Over the past few years, technology has changed the role of the marketer significantly, blurring the lines between PR, customer service, sales and even product management. Creating a strategic communications plan that can be shared, and adhered to, across functions is more important than ever.

Here are ARTÉMIA’s insights into how you can conduct effective strategic communications planning to stay on target in 2016.

1. Year-end review.

Begin with a review of the past year, and be as clear-eyed and thorough as possible. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy for past performance to be reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet, with rich anecdotal and other feedback quickly lost. Garner feedback from multiple sources in your company on what worked well, what drove growth, which of your customer segments really took off. Mine user feedback to identify any consistent concerns (or wins) and benchmark performance against competitors to unearth risks and opportunities.

2. Set specific communications objectives.

This will not only help you measure progress throughout the year – and recalibrate when necessary – but also inform the methods (channel, keywords etc.) deployed to achieve them. The objectives should be as detailed as possible and broken down into specific target audiences to be reached.

3. Map out customer journeys.

If you haven’t been through this process already, it’s a valuable way of identifying the key times to connect with your target market with the most relevant messaging, such as the best time to send an email with useful product information or free, valuable content. If one of your objectives is to help business development gain more influence earlier in the purchase process, for example, a thorough understanding of the customer journey should help uncover when and where to do this.

4. Brainstorm to uncover fresh ideas.

Bring together a group of cross-functional company representatives to help uncover unexpected insights and tap into valuable expertise. It may be that someone has had a stellar customer service experience in an unrelated industry, but that experience can inform a new way of operating in your company. Capture the brainstorm outputs, prioritize (based on cost, risk, time investment, etc.), and assign responsibility for implementation.

5. Download ARTÉMIA’s free strategic communications plan template.

With our comprehensive template, it’s easy to map out content by format – social media, email marketing, mobile marketing and PR. Get full transparency on all your marketing tactics and easily share the template with colleagues to keep everyone on the same page. With all your plans in one place, cohesive, optimized marketing and a more organized 2016 starts here.

For more information on how ARTÉMIA can partner with you for marketing success, please get in touch.