Purpose-driven organizations make a meaningful difference for people, our planet and our shared future. But to scale impact, more people need to know about your work, believe in it and get involved.
That’s why this week of Summer School, we’re exploring marketing and communications planning. Whether you’re looking to re-engage lapsed donors, recruit students, launch a new program or promote an upcoming initiative, an integrated plan can help you deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.
Every effective marketing and communications plan starts with three key questions.
What Are We Trying to Achieve?
Goals, objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) provide the foundation for your marketing and communications plan. They help align your approach with broader organizational priorities.
Think of goals as where you’re headed, objectives as what success looks like and KPIs as how you will measure progress.
To be effective, objectives should be SMART:
- Specific: Clearly define what you want to achieve
- Measurable: Include metrics that can be tracked and evaluated
- Achievable: Set a realistic target
- Relevant: Aligns with your broader goals
- Time-bound: Establishes a deadline for completion
For example:
- Goal: Increase awareness of a new graduate program
- Objective: Increase qualified inquiries by 15% during the next recruitment cycle
- KPIs: Website traffic, event attendance, applications submitted, etc.
Who Do We Need to Reach?
Once you’ve established your goals and objectives, the next step is identifying who you need to reach to achieve them.
While demographics are important, effective communications planning goes beyond characteristics such as age, location or job title. The most important insights are the motivations, barriers and beliefs that drive people to action.
As you identify your audiences, consider:
- What do they care about?
- What challenges or barriers do they face?
- What information do they need?
- What action do we want them to take?
- Which communication channels do they use and trust?
For example:
| Audience | What Motivates Them | What Holds Them Back | Actions We Want Them to Take |
| Prospective Students | Career outcomes | Cost and time commitment | Learn more and engage with the university |
| Donors | Community impact | Limited awareness of need | Make a gift |
It’s common to identify several different audience groups needed to achieve your goals and objectives. But trying to reach everyone often means resonating with no one. Focus on three or four priority audiences where your time and resources can have the greatest impact.
How Will We Reach Them?
This is where strategies, tactics, channels and messaging come together.
With your goals and audiences defined, it’s time to determine how you’ll reach them.
A strategy defines how you will achieve your goal. Tactics are the activities that bring that strategy to life — encompassing relevant channels and messaging crafted with audience motivations and barriers in mind.
For example, if your goal is to increase awareness of a new graduate program, your strategy might focus on building visibility among prospective students. Tactics could include email marketing, student success stories, social media content and virtual information sessions. Messaging might emphasize accelerating career outcomes or advancing life-changing research discoveries.
When developing your tactics, it’s helpful to consider a mix of communications channels to boost the likelihood that target audiences will see your message. One best-practice framework is the PESO Model:
- Paid Media: Visibility secured through advertising and sponsored placements
- Earned Media: Visibility generated through media coverage, influencer engagement and third-party endorsement
- Shared Media: Social content designed to foster engagement and conversation
- Owned Media: Channels you control directly, from websites, blog and emails to events and publications
Not every channel will be appropriate for every audience. Consider where your audiences spend time, how they prefer to receive information and which channels they trust most.
What’s Next
The best marketing and communications plans create focus. They clarify what you’re trying to achieve, who you need to reach and how you’ll move them to action.
By answering these three questions, you’ll have the foundation for a plan that drives awareness, engagement and impact.
Developing a marketing and communications plan? We can help — connect with us here.
