When it comes to effective communication in the workplace, the two key pieces are having a strategy and a plan. A communication strategy is a long-term approach to how an organization communicates with their target audience, and a communication plan is the specific steps used to execute that strategy. A strategy gives the overall vision and direction for communication, while the plan breaks that down into smaller, manageable pieces. Together, they make up a comprehensive approach to workplace communication. While they are often used interchangeably, they are distinct and separate entities. In this blog post, we will discuss the differences between a communication strategy and a communication plan, and why it is important to understand the distinction. We will also discuss how to create a successful strategy and plan and the key elements necessary to ensure effective communication in the workplace.
What is a communication plan?
A communication plan is a document that outlines specific actions your team can take to accomplish your goals using your strategy. You can consider how to carry out your strategy and review the constraints you must adhere to, such as deadlines or budgets, when you create this plan. A communication plan gives executives in your company the chance to review the steps you want to take to make sure your message and tactics are in line with their objectives while also enabling your team to understand their role in communicating with others on behalf of your employer.
The specifics of a communication plan are frequently included so that everyone on your team is better aware of what they must do. You could talk about the resources available to implement this strategy, the audience connection strategies, and an overview and reminder of the communication strategy.
What is a communication strategy?
A communication strategy is a document outlining the general course you want to take for enhancing the communications efforts of your business. The strategy explains the broad goals you have for your company’s communications and the justification for those goals. To decide how to connect with employees, customers, business partners, and suppliers, many communications professionals in public relations, marketing, and human resources use communication strategies.
In a typical communication strategy, you might include information that clarifies your objectives for your communications area to your team and factors that affect how you can carry out your plan. Goals and objectives, your target audience, and the reason behind your communication effort are some common sections.
Differences between a communication strategy vs. communication plan
Plans and strategies both assist communications teams in achieving their goals, but they differ greatly in many ways. Here is an explanation of how a communication strategy differs from a communication plan:
Purpose
A communication strategy is meant to be a high-level or comprehensive document that outlines your team’s communication objectives and justifications. Because they give your team an idea of your goals without outlining how to get there, strategies are frequently less precise. These tactics are frequently helpful since you can easily add or remove items from them, allowing your team to create a document you can present to your staff and upper management to help them understand your communication efforts.
However, communication plans let you create the specifics of how you want to carry out your communication strategy. This allows your team to outline the steps, resources, and parameters to help you see how to reach your goals and then use that information to make decisions and create communication campaigns, making the plan more specific than the strategy.
Adaptability
Strategies often exhibit greater flexibility than plans because they are less specific. Before you develop an actionable plan, your communication strategy may change several times, making it more flexible to sudden changes in your workplace or industry. This is frequently helpful because, before deciding on your objectives and justifications for creating a communication plan, your team may want to create a variety of communication strategies or change an existing document.
Your team can create a thorough communication plan that is much more detailed and less flexible if you already have a finished strategy. It’s usually a good idea to double-check your plan before executing it because changing it after it’s been carried out could slow production times or confuse employees.
Timeline
A communication strategy or plan takes longer to create or complete because you can continually change the strategy rather than having to create new plans for every goal. Since these documents are so general, you can use the same one and simply modify some of its contents if you’re handling a similar set of goals. Strategies have ongoing deadlines or no deadlines at all. Even after you create a plan for your strategy, you can modify it by adding or removing certain elements and creating new plans as needed.
However, with communication plans, you might have a deadline by which you must complete and distribute the plan to your company. Plans must adhere to deadlines in order for your team and other employees to have enough time to carry them out and meet your goals on schedule.
Creation
Meeting with your team to brainstorm ideas, discussing business and communication goals with upper management, and reviewing factors like the current market and your target audience’s needs are typical steps in developing a communication strategy. Finding the direction your company wants to go through research and discussion with your coworkers, which frequently entails analyzing data and forming opinions about the best ways to improve success in your department, is more important than actually creating strategies.
Making a communication plan is distinct from other types of planning because you use data and your strategy to decide what actions your team needs to take to perform better. Your plan might include existing data like budgets and the number of resources you have to help you understand the process of achieving your objectives rather than relying on opinions to generate new ideas and goals.
When to use a communication strategy or plan
In your professional life, communication plans and strategies have different purposes and are most effective at various points in a communication campaign. However, you’ll probably need to prepare both in order to create thorough and useful communication documents. Review the following examples of when to use a communication strategy or plan:
Using a communication strategy
A closer examination of when to employ a communication strategy follows:
Using a communication plan
Times to use a communication plan in your career include:
What is a Communication Strategy?
FAQ
What is the difference between communication strategy and communication plan?
A communications plan generally includes more detailed information on implementation planning, such as a workplan, but presents less analytical detail than a full communications strategy.
What is a communication strategy and plan?
An approach to communicating with your target audience is called a communications strategy. It covers who you are speaking to, why you are speaking to them, how you will speak to them, when you will speak to them, the format in which the content should be communicated, and the platforms through which you should distribute it.
What is a communication strategy example?
Written and oral communication are the two categories into which verbal communication strategies can be divided. Written tactics use channels like e-mail, text messages, and online chat. Calls, video chats, and in-person conversations are some examples of oral communication.
What is the purpose of a communications strategy?
A communication strategy is a tool for business and marketing that assists organizations in aligning their communication and creating messages that are coherent and meaningful. These plans might concentrate on internal or external communication, or they might outline the communication plan for a specific project.
