When everyone else already seems to be saying everything that could possibly be said about business, there are times when the choice of going outside and enjoying the sunshine can appear preferable to thinking about something original to say about your own business.

However, no business survives without customers and most of us have to promote or advertise our products and services to attract those customers.

So what can you say that hasn’t already been said a million times before?

Ideas rarely come out of thin air, so it’s good to start with your business plan and objectives, as all communications should be based on these. If you’ve got a communications plan, this should also give some ideas of what you want to achieve.

Start by listing topics based around products, services, launches, events, achievements, changes or industry developments. If your business is seasonal, do you change your products every quarter? If your business is linked to events triggered within your industry, list key changes about to occur or important dates. If you have product launches or events, list these too.

When you’ve made your list, start to fit these to dates when you need to blog about them, issue a press release, update your web site or produce a new brochure. If you don’t already have a communications plan, this could be the basis of one.

Announcements don’t need to be major, although the appointment of a junior employee is unlikely to hit the broadsheet newspapers and you should have realistic expectations of what each piece of news is capable of achieving. That doesn’t stop you aiming as high as possible, especially when you do have a really good story.

Also, you may have a great story without knowing it. Ask colleagues or contacts what they think about specific issues. If they’re excited about them, will your audience also be interested in them? What appears uninteresting to you could be exciting to your audience.

By creating a store of ideas, which you can add to regularly, you’ll never be short of an interesting topic to write or talk about.

After yesterday’s blog, have you thought about how well you check your written material?

z2zine tomorrow: Think before engaging typing finger!

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So we’ve developed a communications plan and are putting it into practice by working towards long-term goals and taking short-term actions daily, but how do we know if anything’s working?

Like anything we do in business, it’s essential to measure success, especially where we’re putting a lot of time or money into an activity.

Our business plan will suggest appropriate targets to us, but we have to work out how to tell if we are meeting these.

There are many different ways of measuring the success of communications. One of the simplest is to ask people, such as asking customers how they found out about your company or product. You can do this in person or on the phone or develop a more comprehensive survey for people to fill in.

You can also develop specific response mechanisms so that customers respond with a unique code printed in an advert (letting you know they saw that advert) or access a special web page so you can count how many responses your activity generated. While simply measuring increases in responses or sales tells you that your communications are working, it won’t tell you why it’s working or which activities work better than others. If you advertise in three publications, it’s useful to know which one generates a bigger response as you might wish to increase your advertising in that one and stop advertising in the other two. You can use this in any form of communication, not just for advertising and marketing.

By discovering what works best, you can focus on successful methods and stop or improve less productive activities. Your planning and use of communications will become more sophisticated and you will get more value from your communications budget.

After our last blog, are you taking action every day?

z2zine next Monday: Realistic communication objectives

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Last week I went to see a production of The Wizard of Oz that was very slick, probably because the cast had rehearsed the show again and again to make their hard work look very easy. This can also apply to communication, especially the production of marketing and promotional materials.

Some people are natural writers with the ability to jot down text almost without thinking, while others can stand up in front of hundreds of people and deliver an informative and entertaining off-the-cuff presentation, but many people probably can’t do either or lack the confidence to try. That’s where planning and preparation come in. While tight deadlines can aid creativity to some extent, they can also result in slapdash presentation full of errors when there really isn’t enough time to do a job properly.

Focusing on deadlines and schedules enables you to manage communications more effectively.

Deadlines vary from hours and days for the internet to weeks and months for magazines and up to a year for annual directories. What’s important is to find out what the deadlines are for relevant publications, to put the dates in your diary and to schedule your activity so you get everything done in time.

Creating a communication or marketing plan is useful because you can see from it in an instant when a specific trade journal is published or an event takes place and what the deadline is if you want your contribution included. It’s easy to forget deadlines when you’re busy with other aspects of business, only to remember when the magazine drops on to your desk without the article or advert you wanted in it.

Planning also enables your communications to continue when you are busy.

It can also prevent a stop-go pattern from developing when you don’t have much time to keep your communications flowing. Many activities, such as blogging, web sites, articles and PR, can actually be more effective when you do a little on a regular basis rather than leaving large intervals when you do nothing.

What should I include in my plan?

The planning process should raise important questions, such as: What do I want to achieve for my business? What activities will achieve these objectives? When do I need to do them? Are they working? Your business objectives should suggest some of the answers and, if you’re not clear about them, it’s worth spending time considering precisely what you want to achieve.

A communications plan can be as simple or as complex as you choose. A single side of A4 text is better than no plan at all. A spreadsheet or schedule linked to an automated diary or customer relationship management system sounds ideal, but only if you have the time to use it properly. Whatever you choose must work for you and it’s a waste of time to prepare a vast plan if you don’t have time to put it into action.

Knowing what activities to choose can be difficult and we will examine many of the options available in the coming days and weeks. What is important is to start thinking about what you want, what you need to do and how you will do it. This puts you firmly in control of your communications and enables you to start thinking about how you approach the actual activities.

Plan today

Just thinking about your communications will help you to start planning and preparing them effectively.

After yesterday’s blog, have you reviewed your communications and checked that your promotional material is up to date? It’s never too late to start.

z2zine tomorrow: It’s not what you want to hear

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