Building a communication or communication/promotion plan means integrating the means of communication and promotion into a coherent whole where the different means reinforce each other in the service of the same objectives. It also means distributing the means and actions over time and allocating the necessary financial and human resources.
A different communication plan may therefore be drawn up at different levels with different objectives, but coordinated in a cascade: at the central level for a group and central objectives to be applied to the different activities (including institutional communication), at the level of an activity with the activity’s own communication objectives, at the level of a market, a product or a family of products with the relevant communication objectives. In addition, specific plans may be drawn up for particular moments or situations, such as the specific communication/promotion plan associated with the launch of a new product on the market or that associated with a change in organisation or the acquisition of a company.
In terms of organisation, the responsibility for putting the objectives and the communication/promotion plan at the service of the overall objectives at a given level can therefore also be carried out by professionals in the field located at different levels: central level, activity level, market level, product team or product line, communication department or shared marketing & communication.
The “communication/promotion units”, to use a generic term whatever their level in the organisation, will very often be responsible not only for external communication but also for internal communication.
Composition of the communication plan
The technology communication/promotion plan, which is usually annual, can be developed at the overall level or at the finer level of a market or product segment.
It generally consists of:
- General external and internal communication objectives that are aligned with the overall marketing strategy
- The list of ongoing external communication and promotion actions to be carried out during the year. These actions are sometimes repeated from one year to the next:
- broken down by product or family of products, by market segment, by customer or group of customers, by type of decision-maker
- Associated with the means that will be used
- Specifying the responsibilities (including outsourced tasks or tasks entrusted to agencies) and the internal organisation of the actions
- The timing of the actions
- A list of specific non-repetitive external actions, for example the launch of a new product
- With details of the resources allocated to the action, its organisation, timing, responsibilities and budget
- A list of internal communication actions, treated with the same level of detail as external actions
- Consolidation of the budgetary aspects
Presentation of the communication plan
In practice, it could be presented, for example, in the form of a multi-sheet Excel-type table listing by sheet, row or column:
- Different levels of “market granularity” or “product granularity
- The types of external and internal actions
- The types of means of action and communication channels that will be used
- Dates or deadlines
- Responsibilities
- Budgets
- Comments
External and internal means of action
External means of action
Among the external means of action:
- Some of these will be similar to those encountered in B2C
- targeted advertising
- traditional or digital press campaigns
- traditional or digital communication campaigns
- participation in dedicated trade shows
- natural or paid referencing (SEO)
- technical popularisation, sometimes on youtube or certain social media.
- Others will be both more specific in terms of tool or channel and more targeted
- innovation centres or technical centres that customers can visit
- “presentation halls for new or future products
- user groups that will be run continuously and brought together periodically
- conferences for technical or financial decision-makers
- technical demonstrations showing the possibilities of a product in the field
- simulators
- Finally, others will be at the interface between the product-customer dialogue and communication
- products that will be co-designed and co-tested with one or a few major customers
- proofs of concepts (POCs) demonstrating the validity of an idea or a solution
- prototypes to be tested
- systems that we will make available both to make them known and to finalise them according to customer feedback
- “minimum viable products (MVPs) which will be communicated about, launched on the market and then tested and improved step by step
Internal means of action
Internal actions include, for example
- Information on company news
- Information on products
- Informing networks about new products and services
- Training on new products and services
- Creation of sales aids
- Creating support for simulating the use of a product with a customer who is not yet using it
Finally, it should be remembered that although a communication partner may be entrusted with the execution of communication and promotion actions, it is always up to internal marketing and communication to define the strategic axes. It is not up to a communication partner to define the objectives, targets and messages of the communication on its own, and even less to define the strategy, the positioning vis-Ã -vis the competition or the value proposition of a product.
In many cases, it is shortcomings or weaknesses in internal marketing and communication that explain a lack of results, failures or possible difficulties with communication partners.
