Back to basics: Three steps to communications project planning

My clients and I have been up to our eyeballs in planning lately. Marketing planning. Copywriting plans. PR strategy. In fact, just this morning, I talked with a client about the strategy and planning for an exciting new marketing effort they're launching. At the time, I was deep into planning out a copywriting project.

Our plans were quite different. Yet we were using the same tactics. And they had nothing to do with making lists of features and benefits. They had to do with foundational communications practices. The kind you use when you're talking to someone one-on-one.

Regardless of how big or small the communications project, we both use a form of this simple three-question check-in. It puts you on the right page-- fast.

1. What do my customers and clients need to know?

2. How can I best communicate that in a way they will hear?

3. Where do they spend their time?

Sounds too easy?

Asking yourself what your audience needs to know is the fastest way I know to get out of your own head and your company's agenda and into the shoes of your customers and clients. Start here, and you'll save yourself a lot of time in meetings, messaging, circular conversations about features and benefits, and endless drafts that miss the mark.

How do you effectively tell your audience what they need to know? This comes down to staging your message in the appropriate (authentic) voice, the right vehicle, providing a usable amount of information, presenting it in ways that will make sense to them. If you think about your audience-- if you understand who they are and that they do not necessarily share your own preferences-- these pieces begin to fall into place.

Where can you find your customers? Where do they hang out? What do they read, watch, listen to? The answers to these questions reveal your marketing mix, most effective media buys, even the format in which you're communicating with them.

Even the most complex marketing communications efforts eventually boil down to these three questions. They're the root of strong interpersonal communication. Answer them well and your plan begins to assemble itself. And then, rooted in good planning, you're set free to be creative.