Communication and strategic planning
Communication needs strategic planning and good stories. The big picture and background at the same time. Products are associated with brands, campaigns are part of a strategy, protagonists are part of a story. Their own story and the story they’re involved in. Our entire existence is part of something bigger. If we try to form a picture of this we develop a concept. Our life is an overall concept, the big story, the general context that holds all connections together.
When a person memorizes or sketches such a complex set-up using NLP, it’s done by building a memory palace. An environment and story organized by pictorial symbolism holding all the parts contextually, making them accessible and reproducible. Communication is exactly that: putting parts together to form a story and conveying it so that others can pick up this story and continue to tell it.
Strategic planning means orientation within the analyzed market.
Knowing who does what, when, where and why
It is therefore not about the simple A-B arrow diagram symbolizing the communication process. It’s about the arrow: content, context, impact and effect. In marketing, in design, in music, when writing novels or simply when talking to people.
The path and goal is the context: the story you tell people. The more realistic, lively, captivating and natural the story, the more likely people are to listen, react to and interact with the story.
It works even better if you don’t take yourself, the brand and the product all too seriously and engage with people in terms of humour. Nothing is more grounded and successful than honesty and the ability to crack jokes at your own expense. In terms of Monty Python, both Eric Idle (singing) and John Cleese (lecturing) said it: Laughter connects people.
Strategic planning means knowing your way around the analyzed market. Knowing who does what, when, where and why – and then planning where and how to communicate with whom.
It is not always decisive on which channels to communicate more or less. It is much more important to use each channel according to target group, message and channel characteristics. To adapt communication design individually while never losing sight of the big picture:
A good strategy is based on an underlying overall picture of market, brand and target group. It communicates the core aspects across all channels. However, it also distributes important secondary aspects across these channels, allowing the consumer to put the overall picture back together. And with that telling a story and creating a bond.
Which brings us to marketing.
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Questions and answers on strategic analysis and planning of marketing and communication campaigns
