5W’s and an H: a Roadmap for Strategic Communications Planning
Image courtesy of Canny.io
Anyone who’s ever taken a journalism class is certainly familiar with the 5W’s and an H, the vital components of any news story: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Answering these questions should give your audience a thorough understanding of what’s happening and why it matters.
But did you know the 5W’s and an H can also guide your communications planning efforts? Simply mixing up the order provides a step-by-step guide for developing a communications strategy under almost any circumstance. Here’s how:
Why? This is the first question to be asked because it’s the most important. Why are we doing this? What do we hope to achieve? Is it to increase market share, build community goodwill or align employees? The answer to this question is your Communications Objective, a measurable target that ladders back to one or more organizational goals, and it should be the first step in any strategic communications plan.
Who? We’ve likely already answered this question by considering the Why already, but it’s important here to think of all the stakeholders that should be targeted by your communications. For instance, a campaign aimed at introducing a new B2B product should certainly target prospective buyers, but it should also loop in all employees who may interact with potential customers so they’ll be in the know.
What? This is perhaps the most straightforward step in the process, where you capture all the information you want your communications to include – essentially the 5W’s and an H of your campaign content. But it’s critical to recognize that the answers to these questions might not be the same for all stakeholder groups, which is why we map each out separately in the prior step. Knowing the differences among your audiences and the messages they should receive is incredibly helpful in outlining the remaining three steps of our process.
Where? In this instance Where isn’t limited to just physical location, but to all the ways we’re able to reach our audiences. By taking inventory of the methods and tools we can use to deliver our messages – and incorporating the answers to our What – we’ll have a solid foundation for developing a compelling and effective campaign.
How? Here’s where we get to apply our experience and creativity to devise the tactical communications plan. Knowing our objectives, our messaging, our audiences and all the best ways to reach them provides the ideal foundation for developing a communications program that achieves the desired outcomes.
When? This is an oft-overlooked step that can have meaningful impact on the effectiveness of your campaign. Similar to Where, in this case When doesn’t refer to a single moment in time, like a launch date. Nor is it a comprehensive timeline for executing the campaign. Rather, we’re considering opportunities to control timing for strategic advantage. One example might be a cascading communications plan that first informs internal stakeholders before sharing with external audiences. Another would be orchestrating exclusives, embargoes or other methods to carefully control the release of information.
I’m curious: has anyone else worked with a similar communications planning framework? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, or reach out to me at barry@startwithtruth.com.
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Truth Advisors LLC provides strategic communications and reputation management counsel to companies facing seismic change. For a free, no-obligation assessment of how we can level up your organization’s strategic communications efforts, contact us at info@startwithtruth.com.