Good Communications Planning Delivers Good Change Management

With my involvement in the Canadian Society of Association Executives Ottawa-Gatineau Chapter, I’ve had the privilege of sitting on a number of committees including the chapter’s events committee. Year after year, one of the hottest topics remains change management in associations. Obviously, anytime one brings up the prospect of bringing about an important change in an organization, there are important governance issues to be considered. However, the mark of good organizations and how they manage that change in my mind comes from good communications planning.

By learning to identify stakeholders, select effective communication strategies and create ownership, today’s leaders can become successful change agents. Communication channels that allow those effected to feel as though their concerns are learned are the ones that facilitate the process most. With all that said and done, good communications planning will help an organization significantly navigate through what can otherwise be an organizational land mine. However, not all communication plans are created equally and many miss the mark. Communication should be more than just an occasional, sporadic activity.

If your current communications plan does not take into consideration how an important change will take place in a form that will engage everyone, the time to revisit it is now. In doing so, some of the best practices for ensuring everyone is on the same page include:

• Developing a written communication plan to ensure that all of the following occur within your change management process.
• Communicate consistently, frequently, and through multiple channels, including speaking, writing, video, training, focus groups, bulletin boards, Intranets all that is known about the changes, as quickly as the information is available.
• Provide significant amounts of time for people to ask questions, request clarification, and provide input.

Change is a constant in today’s organizations and increasingly leaders are required to manage both planned and unexpected changes triggered by both internal and external events. Helping an organization maintain a sense of stability while championing change can be an extremely difficult challenge. On that note, Action Strategies has produced a number of very successful and thorough communications plans. If your organization is undergoing significant change management, you can learn more about our service by clicking here.

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Mark A. Buzan, APR

Principal & Chief Magnifying Officer

Action Strategies

#3, 270 rue Champlain

Gatineau, Quebec J8X 3S1

819.770.2899 phone

http://www.actionstrategies.ca (Action Strategies website)

LinkedIn Profile: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/markbuzan

LinkedIn Group for Public Relations: http://tinyurl.com/nonprofitideas

LinkedIn Group for Government Relations: http://tinyurl.com/nonprofitlobbying

Please take a look at my just released book: Online PR and Social Media for Associations and Not-for-Profits -http://www.onlineprsocialmedia.com/associations

Maximizing Non-Profit marketing, sponsorship and fundraising opportunities for more revenue

How to do we maximize our marketing opportunities for more revenue for our organization? When it comes to sponsorship and the fundraising that results from it, good PR strategy cannot be ignored. In fact, potential sponsors expect you to have a solid communications strategy! I hope from this recent video that if you have had any doubts about the relation between solid communication strategy and its impact on revenue generation for your organization, that doubt is now removed!

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Please let me know your thoughts! What has been your experience? Please leave a comment.

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Mark A. Buzan, APR
Principal & Chief Magnifying Officer
Action Strategies
#3, 270 rue Champlain
Gatineau, Quebec J8X 3S1
819.770.2899 phone
http://www.actionstrategies.ca (Action Strategies website)

LinkedIn Profile: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/markbuzan
LinkedIn Group for Public Relations: http://tinyurl.com/nonprofitideas
LinkedIn Group for Government Relations: http://tinyurl.com/nonprofitlobbying

Please take a look at my just released book: Online PR and Social Media for Associations and Not-for-Profits - http://www.onlineprsocialmedia.com/associations

Why is Market Research Important?

This month, I've come across a number of organization heads throughout Ontario and Quebec. One of the common themes we seemed to have touched on was research and how that applies to marketing.

On that note, I came across an interesting article by Martin Day that touches on this important point.

Enjoy!

Market research will help you better communicate - Your current customers experiences are a valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong.

By asking the customer you not only show them that you care but you also take the guess work out of customer services.

Market research helps you identify opportunities – If you are planning to operate a new service and want to know the preconceived attitudes people have then market research can help, not only in evaluating the potential for a new idea, but also by identify the areas where a marketing message needs to honed.

Market research will minimise risk - Market research can help shape a new product or service, identifying what is needed and ensure that the development of a product is highly focused towards demand.

Market research creates benchmarks and helps you measure your progress - Unless you measure you may not be able to gage how well your business is performing. Early research may highlight glaring holes in your service or short falls in your product, regular market research will show if improvements are being made and, if positive, will help motivate a team.

Martin Day is a Director of Survey Galaxy Ltd a web site that allows anyone to create, design and publish online surveys. For more information please visit http://www.surveygalaxy.com.

I couldn't agree more with Martin on these points. If you are looking for advice on where to target your marketing efforts, Action Strategies develops solid marketing plans that are based on research.

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Mark Buzan is Principal and Chief Magnifier in Action Strategies, a full service Marketing Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs Consultancy. Make sure to contact him for advise on reaching audiences you may or may not have yet considered in your marketing communications and PR campaigns. Drop him a line if you are looking for help in developing a marketing campaign. You can view his website at www.actionstrategies.ca.

New podcast & updates to Action Strategies' website!

Hey all! For regular readers of this blog, you know that Action Strategies produces a regular blog...well, almost regular! Admittedly, I've been in remiss in terms of producing new content. That's changed! Check my new podcast on my website. The subject is my favorite in PR: Communications Plans and the Essential Elements.

Also, check out the news section of the website. New developments have been added as well.

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Mark

The key to Magnfied PR? Identifiy Your Targets!

My most recent assignment with the EQAO (Education Quality Accountability Office) has re-enforced what I have long believed about targeting the right message to the right audience. In fact, this experience has helped me prove a long held point that understanding, identifying, and analyzing groups of people you wish to motivate or influence is so critical.

With EQAO, we're learning that our target audience, teachers, receive their professional development information in different formats. Additionally, they don't always receive all government information via their own professional associations and unions.

So, what's been needed? Working on a thorough marketing plan, I have advised EQAO to break it's communications efforts into three sub groups (more detail will be following as I can't get much further in detail right now). Each of these groups has similar yet varied interests. Equally, they receive their information from and place greater credibility with varying sources of information.

By communicating with these groups on a one-to-one basis and laying out an analyzed calendar of events, we are well on our way to saving EQAO enormous amounts of time and money in advertizing efforts. Moreover, we're continually growing their subscriber lists to an upcoming newsletter targeted to teachers.
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Mark Buzan is Principal and Chief Magnifier in Action Strategies, a full service Marketing Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs Consultantcy. Make sure to contact him for advise on reaching audiences you may or may not have yet considered in your marketing communications campaigns. You can view his website at www.actionstrategies.ca.