

Communications Conduits

How, where, in what format, and/or from whom does your target audience get its health information? Be specific! For example, don’t just say “radio” – say which radio stations, if any, reach each target audience. You could be still more specific by naming some times during which your target audience listens to those radio stations. You may need to do some research or consult other elements of PKIDs’ eToolkit to determine which media outlets are most popular.

Possible conduits for your information include:

• Print media

o Newspaper (local and national mainstream, local freebies)

o Business journals

o Magazines (local, national)

o Special interest publications

▪ Ethnic publications

▪ School newsletters

▪ Parent magazines, newsletters

▪ Newsletters for hospital staff or other employee groups

▪ College campus newspapers

• Television (PSAs)

• Radio (PSAs)

• Internet

o Websites

o Blogs

o Social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

o Ads (Google ads, banner ads)

o Email

o Forums, groups, listservs

• Mobile (cell phone) marketing

• Community groups

o Boy/Girl Scouts, 4H

o Student groups

o High school/colleges requiring community service credits

o Civic groups (Lions, Rotary, Eagles, Shriners, etc.)

• Events (hosted by yourself or others, or in partnership)

o Health fairs

o Adult and child community groups

o Workshops

o Staff meetings

o Luncheons

o Conference calls, webinars

o Community events/holidays

▪ Back-to-school nights

▪ Harvest parties

▪ Summer camps

• Locations

o Physicians’ offices

o Schools, colleges, daycares

o Churches

o Shops, stores

o Restaurants, eateries, clubs

Resources

Take inventory of the tools and resources you already have and/or that you want to use to convey your messages. Some examples might be:

• Brochures, cards, handouts

• Train-the-trainer kits

• Tours

• Spokespersons

• Videos

• Audio recordings

• Press releases

• Articles

Once you’ve taken inventory of your resources, you’ll need to see that the messages communicated by them are consistent with those you developed for this CP. Which ones are ready to use? Which ones need to be edited? Which ones need to be redesigned? Which ones do you need but don’t have? Do any other organizations have similar resources they can share?

Timeline

Now that you have identified your audiences, determined media outlets for your messages, the wording of your messages, and tools/resources that you’ll be using, you can plug the action steps into a timeline. This will help your group reach its goal and provides a way to measure forward movement.

Some things you’ll need to consider:

• Does your plan need to coordinate with events, such as the start of school, or a holiday? Do you have enough time to produce the tools/resources you’ll be using?

• For each mechanism, how often must you use it for maximum effectiveness? For example, an article in the paper may only run once. Tweets on Twitter may occur 2-3 times daily. A blog could be updated 3 times a week. Radio PSAs may run for a few days or several weeks, depending on budget or the kindliness and interest of a radio producer or personality.

• What about staff? Who will do what, and when will they do it?

One way to display a timeline is in a table, with the tasks/items/events down the side and the times/dates across the top. A simple timeline might look something like this:

|Parents |

|Print |TV |Radio |

|[XYZ] Newspaper |KXXX Channel # |KAAA-FM |

|Health Editor |Morning News Producer |KBBB-FM |

|Calendar Editor |Noon News Producer |KCCC-FM |

|Lifestyle Editor |Evening News Director |(Identify appropriate |

|Public Service Director |Public Affairs Director |editors, producers and |

|[XYZ] Biz Journal |Health reporter |reporters, as was done |

|Special Interest Publications |Lifestyle Reporter |for TV) |

|Hospitals |KXXX Channel # | |

|School Newsletters |Public Service Coordinator | |

|Parent Magazines or Newsletters |Morning News Producer | |

| |Noon News Producer | |

| |Evening News Director | |

| |Health Reporter | |

| |Lifestyle Reporter | |

Children

Direct contact is possible through self-published and distributed educational materials in pediatricians’ waiting rooms, local kid-friendly eateries and shops, places of worship, and other venues that service children. Public media that is kid-oriented may also be a conduit for communications.

School Staff

Meet with school district administrators, school staff and school nurses to share (Groups)’s materials, providing them with the opportunity to become knowledgeable about (Group) and its educational materials through informational kits and one-on-one lunches.

Tactics/Implementation

Parents

Message:

(Group) is an expert in vaccine preventable diseases and immunization in the pediatric population. Disease prevention through vaccination is important, safe, and effective, and affects the health of children, their families, and the public.

Tools:

Community Forums - Pitch to local print and broadcast media (family, lifestyle, health, public service editors) events that (Group) is offering to the general public that address timely and relevant topics:

• H1N1 and Children

• New Parents 101

• Vaccine Mandates and How They Affect Your Family

• Why Vaccinate Against Rare Diseases?

• Teens Need Vaccines, Too

PSAs - (One per month, TV or Radio) Radio PSAs will be much less expensive and easier to produce on a monthly basis, but producing at least one video PSA will be beneficial and used in a multitude of platforms. Take the Forums ideas and compress them into :30 second PSAs. Confirm with the TV and radio stations what format they use for broadcast prior to production.

Holiday/Special Events - Place on local print and broadcast media community calendars various holiday activities (Group) is planning. Families are out during the holidays and filling the seats shouldn’t be hard:

• Harvest Day (Halloween) Parties (Flu’s Here, Is Your Family Protected?)

• Summer Camps/Vacations (Vaccines to Get Before You Go)

• Back-to-School Kit Hand-Outs (Vaccines, They’re for Everyone!)

Speakers Bureau and Video - (video may be a one- or two-minute presentation from which your :30 second PSA is edited) Available to parent groups, workplaces, schools, and other community organizations interested in health topics, (Group)’s speakers and video(s) introduce vaccines and the diseases they prevent in an easy-to-understand format.

Event Co-hosting - (Group) could use its facility to co-host functions with other groups in the area:

• Boy/Girl Scouts

• Student Groups

• Civic Groups

• Parent/Teacher Groups

Children

Message:

Kids are people, too! Be strong, take control of your health, get vaccinated, not infected!

Tools:

Monthly Disease Prevention Workshops - Either in conjunction with other groups or alone, (Group) can present a fun workshop that educates children about infectious diseases and how to prevent infection through vaccination.

Resource Sharing - Offer to share (Group)’s resources with other groups serving children, including resources such as:

• (Group)’s facilities for special events

• Educational materials and instruction in how to use them

• Knowledge is a resource – host monthly or quarterly meetings with community groups to share best practices in areas of common interest

Community Health Fairs - Sponsor a booth at a community health fair. Provide videos, coloring books, simple games and prizes of interest to children that focus on kid-friendly messages of disease prevention through vaccination.

School Staff

Message:

(Group) is an expert in vaccine preventable diseases and immunization in the pediatric population. Schools are breeding grounds for infectious disease and the perfect location to stop the spread of disease before it starts.

Tools:

Train-the-trainer kits - Send a kit to school district administrators, school nurses, and staff that identifies (Group) as an expert in the field of vaccines and preventable disease in children. Provide train-the-trainer materials on vaccine preventable diseases, immunization as a primary method of disease prevention, immunization schedules, and learning activities for various age groups.

One-on-One Lunches - (Group)’s Director or appropriate spokesperson will host occasional lunches with school district administrators, school staff, and school nurses to share disease prevention messages and gain insight into the health education challenges in schools. This would create a forum and rapport with appropriate school heads while also underscoring the value of (Group) in the eyes of the school staff.

Facility Tours - As (Group) begins its outreach plans, school staff can be invited to tour the facility and its offerings for schools. Hosted by (Group)’s Director, he/she can underscore the value of (Group)’s educational tools to the academic community.

Timeline

It’s important to commit to a timeline for implementation of a communications plan. This keeps things moving and provides concrete measurement of forward movement. An example might be:

Parents |J |F |M |A |M |J |J |A |S |O |N |D | |Forums |X | |X | |X | |X | |X | |X | | |PSAs |X |X |X |X |X |X |X |X |X |X |X |X | |Events | | |X | | |X | | |X | | |X | |

Budget

A budget could be determined in more than one way. (Group)’s senior staff may pre-determine a budget for a communications plan. If so, the scope of the plan will adapt to the existing budget. Or, a communications plan may be drawn up and dollar amounts assigned to the plan, which is then voted on by senior staff. It’s important to decide how one will determine a budget before developing the plan.

Evaluation

Baseline Measurements

• Short KAP surveys

Process Measurements

• Focus groups

• Amount of media coverage received, and how much was positive/negative

• Tracking Website usage statistics

• Track actual progress compared to the timeline to determine if there is forward motion

Outcome Measurements

• Short KAP surveys (compare to baseline)

• Public and stakeholder feedback to the various components acquired through surveys and key informant interviews

Sharing Results

Finally, it’s easy to share one’s successes, but not so with one’s challenges. However, in the spirit of collaboration, it benefits everyone to learn from one another’s hits and misses. Success can build upon success. At the end of the plan, take time to write up a brief paper explaining what you did, what worked, what didn’t, and what you would do differently next time.

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