#LeanComms
Communications for the way the world is now
As a Marketing & Communications practitioner at Enspiral & Lifehack, I sometimes felt like I was drowning in the multi-channel, fast-paced communications world in 2011 and 2012. Since then I’ve met many others who admit the same thing.
Times are changing fast. As a sector, we’ve moved from a slow and steady format of channels such as newspapers, magazines, TV and radio which required longer lead times for content publishing, to an explosion of channels and possibilities with the rise of digital technology and social media.
Communication strategy and planning frankly hasn’t kept up. I have spoken with various Comms people around the world, but the same old strategies and planning techniques are still prevalent with a lot more channels to consider and shorter publishing lead times to deal with. With the rise of social communications, a completely different approach is needed to really make the most of the new technology.
Communications Strategy & Planning is dead.
Long live Communications Strategy & Planning for the way the world is now.
The theory behind the strategy and planning is not the problem, it’s the process itself. So here follows my take on reinventing the comms strategy and planning process to make it manageable and intuitive.
Working in the technology & startup space has exposed me to much of the theory behind Agile and Lean which has revolutionised that sector. I started seeing the parallels between how software engineers worked and the opportunities to reinvent communications campaign execution. I heard the lessons behind Lean Startup (a process to streamline and improve effectiveness of building entrepreneurial ventures) and abstracted the theory in relation to content creation and publishing for social media.
The perfect storm occurred when I architected a nationwide comms campaign for an iconic Kiwi brand and brought all these elements together. Lean Comms was born in my mind, and I was out to validate my assumptions.
Along with the bright mind of Anthony Cabraal, we began to run some one-on-one workshops with Comms practitioners, a Chalkle class, and had multiple conversations with people to assess its merit — feedback was good. We then stumbled on this ‘Think Quarterly by Google‘ article with the same name. Idea validated.
The Lean Comms Process
Here’s some of our assumptions, we’d love to know if any of them resonate with you if you’re in the Comms / Social Comms field:
- many comms practitioners we know are being asked to do more with less time and budget
- using social technologies + platforms changes what is possible
- you have access to a variety of cheap/free channels to publish your own content
- the cost of creating and publishing your own content has gone through the floor
- communications is now a conversation, making new models of products, services and communications initiatives possible
- feedback loop times can reduce considerably, so you can try more things and learn fast
- authenticity of your message and your voice is key, because people will ask you questions which shouldn’t be ignored
- the comms landscape is too fast moving to write a planning document and expect it to still be relevant tomorrow
- as part of a social conversation you are expected to respond to other events, conversations & questions — at least 30% of most communications is now organic
- trust and attention to ‘broadcast’ style comms is reducing
- peer recommendation is much better trusted than direct advertisement
- we have an unprecedented opportunity to engage with authenticity, create value, and build lasting trust and relationships
- being small & nimble is an advantage in a more level playing field
- the world is becoming more visual
- offline experiences can still be much more powerful in an online world
The Target of Lean Comms
- add a lightweight and nimble structure to day-to-day work
- add ‘regular checks & balances’ to the now messy world of Comms
- get feedback from your community, your advisors, your friends and domain experts you’ve never met — it’s time to get collaborative
- engage in constant improvement with metric-based evidence
- think of Comms as a series of initiatives rather than an ongoing, never ending stream of work
Click here to get the Lean Comms Canvas for the price of a Tweet.
5 steps to completing your first Lean Canvas
Dig out your Comms / Marketing plan if you have one — it might be at the bottom of your Google Drive, or in a dusty folder from when you first wrote it. It’s useful to have gone through the marketing discipline to fully understand your audience and goals before you jump in to practicing the quick-fire Comms of today’s media world.
Step 1 : Prep a Lean Comms canvas [20-30 mins]
- fill in your best guesses and assumptions at the time
- highlight points which are assumptions you need to validate
- find ways to test these assumptions quickly and easily
- keep canvas somewhere visible, scribble on it with pencil when you learn something
Step 2: Prepare a content plan with canvas as your base [30 mins to 1 hour]
- outline key content categories
- outline key dates
- outline who is creating content
- outline which channels will be used for each content
You can get Content Plan samples here if you don’t already have your own style.
Step 3: Add learnings to canvas over the course of 2-3 months [5 mins a day]
Step 4: Review canvas for learnings and next experiments. What do you want to learn? How have the goals for the next months shifted? Has the previous period been a success? [30 mins]
Step 5: Write your next content plan. Return to Step 3. [45 mins]
Lean Comms is in permanent beta, so we’re always open to ideas and experience which helps us shape this to be the best approach possible for practitioners. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or at @samrye_enspiral on twitter.
This article is an update of the original Lean Comms article on the Enspiral blog by the same author.
