Session 3: Strategy
Transcript
[First slide: title slide]
[Screen share ends]
Robert Hornsby:
So, welcome back to Strategic Communications Planning. I'm your host Robert Hornsby with my helper and sidekick Cassandra Nathan. We have a couple of housekeeping items to take care of before we start class today, so I'll go through them kind of quickly.
So for next week, please combine your previous drafts into one “master” document. Gets to be too many documents to manage, so you'll be taking the parts of your situation analysis and the parts of your comms goals and what you do for a strategy, and you'll put that all into one master document for next week. Okay? So then we'll just have one master document for each person. Please put your name and title on your future assignments.
We're going to reorganize teams for today. We've had a few dropouts and a few people that have shifted to audit. So instead of having six breakout groups, we're gonna only have three. So the new combined teams are lemon kiwi, apricot apple, and blueberry plums. Sort of like Snapple flavors. So we'll go through breakout later on.
Special congrats to people that made it this far and also to people that made the extra effort to produce assignments each week. We understand that this is a lot of material to cover and that it's sort of a big commitment to take out of your work week to not only come to class but to write something and to look at other people's work. And we're appreciative of that.
One of the reasons that we do the course in this way is based upon my own professional experience when I was a public relations executive prior to coming to Columbia. I would do one of these plans by myself in three days. But if you think about it, that's 21 hours of committed time which rolls together research, analysis, some creative thinking as well as writing it all down, editing it, and preparing it. So that's one of the reasons the course is broken up into seven weeks so that it's like three hours a week, hopefully less.
But in 21 hours you can write one of these plans. And there have been other people who have gone through the class and people that have done the class as a home study course independently that basically been able to get through the material and produce a plan in about 20 hours. So congrats to you all for sticking with it.
If you've not visited the Google folder for the class, you should—and the LabArchive folder for the class, you should—because now the resources folders in both of those locations have much more material there. Today I'll show you a matrix tool. A copy of the tool is in that folder as well as four sample plans.
People have asked about “Well, why can't you just send me a sample plan.” It's because we don't want you to just clone someone else's work and do, like, replace Dining with, you know, Dental Association because that's not how this works. That's not a good plan—just cloning someone else's plan. So part of what we do with the course is challenge you to do independent thinking and think about your own situation and your own area and your own goals and your own communications needs so that your plan is more tailored to your area, which can make a more successful plan if you're able to actually implement it.
And the last thing—today's class is going to be a longer presentation segment followed by a breakout session, and we're just going to see how that falls. I'll try not to go so quickly and allow questions as we go along. So if you have a question, wave at us. Raise your hand on reactions in Zoom. Cassandra will be monitoring that. You can also put questions in the chat, and we can take a pause as we go along and do some questions as I move along.
So I'm gonna turn back to the presentation, and we'll begin class. Thanks for showing up.
[Screen share begins]
[First slide: title slide]
So again, welcome.
[Second slide: Review of Session 2—Comms Goals]
Can you all see the screen?
Unidentified attendee #1:
Yep.
Robert:
Okay. So as we normally begin the session, we'll begin again. Cassandra will take us through this part.
Cassandra Nathan:
Sure. So you guys, I just want to hear from you all. And like Robert said, congratulations to you guys for working on this. I've checked on– I think I've touched on everybody's paper so far, and you guys are doing really well. Why don't we pick one person to share how there was overall, and one other person to share what was, like, easiest or what was hardest.
[Screen share stops]
So one person to share what was easy, one person to share what was hardest about their plan thus far. Or communication goals rather. And I'll just pick someone, so I'll go– Brandon, you go first since you look like you're hoping I don't pick you. [Laughs]
Brandon Alexander:
I'd say the hardest part about this– I guess you just mean like so far?
Cassandra:
Well, for communications goals.
Brandon:
For the communication goals, probably the hardest part was making sure it fit within the greater organizational goals or at least in our smallish department creative departmental goals. And probably the easiest thing—sorry, I’m [indiscernible]—was to figure out exactly what I wanted to focus on. I don't know, really. Probably doesn't make too much sense. It's not very specific, but it was easy to figure out, like, points that I wanted to hit, but then it was harder to determine how that fit with where the organization wanted to go.
Cassandra:
Got it. And one more person. How about Carol?
Carol Cotterill:
I thought that I knew what I was doing, and I thought that it was relatively easy to write out until I got the comments back from yourself and Robert and I found out I've completely switched what was my institutional goals and what were my communications goals. And I've written them out right, but I just got them completely the wrong way round. So I need to go back and look at why I got that wrong again.
Robert:
Well, in the spirit of constructive criticism it wasn't really wrong. It was a little bit more miscategorization. So this is the way this works: Sometimes it can help you—and many of you did this—sort of just write it all out. Just sort of a brain dump of all your ideas together, and then you can sort of go back and say, “Okay, this is really this kind of goal or this is really a tactic or whatever.” And you'll see in the comments on your work that's mostly what I've done. It's not a matter that ideas were bad or that, you know, didn't think, like, they would work out or that they were wrong-headed. It was more a matter of just helping you organize your thinking process.
And I realize that the format that I'm showing you in terms of a strategic communications plan—that's not something you're going to find online. That's not something if you just looked up “communications plan” in Google, it's not going to come up with something that looks like what I'm showing you. So, what I'm showing you is a sort of proprietary version that combines various plan formats that I've used over the years. So, it's not the only one that works, but it's the one that I teach. And I think that's the most comprehensive way to do the process.
A lot of people only get to the tactics part and then they just drop off. So they have no sense of, like, What's the back end of this? How's it going to be evaluated? What are our metrics are we going to capture? So there's plenty of people that only do the tactics part and they think that that's a plan. But it's—as we understand now—tactics aren't a plan. And we'll talk more about that. Because this today—the strategy discussion—this is the real meat of the course. So this is the focal point. Everything that's come before was sort of leading up to this moment.
So let's go back in and I'll move on with screen sharing.
[Screen share begins]
[Second slide: Review of Session 2—Comms Goals]
So.
[Third slide: Refresher: Elements of a Communications Plan]
Quick overview: Strategy is the what, goals are the why, tactics are the how.
[Fourth slide: Strategy defined—with sports strategy picture]
So, name a few areas where most people agree that strategy is important. And what do you call those strategies in that area? Anybody? No one.
Kristina Hernandez:
I'm going to cheat because of your visual aid here and say sporting competitions. [Laughs]
Robert:
That's it. Okay. What sport is this? Anybody?
Kristina:
At first I thought it was basketball, but I think it's soccer. Right?
Robert:
Yes. Kristina is two for two. In sports, we call strategy a game plan. In the military, we call it a battle plan. In business, a marketing plan. In politics, it's a campaign. And architecture, it's a blueprint. Are there others? Certainly.
[Fifth slide: Why is Strategy Important?]
Why is strategy important? We come back to our basics. Strategy is the demonstration of purpose; it connects audience and outcomes. Is anybody not clear about that part?
[Sixth slide: Strategy defined—with chess photo]
What is strategy? Strategy is an approach. It's a plan of action or a set of policies designed to achieve a goal. Strategy is a path toward that goal. Strategy is a plan about what to do. And that contrasts with tactics, which are production. So making your strategy tangible—tactics are the making or the doing.
[Seventh slide: Strategy defined: Characteristics of Strategy]
Strategy defined: characteristics of strategy. It defines purpose; it delivers your value proposition and ensures alignment. And I'm going to pause right there. You use your strategy section to organize your tactics.
[Screen share stops]
So, talk to me about purpose. How does a purpose reveal itself in your plan? Anyone? Some of you have done some good strategy work already, so.
Kristina:
Can I ask a terminology question? When you say, like, purpose, are you going back to the goal? Or are you using that in another sense?
Robert:
Well, what I'm talking about is the difference between the audience and the outcome, and strategy helps you define the purpose of what you're doing. So the reason that we're doing strategic plans is to help invest your day-to-day activities with purpose so that they are meaningful and that they're contributing to a greater goal. So you're not just populating website because you have to. You're populating it with the right things that are helping drive whatever strategy, drive toward whatever communications goals that you have. So strategy is really about purpose.
So let me ask about these other two terms—value proposition. So, can anybody tell me what a value proposition is? Just your general understanding of that.
Carol:
Is that what you have to offer?
Robert:
Yes. Anyone else?
Robert Tulman:
Is it the return on effort? You know, whether or not it's potentially worth—whether it's investing time in, resources, you know, money, maybe?
Robert:
Sure. Your value proposition is the assets and benefits of the activity for others and for yourself. So, it's a marketing term that we use in this context because what you're trying to do is tell people “Columbia university has the best thinkers.” Okay, that's great. But is that really a value proposition? No, that's an attribute. But your value proposition is, “By connecting with Columbia experts, we can help your business, or help you be a smarter person, or help for the goals of society.” Which is the new Fourth Purpose, which you may have heard about. So that's the value proposition.
So, your strategy delivers your value proposition. In the strategy, you use your key messages to articulate your value proposition, and then your strategy embodies your value proposition.
So, there are two other terms that are related to this, and one is alignment. So, any guesses about how alignment works in this context? So you're really not– You don't have to– Go ahead, Jamie.
Jamie Nash:
I'll just take a guess. I think it would mean—for me anyway—like making sure that all the things that you're doing are focusing on the same outcome so that you're not doing things kind of in a silo over here and then doing something over here. Like, they all should be cohesive and moving towards the same goal.
Robert:
Correct. Very good. There's another term that I didn't put here that's related to value proposition: it's “engagement,” and that gets thrown around a really lot. But in our context, engagement really is more about outcomes. So, some people think engagement is eyeballs, like page views or unique visitors to a website, but that's not really engagement. That's just somebody arrived. Like, you can look up at the sky and see that the sky is blue. Are you engaged? No, you're a passive observer.
That's exactly what a lot of web traffic and other metrics lead you to believe. “Oh, I've got really great engagement because I have forty thousand page views.” Okay, you have forty thousand one second page views where someone came to your page and bailed out after five seconds because what your page shows is nothing that they need or want. That's not engagement; that's just for passing traffic.
And you can't have that stand in for something that's meaningful because—in and of itself—page views and eyeballs are not meaningful. It's what happens afterward, what those people come away with, what their sentiment or feeling about what they've seen, whether they act on your call to action, whether they join your newsletter, or come to your event, or view your Zoom broadcast, or listen to your podcast. That's engagement. Just broadcasting doesn't create engagement.
So enough of the soapbox; I'll move on a little bit.
[Screen share begins]
[Eighth slide: Strategy defined—an Analogy]
So people struggle with this, but I wanted to try to give you a more clear analogy.
Can you see the screen?
We're gonna talk about living in a house, building a house. Our institutional goal is “We want to live in a house.” And your communications goal or operational goal was “Okay, we've either got to buy or build a house.”
We're not just assuming right off hand that we're going to build a house or a website or an annual report or a series of videos because we don't know if that's what we need or want. So we have to research the choices. Do we have the finances? Where would our house be? Can we move into an existing house? Do we have to build a house? If so, where could we build a house? How long is it going to take us to build a house? If we rent a house, we can move right in in three weeks. If we're going to build a house, it takes six months to build a house. Okay? We use strategy to make those decisions and to arrange the implementation.
So then the tactical part is “We have to hire an architect to design the house, hire a contractor to build it, and then begin building it.” Okay? In our metrics, we're going to monitor our contractor’s progress and our expenses to make sure we don't go over budget and that the house is proceeding toward completion. And then reporting—we're going to notify our family and friends about project milestones, and, “Hey, we're going to move in.”
[Screen share stops]
We've used other analogies over the course of teaching this class, like the strategy of a restaurateur or the strategy of an author. And you'll see that these sort of tasks or these breakouts follow a pattern where you start with an idea so it's more abstract, then you start to put flesh on the bones, and then as you move along it becomes more real. When it starts to become real, then you can start analyzing it and evaluating it. Is it the house you want? Did you fulfill your dream or did you fall short? So your communications plan has similar attributes and a similar sort of arc from idea to execution.
[Screen share begins]
[Ninth slide: Strategy defined: Interplay between goals, strategy and tactics]
So, strategy defined.
Can you see this screen?
This shows the interplay between goals, strategy, and tactics: simplified example based upon other plans. So, a common communications goal: “Establish my organization and its leaders as thought leaders.” The strategy is “demonstrate their expertise.” Who are the audiences? And here's a sample key message: “Of course we have the best and brightest thinkers—we're Columbia.” And the tactics are “publish editorials, offer expert comment,and produce a provocative conference.”
Now look at this for a minute. So you'll see and talk to people who will start with the tactics—what I call tactics here—and they'll say, “Oh, our goal is to produce a conference.” Or “Our goal is to publish opinion editorials.” Well, no. So when we're talking about goals, we're talking about something that has an overarching payoff for your organization. So just because something is to be accomplished doesn't make it a goal.
You could say, “I want the sun to come up every day.” That's not really a goal; that's just a natural occurrence. You could say, “My goal is to eat breakfast every day.” Well, the goal of that is to have you be in better shape to do the things you need in life. Eating breakfast isn't really much of a goal. And neither is publishing an editorial or designing a web page; it's an activity. So we make a differentiation between ideas and activities.
[Screen share stops]
So, questions? No questions?
Ramona King:
I have a question. Like, I could imagine a world where, say, like “publish a website” or “publish a web page” maybe could be a goal if there was, like, some impediment to you doing so. Right? Maybe, like, you were advocating for a web page on a certain topic and someone else wasn't. Or, I don't know, or if you needed to gather a lot of information in order to publish that website. Would that be true or would it still–? Publishing the website wouldn't be the goal; the goal would be, like, share information about xyz topic, and publishing the webpage would still be, like, the task of it.
Robert:
What do you think, Maddie?
Maddie Henry:
I want to say that I think publishing the web page is still just the tactic, and then the information that would go on it and the results that you want from the web page are the, like, that's the goal. I'm not 100% sure.
Robert:
It's okay. What do you think, Angela?
Angela Slagle:
Yeah. I think there's still going to be some overarching reason that you have for wanting to publish the site, so maybe that's the idea piece of it. Because obviously you want to get something. So for some reason, there was a question that got asked that the answer is “Maybe we should publish a site.” I don't know if that's helpful.
Robert:
So in broader terms, if you're going to turn this on its head—and we'll get to this in a little bit—you can take tactics and look at them and do this kind of analysis, and then figure out what's important about that. And I would agree with both Angela and Maddie that what you're trying to do is communicate information to audiences, and you need a repository for that information.
Now, a website is a passive thing. You have to drive people to it. It doesn't go out and get people; it doesn't collect people. You could set up an RSS feed or something that alerts people that there's an update to your website, but your website basically sits there, waiting for people to come to it. And you have to drive them to it in a variety of ways, and you do that with good SEO—search engine optimization—and other tactics. But your website basically is just like a library. And if no one visits the library, then they're not learning anything about you.
So building a library in and of itself is not a communications goal. What the library can do for you is the goal. So I don't want to belabor the point, but it's important. It helps you organize your thinking, which is what a lot of this course is about, as you know.
[Screen share begins]
[Tenth slide: Sample Strategy Statements]
So here are some sample strategy statements. Can you all see this?
Cassandra, take yourself off mute and just say, “Yes.” Okay?
Cassandra:
Yes. [Laughs]
Robert:
Okay, sample strategy statements. Look at these red highlighted words: promote, exhibit, showcase, highlight, demonstrate. And the last time we talked about verbs, and strategy is all about verbs.
[Eleventh slide: About Strategy & Tactics]
So let's talk about strategy and tactics. As you think about strategy, you will naturally think about tactics. Those are key tasks, actions, or collateral for executing strategy. And one of the things you can do is create a tactics worksheet where you record ideas about tactics and then you can figure them out. You can figure out what areas they go into or what they connect with. If any of you have had small children, you may have seen a thing they teach now for writing called a word map. This is similar to a word map. You basically just write down all the ideas, and then you circle and draw lines to connect them, and then you can organize them and move them around. It's a way of producing a first draft.
And the dirty secret which I can reveal to you now: You can reverse engineer strategy just like we did in the talking with Ramona a bit ago. But how do you do that? So return to audience purpose and outcomes. Sort of ask the question, “I'm doing this thing. Why am I doing it?” Because I expect people will sign up for the newsletter. That's why I'm doing social media—to alert people that there's a newsletter.
Okay. “What are you trying to accomplish with your newsletter?” I'm trying to inform people about my department's activities.
“What do you expect to happen?” I expect them to like me, to apply for a job in my department, and for researchers in other universities to notice that we're doing interesting things, and people in the National Science Foundation will notice as well so that when they receive a grant application they will be predisposed to like me.
So you back up from the activity and start asking the broader questions about what's it doing and what you expect to have happen. That can lead you back to strategy.
Other questions to ask: “What are the audiences for the various tactics?” You can look at the audiences and say, “Oh, well we're sending a monthly email to donors and alumni.”
And you ask, “Okay, well why are we doing that?” Because we're trying to get them to participate in Giving Day on October 24th.
“Okay, how does it lead up to that?” Okay, we're going to send out a series of emails once a month to remind people to participate in Giving Day.
Okay, so your strategy is asking the question “What's it doing and why?” So you've got to already have these monthly emails that you're sending because you're trying to persuade audiences—donors and alumni—to participate in Giving Day by promoting it in a monthly email throughout the year. Okay? This doesn't have to be rocket science. You know, the notion of strategy throws a lot of people, but it doesn't have to.
You can also ask, “What's a particular tactic?” “Why is a tactic in favor considered effective?” Like, everybody wants to do newsletters and podcasts now. Okay, that's great. What are they doing? What is really happening there? And if you're getting people to listen to a full podcast, that's a sign of engagement. What is your organization gaining from that? How is it affecting the audience? What you expect them to do afterwards is, What's the takeaway? Their lives are enriched, their perceptions are changed, they're more informed, they can make a better decision about where to build their house. You know, their lives are affected or changed. So if you're trying to communicate the value of the research as it applies to a normal person, then that's the strategy that justifies your investment in podcasts. Okay?
Also you can ask, again back to What does the particular tactic deliver? So if it's delivering more people to signing up to read your newsletter, you’re building audience. If you're having greater attendance to your Zoom events, then you're expanding audiences; you're maybe reaching people you didn't reach before.
And you can also ask, “Are there links between content and tactics?” So is a certain particular type of content connected to a tactic, and do you use that content for more than one thing? For example, if you had a piece of content, like a story about a science breakthrough, then you're putting it on your web page, you're creating a podcast about it, and you're also putting it on social media. So what you're doing is—on a strategic level—you're repurposing content to reach a variety of audiences in different ways. And you're also using the content itself as an advertisement for your department and your newsletter and your other activities.
[Screen share stops]
All of you have written in your previous assignments things that I've marked, “Well, this is a tactic.” So do you see how this is working a little bit and how you could use it? Does anybody have a question about sort of the strategy tactic bit?
Go ahead.
Carol:
So if you're trying– Oh god, I don't know how to phrase this. I'm getting so confused. If you have got a number of different audiences that you are trying to impart the same information to, would you–?
Robert:
Right. You're repurposing content for multiple audiences.
Carol:
Yeah. So would you write a separate strategy and tactic for each audience, or would you write your overarching strategy and then have different tactics depending on your audience? How would you actually structure it in a document?
Robert:
What do you guys think? Katie, what do you think?
Katie McCluskey:
I think that would probably depend on the content itself, which I feel like is sort of a cop-out answer. But I think you could probably do it either way depending on what your overall goal was.
Robert:
What do you think, Michele?
Michele, are you there?
Michele Hoos:
Sorry, I'm having a headphone problem. Can you hear me?
Robert:
We got it now. We hear you.
Michele:
[Chuckles]. Well, I don't know because I was thinking about doing audience-based goals actually, so it's a good question. I mean, I was thinking of doing something around building more traction around industry engagement, for example. And that feels like a very different goal than something around programming or master’s programs. So I think that there could be– I would hope there would be a way to split those up, but I would love to hear the answer to that one. [Laughs]
Kristina Hernandez:
I was gonna say too, yeah, I'd be curious to hear the answer because, like–
Michele:
[Chuckles]
Kristina:
–Jamie and I are working on a project where, like, it's a very big plan and there's a couple different objectives with different audiences. And so it's like cart before the horse I think to Carol's point. Right? Like, do you have a plan by audience and then objectives for those audiences? Or is it one objective and then you break it out, you know, base the tactics that you know to reach those different audiences? I don't know. I start to get twisted around.
Michele:
Yeah, and the other thing I just add to that is, for example, like if the goal was around strategic partnerships and there was one arm of that that was industry and another arm that was maybe, like, sponsored research. Yeah, again I don't know. I think that for me that was one of the questions in general was about, you know, it feels our industry goals are very different than our program goals.
Robert:
Well, let me try to answer your questions in the form of a bit of a discussion.
Michele:
Great.
Robert:
So in my experience, people struggle with this all the time, and your group is not alone. Every class cohort that we've had since we began teaching this hits this wall where you're trying to figure out “Do I differentiate audiences, or do I differentiate by content groups? Or do I differentiate my goals?” So the cop-out answer—to pick up someone else’s phrase—is do what works for you.
But ultimately, I think that you can articulate goals for different audiences. That's why we start with audience, purpose, and outcomes. If you segment your audiences and look at their needs and what you want to have happen, you can tell pretty quickly if you can use a piece of content universally or not.
So if you're trying to persuade donors that your program is great, they really don't care about, you know, whether the students are sitting outside on the lawn having a good time and seeing a lot of videos about that. Right? That content doesn't work for that—that one piece of content doesn't work for the other audience. But if you have something like a major initiative like the Climate School or the Fourth Purpose, then you can figure out pieces of content that matter for each of the audiences, and your strategy is to deliver relevant content to receptive audiences. Okay?
In order to make this work, you can back up toward the 10,000 foot level of where your institutional goals reside as much as you need to in order to articulate something that is going to be meaningful to other people. Where the rubber hits the road is this: Ask yourself, “If I present this to my superiors, are they going to understand what I'm talking about?” In my experience, people absorb stuff that's more straightforward and can handle the overarching ideas if they can then see how those ideas trickle down and become real. So, the problem that most people have is they get hung up on tactics and they can't see the bigger picture. And what you're doing is drawing a very clear big picture for them in simple language that's as direct as possible.
So I would suggest that if you're really struggling with this—and Kristina, I'm gonna put you on the spot—look at what Kristina wrote. It's stripped down; it's like a haiku.
Unidentified attendee #2:
Wow.
Robert:
It's bolted out, and it's very clear about its objectives. And, you know, we have a little back and forth and there's a little bit of reorganization that needs to happen, but it's the clarity and the brevity of it are stunning. And I think if you get hung up about like, “How do I get through this? Do I really need a paragraph?” The answer is you don't really need a paragraph for each of these things. If you can articulate it cleanly and clearly, you're better off.
So I hope that sort of helped a bit. As you do your strategy—a set portion of your document—that’s where Cassandra and I are going to spend most of our time, like, helping you sort those parts out. But be brave. Don't be intimidated. Give it a shot and let us help you and your classmates help you through it.
So we don't have a whole lot of time left. I want to move on—just a couple more slides.
[Screen share begins]
[Eleventh slide: About Strategy & Tactics]
[Twelfth slide: Strategy: Key Messages]
So key messages: I'll do a couple of slides on this. I'll go through these faster because we’re going to want to use up all the time. So key matches are declarative statements. They focus on main ideas, and they're succinct summations. Your key messages help you articulate your strategy.
[Thirteenth slide: More About Key Messages]
They clarify meaning, give you a takeaway headline, and they are the foundation of your organization's branding. They can also help you prioritize, ensure consistency, measure and track success, and stay focused.
[Fourteenth slide: Attributes of Key Messages]
The attributes of key messages: They're concise, meaningful, relevant, compelling, they're simple, they're memorable, they're relatable, and they're tailored. I would suggest that rather than spend a lot of time talking about key messages, sort of refer back to this PowerPoint, which will be in the resources folder, and we can talk about more of this next time as we need to.
[Fifteenth slide: Strategy Discussion Questions]
So discussion questions: You already have a comms strategy. If not, could you devise one from what you already know? You need to communicate with newer, different audiences than before. Does your organization need or want something different from those audiences? You need to move them from passive audiences to more engaged audiences. It's something in the marketing world we call conversion. So you're converting prospects into buyers.
And here's the big question: Do you need different strategies to reach, educate, or persuade different audiences? And do you have to do more to reorient your tactics to achieve your goals?
[Sixteenth slide: Communications Strategy: Breakout]
So for breakout, we're going to spend a little bit of time on this: Your dean or department leader calls up and says, “Hey, I was just in a meeting and someone else talked about strategy. You're in communications—do you have one? Can you help?”
So spend the next few minutes in your breakout rooms talking about this. What's the first question for the dean? And then pick a comms goal from your plan or from another class member and define a strategy. And just make sure it's not a tactic.
[Screen share stops]
So I'm gonna open up breakout rooms. I don't think it serves much purpose to come back and have a breakout room recap unless you guys want to. Show of hands: Do you want to come back? No. Okay. [Chuckles.] Okay, I'm gonna open the breakout rooms, and we'll go through 15 minutes of the rest of the time on breakout. Good luck, all, and I'll try to stop into the breakout rooms in a little bit.
[Time jump in the video]
Cassandra:
[Laughs.] Sorry, guys. You can use that format or you have the option of keeping it as a typical document, just putting it all together to master plan. So you'll notice in the folder there's another folder that says “master plans” or whatever your team name is. That's where you want to put that new plan. So leave the old ones as is. You can leave it there for reference, but you want to just make it a little bit neater, a little more tidy, and in the master folder.
Sorry, Robert.
Robert:
It's okay. Okay. So, we're done for the day. Thank you, all, and look forward to seeing you next week.
Jamie:
Thank you.
Unidentified attendee #3:
Thank you.
Unidentified attendee #4:
Bye.
[Screen share ends]
Robert Hornsby:
So, welcome back to Strategic Communications Planning. I'm your host Robert Hornsby with my helper and sidekick Cassandra Nathan. We have a couple of housekeeping items to take care of before we start class today, so I'll go through them kind of quickly.
So for next week, please combine your previous drafts into one “master” document. Gets to be too many documents to manage, so you'll be taking the parts of your situation analysis and the parts of your comms goals and what you do for a strategy, and you'll put that all into one master document for next week. Okay? So then we'll just have one master document for each person. Please put your name and title on your future assignments.
We're going to reorganize teams for today. We've had a few dropouts and a few people that have shifted to audit. So instead of having six breakout groups, we're gonna only have three. So the new combined teams are lemon kiwi, apricot apple, and blueberry plums. Sort of like Snapple flavors. So we'll go through breakout later on.
Special congrats to people that made it this far and also to people that made the extra effort to produce assignments each week. We understand that this is a lot of material to cover and that it's sort of a big commitment to take out of your work week to not only come to class but to write something and to look at other people's work. And we're appreciative of that.
One of the reasons that we do the course in this way is based upon my own professional experience when I was a public relations executive prior to coming to Columbia. I would do one of these plans by myself in three days. But if you think about it, that's 21 hours of committed time which rolls together research, analysis, some creative thinking as well as writing it all down, editing it, and preparing it. So that's one of the reasons the course is broken up into seven weeks so that it's like three hours a week, hopefully less.
But in 21 hours you can write one of these plans. And there have been other people who have gone through the class and people that have done the class as a home study course independently that basically been able to get through the material and produce a plan in about 20 hours. So congrats to you all for sticking with it.
If you've not visited the Google folder for the class, you should—and the LabArchive folder for the class, you should—because now the resources folders in both of those locations have much more material there. Today I'll show you a matrix tool. A copy of the tool is in that folder as well as four sample plans.
People have asked about “Well, why can't you just send me a sample plan.” It's because we don't want you to just clone someone else's work and do, like, replace Dining with, you know, Dental Association because that's not how this works. That's not a good plan—just cloning someone else's plan. So part of what we do with the course is challenge you to do independent thinking and think about your own situation and your own area and your own goals and your own communications needs so that your plan is more tailored to your area, which can make a more successful plan if you're able to actually implement it.
And the last thing—today's class is going to be a longer presentation segment followed by a breakout session, and we're just going to see how that falls. I'll try not to go so quickly and allow questions as we go along. So if you have a question, wave at us. Raise your hand on reactions in Zoom. Cassandra will be monitoring that. You can also put questions in the chat, and we can take a pause as we go along and do some questions as I move along.
So I'm gonna turn back to the presentation, and we'll begin class. Thanks for showing up.
[Screen share begins]
[First slide: title slide]
So again, welcome.
[Second slide: Review of Session 2—Comms Goals]
Can you all see the screen?
Unidentified attendee #1:
Yep.
Robert:
Okay. So as we normally begin the session, we'll begin again. Cassandra will take us through this part.
Cassandra Nathan:
Sure. So you guys, I just want to hear from you all. And like Robert said, congratulations to you guys for working on this. I've checked on– I think I've touched on everybody's paper so far, and you guys are doing really well. Why don't we pick one person to share how there was overall, and one other person to share what was, like, easiest or what was hardest.
[Screen share stops]
So one person to share what was easy, one person to share what was hardest about their plan thus far. Or communication goals rather. And I'll just pick someone, so I'll go– Brandon, you go first since you look like you're hoping I don't pick you. [Laughs]
Brandon Alexander:
I'd say the hardest part about this– I guess you just mean like so far?
Cassandra:
Well, for communications goals.
Brandon:
For the communication goals, probably the hardest part was making sure it fit within the greater organizational goals or at least in our smallish department creative departmental goals. And probably the easiest thing—sorry, I’m [indiscernible]—was to figure out exactly what I wanted to focus on. I don't know, really. Probably doesn't make too much sense. It's not very specific, but it was easy to figure out, like, points that I wanted to hit, but then it was harder to determine how that fit with where the organization wanted to go.
Cassandra:
Got it. And one more person. How about Carol?
Carol Cotterill:
I thought that I knew what I was doing, and I thought that it was relatively easy to write out until I got the comments back from yourself and Robert and I found out I've completely switched what was my institutional goals and what were my communications goals. And I've written them out right, but I just got them completely the wrong way round. So I need to go back and look at why I got that wrong again.
Robert:
Well, in the spirit of constructive criticism it wasn't really wrong. It was a little bit more miscategorization. So this is the way this works: Sometimes it can help you—and many of you did this—sort of just write it all out. Just sort of a brain dump of all your ideas together, and then you can sort of go back and say, “Okay, this is really this kind of goal or this is really a tactic or whatever.” And you'll see in the comments on your work that's mostly what I've done. It's not a matter that ideas were bad or that, you know, didn't think, like, they would work out or that they were wrong-headed. It was more a matter of just helping you organize your thinking process.
And I realize that the format that I'm showing you in terms of a strategic communications plan—that's not something you're going to find online. That's not something if you just looked up “communications plan” in Google, it's not going to come up with something that looks like what I'm showing you. So, what I'm showing you is a sort of proprietary version that combines various plan formats that I've used over the years. So, it's not the only one that works, but it's the one that I teach. And I think that's the most comprehensive way to do the process.
A lot of people only get to the tactics part and then they just drop off. So they have no sense of, like, What's the back end of this? How's it going to be evaluated? What are our metrics are we going to capture? So there's plenty of people that only do the tactics part and they think that that's a plan. But it's—as we understand now—tactics aren't a plan. And we'll talk more about that. Because this today—the strategy discussion—this is the real meat of the course. So this is the focal point. Everything that's come before was sort of leading up to this moment.
So let's go back in and I'll move on with screen sharing.
[Screen share begins]
[Second slide: Review of Session 2—Comms Goals]
So.
[Third slide: Refresher: Elements of a Communications Plan]
Quick overview: Strategy is the what, goals are the why, tactics are the how.
[Fourth slide: Strategy defined—with sports strategy picture]
So, name a few areas where most people agree that strategy is important. And what do you call those strategies in that area? Anybody? No one.
Kristina Hernandez:
I'm going to cheat because of your visual aid here and say sporting competitions. [Laughs]
Robert:
That's it. Okay. What sport is this? Anybody?
Kristina:
At first I thought it was basketball, but I think it's soccer. Right?
Robert:
Yes. Kristina is two for two. In sports, we call strategy a game plan. In the military, we call it a battle plan. In business, a marketing plan. In politics, it's a campaign. And architecture, it's a blueprint. Are there others? Certainly.
[Fifth slide: Why is Strategy Important?]
Why is strategy important? We come back to our basics. Strategy is the demonstration of purpose; it connects audience and outcomes. Is anybody not clear about that part?
[Sixth slide: Strategy defined—with chess photo]
What is strategy? Strategy is an approach. It's a plan of action or a set of policies designed to achieve a goal. Strategy is a path toward that goal. Strategy is a plan about what to do. And that contrasts with tactics, which are production. So making your strategy tangible—tactics are the making or the doing.
[Seventh slide: Strategy defined: Characteristics of Strategy]
Strategy defined: characteristics of strategy. It defines purpose; it delivers your value proposition and ensures alignment. And I'm going to pause right there. You use your strategy section to organize your tactics.
[Screen share stops]
So, talk to me about purpose. How does a purpose reveal itself in your plan? Anyone? Some of you have done some good strategy work already, so.
Kristina:
Can I ask a terminology question? When you say, like, purpose, are you going back to the goal? Or are you using that in another sense?
Robert:
Well, what I'm talking about is the difference between the audience and the outcome, and strategy helps you define the purpose of what you're doing. So the reason that we're doing strategic plans is to help invest your day-to-day activities with purpose so that they are meaningful and that they're contributing to a greater goal. So you're not just populating website because you have to. You're populating it with the right things that are helping drive whatever strategy, drive toward whatever communications goals that you have. So strategy is really about purpose.
So let me ask about these other two terms—value proposition. So, can anybody tell me what a value proposition is? Just your general understanding of that.
Carol:
Is that what you have to offer?
Robert:
Yes. Anyone else?
Robert Tulman:
Is it the return on effort? You know, whether or not it's potentially worth—whether it's investing time in, resources, you know, money, maybe?
Robert:
Sure. Your value proposition is the assets and benefits of the activity for others and for yourself. So, it's a marketing term that we use in this context because what you're trying to do is tell people “Columbia university has the best thinkers.” Okay, that's great. But is that really a value proposition? No, that's an attribute. But your value proposition is, “By connecting with Columbia experts, we can help your business, or help you be a smarter person, or help for the goals of society.” Which is the new Fourth Purpose, which you may have heard about. So that's the value proposition.
So, your strategy delivers your value proposition. In the strategy, you use your key messages to articulate your value proposition, and then your strategy embodies your value proposition.
So, there are two other terms that are related to this, and one is alignment. So, any guesses about how alignment works in this context? So you're really not– You don't have to– Go ahead, Jamie.
Jamie Nash:
I'll just take a guess. I think it would mean—for me anyway—like making sure that all the things that you're doing are focusing on the same outcome so that you're not doing things kind of in a silo over here and then doing something over here. Like, they all should be cohesive and moving towards the same goal.
Robert:
Correct. Very good. There's another term that I didn't put here that's related to value proposition: it's “engagement,” and that gets thrown around a really lot. But in our context, engagement really is more about outcomes. So, some people think engagement is eyeballs, like page views or unique visitors to a website, but that's not really engagement. That's just somebody arrived. Like, you can look up at the sky and see that the sky is blue. Are you engaged? No, you're a passive observer.
That's exactly what a lot of web traffic and other metrics lead you to believe. “Oh, I've got really great engagement because I have forty thousand page views.” Okay, you have forty thousand one second page views where someone came to your page and bailed out after five seconds because what your page shows is nothing that they need or want. That's not engagement; that's just for passing traffic.
And you can't have that stand in for something that's meaningful because—in and of itself—page views and eyeballs are not meaningful. It's what happens afterward, what those people come away with, what their sentiment or feeling about what they've seen, whether they act on your call to action, whether they join your newsletter, or come to your event, or view your Zoom broadcast, or listen to your podcast. That's engagement. Just broadcasting doesn't create engagement.
So enough of the soapbox; I'll move on a little bit.
[Screen share begins]
[Eighth slide: Strategy defined—an Analogy]
So people struggle with this, but I wanted to try to give you a more clear analogy.
Can you see the screen?
We're gonna talk about living in a house, building a house. Our institutional goal is “We want to live in a house.” And your communications goal or operational goal was “Okay, we've either got to buy or build a house.”
We're not just assuming right off hand that we're going to build a house or a website or an annual report or a series of videos because we don't know if that's what we need or want. So we have to research the choices. Do we have the finances? Where would our house be? Can we move into an existing house? Do we have to build a house? If so, where could we build a house? How long is it going to take us to build a house? If we rent a house, we can move right in in three weeks. If we're going to build a house, it takes six months to build a house. Okay? We use strategy to make those decisions and to arrange the implementation.
So then the tactical part is “We have to hire an architect to design the house, hire a contractor to build it, and then begin building it.” Okay? In our metrics, we're going to monitor our contractor’s progress and our expenses to make sure we don't go over budget and that the house is proceeding toward completion. And then reporting—we're going to notify our family and friends about project milestones, and, “Hey, we're going to move in.”
[Screen share stops]
We've used other analogies over the course of teaching this class, like the strategy of a restaurateur or the strategy of an author. And you'll see that these sort of tasks or these breakouts follow a pattern where you start with an idea so it's more abstract, then you start to put flesh on the bones, and then as you move along it becomes more real. When it starts to become real, then you can start analyzing it and evaluating it. Is it the house you want? Did you fulfill your dream or did you fall short? So your communications plan has similar attributes and a similar sort of arc from idea to execution.
[Screen share begins]
[Ninth slide: Strategy defined: Interplay between goals, strategy and tactics]
So, strategy defined.
Can you see this screen?
This shows the interplay between goals, strategy, and tactics: simplified example based upon other plans. So, a common communications goal: “Establish my organization and its leaders as thought leaders.” The strategy is “demonstrate their expertise.” Who are the audiences? And here's a sample key message: “Of course we have the best and brightest thinkers—we're Columbia.” And the tactics are “publish editorials, offer expert comment,and produce a provocative conference.”
Now look at this for a minute. So you'll see and talk to people who will start with the tactics—what I call tactics here—and they'll say, “Oh, our goal is to produce a conference.” Or “Our goal is to publish opinion editorials.” Well, no. So when we're talking about goals, we're talking about something that has an overarching payoff for your organization. So just because something is to be accomplished doesn't make it a goal.
You could say, “I want the sun to come up every day.” That's not really a goal; that's just a natural occurrence. You could say, “My goal is to eat breakfast every day.” Well, the goal of that is to have you be in better shape to do the things you need in life. Eating breakfast isn't really much of a goal. And neither is publishing an editorial or designing a web page; it's an activity. So we make a differentiation between ideas and activities.
[Screen share stops]
So, questions? No questions?
Ramona King:
I have a question. Like, I could imagine a world where, say, like “publish a website” or “publish a web page” maybe could be a goal if there was, like, some impediment to you doing so. Right? Maybe, like, you were advocating for a web page on a certain topic and someone else wasn't. Or, I don't know, or if you needed to gather a lot of information in order to publish that website. Would that be true or would it still–? Publishing the website wouldn't be the goal; the goal would be, like, share information about xyz topic, and publishing the webpage would still be, like, the task of it.
Robert:
What do you think, Maddie?
Maddie Henry:
I want to say that I think publishing the web page is still just the tactic, and then the information that would go on it and the results that you want from the web page are the, like, that's the goal. I'm not 100% sure.
Robert:
It's okay. What do you think, Angela?
Angela Slagle:
Yeah. I think there's still going to be some overarching reason that you have for wanting to publish the site, so maybe that's the idea piece of it. Because obviously you want to get something. So for some reason, there was a question that got asked that the answer is “Maybe we should publish a site.” I don't know if that's helpful.
Robert:
So in broader terms, if you're going to turn this on its head—and we'll get to this in a little bit—you can take tactics and look at them and do this kind of analysis, and then figure out what's important about that. And I would agree with both Angela and Maddie that what you're trying to do is communicate information to audiences, and you need a repository for that information.
Now, a website is a passive thing. You have to drive people to it. It doesn't go out and get people; it doesn't collect people. You could set up an RSS feed or something that alerts people that there's an update to your website, but your website basically sits there, waiting for people to come to it. And you have to drive them to it in a variety of ways, and you do that with good SEO—search engine optimization—and other tactics. But your website basically is just like a library. And if no one visits the library, then they're not learning anything about you.
So building a library in and of itself is not a communications goal. What the library can do for you is the goal. So I don't want to belabor the point, but it's important. It helps you organize your thinking, which is what a lot of this course is about, as you know.
[Screen share begins]
[Tenth slide: Sample Strategy Statements]
So here are some sample strategy statements. Can you all see this?
Cassandra, take yourself off mute and just say, “Yes.” Okay?
Cassandra:
Yes. [Laughs]
Robert:
Okay, sample strategy statements. Look at these red highlighted words: promote, exhibit, showcase, highlight, demonstrate. And the last time we talked about verbs, and strategy is all about verbs.
[Eleventh slide: About Strategy & Tactics]
So let's talk about strategy and tactics. As you think about strategy, you will naturally think about tactics. Those are key tasks, actions, or collateral for executing strategy. And one of the things you can do is create a tactics worksheet where you record ideas about tactics and then you can figure them out. You can figure out what areas they go into or what they connect with. If any of you have had small children, you may have seen a thing they teach now for writing called a word map. This is similar to a word map. You basically just write down all the ideas, and then you circle and draw lines to connect them, and then you can organize them and move them around. It's a way of producing a first draft.
And the dirty secret which I can reveal to you now: You can reverse engineer strategy just like we did in the talking with Ramona a bit ago. But how do you do that? So return to audience purpose and outcomes. Sort of ask the question, “I'm doing this thing. Why am I doing it?” Because I expect people will sign up for the newsletter. That's why I'm doing social media—to alert people that there's a newsletter.
Okay. “What are you trying to accomplish with your newsletter?” I'm trying to inform people about my department's activities.
“What do you expect to happen?” I expect them to like me, to apply for a job in my department, and for researchers in other universities to notice that we're doing interesting things, and people in the National Science Foundation will notice as well so that when they receive a grant application they will be predisposed to like me.
So you back up from the activity and start asking the broader questions about what's it doing and what you expect to have happen. That can lead you back to strategy.
Other questions to ask: “What are the audiences for the various tactics?” You can look at the audiences and say, “Oh, well we're sending a monthly email to donors and alumni.”
And you ask, “Okay, well why are we doing that?” Because we're trying to get them to participate in Giving Day on October 24th.
“Okay, how does it lead up to that?” Okay, we're going to send out a series of emails once a month to remind people to participate in Giving Day.
Okay, so your strategy is asking the question “What's it doing and why?” So you've got to already have these monthly emails that you're sending because you're trying to persuade audiences—donors and alumni—to participate in Giving Day by promoting it in a monthly email throughout the year. Okay? This doesn't have to be rocket science. You know, the notion of strategy throws a lot of people, but it doesn't have to.
You can also ask, “What's a particular tactic?” “Why is a tactic in favor considered effective?” Like, everybody wants to do newsletters and podcasts now. Okay, that's great. What are they doing? What is really happening there? And if you're getting people to listen to a full podcast, that's a sign of engagement. What is your organization gaining from that? How is it affecting the audience? What you expect them to do afterwards is, What's the takeaway? Their lives are enriched, their perceptions are changed, they're more informed, they can make a better decision about where to build their house. You know, their lives are affected or changed. So if you're trying to communicate the value of the research as it applies to a normal person, then that's the strategy that justifies your investment in podcasts. Okay?
Also you can ask, again back to What does the particular tactic deliver? So if it's delivering more people to signing up to read your newsletter, you’re building audience. If you're having greater attendance to your Zoom events, then you're expanding audiences; you're maybe reaching people you didn't reach before.
And you can also ask, “Are there links between content and tactics?” So is a certain particular type of content connected to a tactic, and do you use that content for more than one thing? For example, if you had a piece of content, like a story about a science breakthrough, then you're putting it on your web page, you're creating a podcast about it, and you're also putting it on social media. So what you're doing is—on a strategic level—you're repurposing content to reach a variety of audiences in different ways. And you're also using the content itself as an advertisement for your department and your newsletter and your other activities.
[Screen share stops]
All of you have written in your previous assignments things that I've marked, “Well, this is a tactic.” So do you see how this is working a little bit and how you could use it? Does anybody have a question about sort of the strategy tactic bit?
Go ahead.
Carol:
So if you're trying– Oh god, I don't know how to phrase this. I'm getting so confused. If you have got a number of different audiences that you are trying to impart the same information to, would you–?
Robert:
Right. You're repurposing content for multiple audiences.
Carol:
Yeah. So would you write a separate strategy and tactic for each audience, or would you write your overarching strategy and then have different tactics depending on your audience? How would you actually structure it in a document?
Robert:
What do you guys think? Katie, what do you think?
Katie McCluskey:
I think that would probably depend on the content itself, which I feel like is sort of a cop-out answer. But I think you could probably do it either way depending on what your overall goal was.
Robert:
What do you think, Michele?
Michele, are you there?
Michele Hoos:
Sorry, I'm having a headphone problem. Can you hear me?
Robert:
We got it now. We hear you.
Michele:
[Chuckles]. Well, I don't know because I was thinking about doing audience-based goals actually, so it's a good question. I mean, I was thinking of doing something around building more traction around industry engagement, for example. And that feels like a very different goal than something around programming or master’s programs. So I think that there could be– I would hope there would be a way to split those up, but I would love to hear the answer to that one. [Laughs]
Kristina Hernandez:
I was gonna say too, yeah, I'd be curious to hear the answer because, like–
Michele:
[Chuckles]
Kristina:
–Jamie and I are working on a project where, like, it's a very big plan and there's a couple different objectives with different audiences. And so it's like cart before the horse I think to Carol's point. Right? Like, do you have a plan by audience and then objectives for those audiences? Or is it one objective and then you break it out, you know, base the tactics that you know to reach those different audiences? I don't know. I start to get twisted around.
Michele:
Yeah, and the other thing I just add to that is, for example, like if the goal was around strategic partnerships and there was one arm of that that was industry and another arm that was maybe, like, sponsored research. Yeah, again I don't know. I think that for me that was one of the questions in general was about, you know, it feels our industry goals are very different than our program goals.
Robert:
Well, let me try to answer your questions in the form of a bit of a discussion.
Michele:
Great.
Robert:
So in my experience, people struggle with this all the time, and your group is not alone. Every class cohort that we've had since we began teaching this hits this wall where you're trying to figure out “Do I differentiate audiences, or do I differentiate by content groups? Or do I differentiate my goals?” So the cop-out answer—to pick up someone else’s phrase—is do what works for you.
But ultimately, I think that you can articulate goals for different audiences. That's why we start with audience, purpose, and outcomes. If you segment your audiences and look at their needs and what you want to have happen, you can tell pretty quickly if you can use a piece of content universally or not.
So if you're trying to persuade donors that your program is great, they really don't care about, you know, whether the students are sitting outside on the lawn having a good time and seeing a lot of videos about that. Right? That content doesn't work for that—that one piece of content doesn't work for the other audience. But if you have something like a major initiative like the Climate School or the Fourth Purpose, then you can figure out pieces of content that matter for each of the audiences, and your strategy is to deliver relevant content to receptive audiences. Okay?
In order to make this work, you can back up toward the 10,000 foot level of where your institutional goals reside as much as you need to in order to articulate something that is going to be meaningful to other people. Where the rubber hits the road is this: Ask yourself, “If I present this to my superiors, are they going to understand what I'm talking about?” In my experience, people absorb stuff that's more straightforward and can handle the overarching ideas if they can then see how those ideas trickle down and become real. So, the problem that most people have is they get hung up on tactics and they can't see the bigger picture. And what you're doing is drawing a very clear big picture for them in simple language that's as direct as possible.
So I would suggest that if you're really struggling with this—and Kristina, I'm gonna put you on the spot—look at what Kristina wrote. It's stripped down; it's like a haiku.
Unidentified attendee #2:
Wow.
Robert:
It's bolted out, and it's very clear about its objectives. And, you know, we have a little back and forth and there's a little bit of reorganization that needs to happen, but it's the clarity and the brevity of it are stunning. And I think if you get hung up about like, “How do I get through this? Do I really need a paragraph?” The answer is you don't really need a paragraph for each of these things. If you can articulate it cleanly and clearly, you're better off.
So I hope that sort of helped a bit. As you do your strategy—a set portion of your document—that’s where Cassandra and I are going to spend most of our time, like, helping you sort those parts out. But be brave. Don't be intimidated. Give it a shot and let us help you and your classmates help you through it.
So we don't have a whole lot of time left. I want to move on—just a couple more slides.
[Screen share begins]
[Eleventh slide: About Strategy & Tactics]
[Twelfth slide: Strategy: Key Messages]
So key messages: I'll do a couple of slides on this. I'll go through these faster because we’re going to want to use up all the time. So key matches are declarative statements. They focus on main ideas, and they're succinct summations. Your key messages help you articulate your strategy.
[Thirteenth slide: More About Key Messages]
They clarify meaning, give you a takeaway headline, and they are the foundation of your organization's branding. They can also help you prioritize, ensure consistency, measure and track success, and stay focused.
[Fourteenth slide: Attributes of Key Messages]
The attributes of key messages: They're concise, meaningful, relevant, compelling, they're simple, they're memorable, they're relatable, and they're tailored. I would suggest that rather than spend a lot of time talking about key messages, sort of refer back to this PowerPoint, which will be in the resources folder, and we can talk about more of this next time as we need to.
[Fifteenth slide: Strategy Discussion Questions]
So discussion questions: You already have a comms strategy. If not, could you devise one from what you already know? You need to communicate with newer, different audiences than before. Does your organization need or want something different from those audiences? You need to move them from passive audiences to more engaged audiences. It's something in the marketing world we call conversion. So you're converting prospects into buyers.
And here's the big question: Do you need different strategies to reach, educate, or persuade different audiences? And do you have to do more to reorient your tactics to achieve your goals?
[Sixteenth slide: Communications Strategy: Breakout]
So for breakout, we're going to spend a little bit of time on this: Your dean or department leader calls up and says, “Hey, I was just in a meeting and someone else talked about strategy. You're in communications—do you have one? Can you help?”
So spend the next few minutes in your breakout rooms talking about this. What's the first question for the dean? And then pick a comms goal from your plan or from another class member and define a strategy. And just make sure it's not a tactic.
[Screen share stops]
So I'm gonna open up breakout rooms. I don't think it serves much purpose to come back and have a breakout room recap unless you guys want to. Show of hands: Do you want to come back? No. Okay. [Chuckles.] Okay, I'm gonna open the breakout rooms, and we'll go through 15 minutes of the rest of the time on breakout. Good luck, all, and I'll try to stop into the breakout rooms in a little bit.
[Time jump in the video]
Cassandra:
[Laughs.] Sorry, guys. You can use that format or you have the option of keeping it as a typical document, just putting it all together to master plan. So you'll notice in the folder there's another folder that says “master plans” or whatever your team name is. That's where you want to put that new plan. So leave the old ones as is. You can leave it there for reference, but you want to just make it a little bit neater, a little more tidy, and in the master folder.
Sorry, Robert.
Robert:
It's okay. Okay. So, we're done for the day. Thank you, all, and look forward to seeing you next week.
Jamie:
Thank you.
Unidentified attendee #3:
Thank you.
Unidentified attendee #4:
Bye.