Ultimate Tool Kit: Free Communication Strategy Templates, Examples, and Expert Tips

Like a well-built engine, a strategic communications plan has many specifically engineered parts to accomplish your goal. While every communications plan should be thoroughly customized, there are common, time-tested components that go into a high-performance plan. 

RH Strategic uses proprietary templates to track communications strategy. “The RH Strategic team has developed its own templates over the years,” says Raffetto. They all include research and discovery where we assess the client’s market landscape and their strategic objectives; various programs to achieve those objectives; and measurement initiatives so that all parties can assess at any time the progress of the strategy and make adjustments. It’s a pretty simple and logical template, and it’s designed to be useful not just to the communications team but the entire executive suite and even the boardroom.”

Next, you’ll find descriptions of all the component pieces and templates you can use to develop your own plan.

The mission statement defines the reason your organization exists and serves as a framework to evaluate current and prospective activities. Include your mission statement at the very beginning of the communications plan to show that the initiative doesn’t just come from the communications department or consultant. Your mission statement should also inform your key messages, which should be brief, non-jargony benefit statements.

Here’s an example of messaging that comes directly from defining a mission. Highfive, a video conferencing company, has a brief mission statement: Our mission is to make every conversation face-to-face. Their three key value-driven messages are:

1. Highfive is beautifully simple video conferencing that you can initiate or join with a single click
2. Twenty conference rooms for the price of one Cisco or Polycom system 
3. Built for businesses, not social networking 

The messages support the mission statement, clearly states the benefits, and the copy is easy to use in all types of formats. Before you begin creating your own messages, there are other steps to take, beginning with research.

To develop an effective strategy, you need to take a deep dive into understanding your operating environment, strengths and weaknesses, competitors, audiences, and how to message based on goals. An important element to explore is what communication platforms and channels you’ll use to spread your message, and finally the metrics you’ll use to ensure the effectiveness of your efforts. Here are some types of analysis you can perform to help you identify how to move forward:

PEST Analysis: PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) analysis is the first step an organization can use to begin their overall business planning. It’s a tool to help you understand your business position, and market growth or decline, and scan your environment. By understanding these factors, you can determine overall opportunities and threats to your organization. 

Once you’ve completed your PEST analysis, you can move on to look at your direct competitors in the marketplace. 

SWOT Analysis 
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is an analysis framework that identifies and examines the internal and external environmental factors that can impact project, product, place, or person viability. Originally developed for Fortune 500 companies, organizations of all kinds have embraced SWOT as a decision-making aid. SWOT analyzes four areas:

• Strengths: Internal attributes and resources that provide advantages.
• Weaknesses: Internal attributes and resources that are a disadvantage to the organization when compared to others.
• Opportunities: External factors that a company can exploit to gain an advantage.
• Threats: External factors that could result in jeopardy.

This environmental scan is a means to help decision makers ascertain if the project or goal is worthwhile and what’s needed to make it successful. The next step is to match resources to meet the identified challenges and opportunities. Below you’ll find some templates you can download to help with your research.

SWOT Analysis Strategy Template for Excel

Use this template to examine the relationships between external and internal drivers, and determine what strategies you can employ to address different threats, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. You can find more SWOT templates here in a variety of formats.

‌ Download the SWOT Analysis Strategy Template  

Competitor Analysis Template for Excel

Use this template to perform a competitive evaluation of your organization and to inform your communication strategy based on product categories. A detailed multi-layered template for each product category will help you analyze major attributes and channels, pricing, credibility, promotional offers, and relevant research findings. It also enables the identification of opportunities and potential partners. 

‌Download Competitive Analysis Template

Excel | Smartsheet

To provide structure, guidance, and to better identify what you want to accomplish for your communication strategy plan, S.M.A.R.T. goals are especially effective. They are:

• Specific: A mission statement for your goal that clarifies what you want to accomplish
• Measurable: Think about meaningful metrics that will create a tangible way to measure progress 
• Achievable: You and your team agree on what’s attainable
• Relevant: Focus on what makes sense within broader business goals and realistic resources 
• Time Bound:Target timing, along with interim schedules, for deliverables  

To learn more, read The Essential Guide to Writing Smart Goals. You can also use the following template to get started writing your S.M.A.R.T goals.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals Template

This template helps clarify the five classic S.M.A.R.T. steps for your communications strategy or any other project. Once you complete the questionnaire, the answers will help fine-tune your strategy into attainable goals. You can use it as a tool for the whole team to make sure your goals are realistic, and to form consensus before moving on to the next steps in your strategic communication planning process.

‌ Download the S.M.A.R.T. Goals Template - WORD

Knowing who influences you and who you influence will clarify the impact of the actions you take and the messages you create. Whether you’re carrying out a full communication strategy for your organization or developing a new campaign, it’s important to identify and understand the full range of stakeholders (internal, external, more remote influencers, or societal) you’ll need to consider. Once you identify your stakeholders, learn how to manage those relationships by reading The Definitive Guide to Stakeholder Management.

Stakeholder Analysis Matrix Template

Track which stakeholders are likely to have the most or least interest and influence in your communications strategy based on your research. This is a useful template for strategizing and creating an effective plan of action for stakeholder management. Visualizing stakeholders in this way makes it easy to understand which audience needs greater focus and which need less monitoring. 

Download Stakeholder Analysis Matrix Template

Excel | Word | PDF | Smartsheet

Internal and External Stakeholder Communication Plan Template

Don’t forget your internal stakeholders. As we saw from Booher’s case study above, it’s critical to engage with internal stakeholders. You need to align employees and other internal agents to your messages and actions, and clarify who acts as important conduits of information to the outside world. This simple communications template clarifies stakeholder interest and power, type and frequency of communication for each stakeholder, and provides a space for  comments. 
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‌ Download Internal and External Stakeholder Communication Plan Template - WORD

Take some time to learn what your colleagues know and the strengths they can bring to your communications efforts. Then use the RACI model (Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed) to help team members understand their roles and responsibilities to ensure collaboration and project success. This activity is especially important when team sizes are large, when team members are in different geographic areas, or if you need to rely on staff from multiple departments. 
       
Roles and Responsibilities Template for Excel

     
Use this template to keep tasks organized by team members, save time or eliminate the need for extended status meetings, and ensure that communication strategy plan goals are tracked and met.

‌ Create the Roles and Responsibilities Template in Smartsheet 

Now that you’ve identified your key stakeholders and target audiences, you need to determine what you want them to know, think, and do as a result of your communication strategy and tactics? You should be able to refine your message to three key points, and if necessary to adjust those statements slightly for specific target audiences. 

Key Messaging Tips

• Keep it Concise: Limit key messages to three and keep them brief. A good test is to see if they take 30 seconds or less to read out loud. 
• Think Strategically: Define, differentiate, and address your benefits/value proposition.
• Be Relevant: Consider what your audiences need to know as you balance what you must communicate.
• Compelling: Stimulate action with meaningful information that incites a response.
• Keep it Simple: Avoid jargon and acronyms, and use easy-to-understand language.
• Memorable: Avoid run-on sentences, and make the messages easy to remember and repeat.
• Be Active: Avoid the passive voice. Get your message across briefly, but don’t use tricky advertising style slogans.
• Be Specific: Tailor communication to different target audiences.

Do some team brainstorming and develop a list of topics for your website, social media, and email marketing strategy. The themes should be relevant to all your target audiences and contribute to your organization’s positioning. 

It’s a good idea to roll out themes weekly to maintain momentum and keep building interest in the next messaging installment, whether it’s email, direct mail, or social media. You also need to consider key dates for your organization like anniversaries, conferences, or seasonal activities, and build messaging around those.

All of this legwork should also inform upcoming campaigns to support product rollouts or other key events. Once you line up your themes and campaigns, you can put them into your planning documents and templates.

A major part of the channel and platform selection process relies on the target audience and stakeholder research. For internal audiences, you’ll be able to simply use text, emails, and internal newsletters for your ‘captive’ audience. When it comes to external audiences and stakeholders, if you’re number one audience is teenagers your channel selection will likely be different than if you’re trying to reach CEOs. You can use purchased data or your own research to determine the media your individual audiences use most. 

Try some testing to get to the most appropriate communication channel mix to promote and encourage the specific behavior or outcome you want. If your budget allows, hire a professional PR, advertising, or media firm to help you determine the most streamlined way to get to the right media mix. If outside resources aren’t in your budget, here are some tips on how to strategically choose your marketing channels and platforms. These ideas apply to both internal and external communications channel planning:

• Know Your Audience: Do your research on current stakeholder behaviors in multiple channels and determine what media outlets they use and which are most influential.
• Experiment: Add channels into the mix slowly, to reach specific audiences and check response rates.
• Automate: Use a tool like Hootsuite to add communications based on your schedule. Add and use different channels more frequently as they become more popular. 
• Listen: With social channels, it’s important that you continue to "listen" and respond in real-time. It’s the only way to gain and keep mindshare. 
• Evaluate: Use data and your own metrics to see what’s working and what isn’t, and adjust your plan accordingly.

Another consideration is to use marketing resource management (MRM) software. It’s software that helps users manage marketing processes so companies can be more agile in planning, management, and execution on marketing programs and campaigns, all while consistently maintaining your brand image across communication and marketing channels. MRMs usually provide planning, budgeting, and tracking capabilities, as well as the means for managing digital brand assets, workflows, and approval processes. You can find extensive coverage on this topic in this Marketing Resource Management article. 

As mentioned earlier, you need to set clear, measurable goals to ensure that your communication strategy plan is effective -- or to determine if you need to make some changes to reach those goals. That means you need to not only set metrics, but also measure them over time, and at the conclusion of campaigns. 

As you develop your communications strategy plan, build-in quantitative measures not just for a final evaluation, but also at interim dates. That way you can assess if your communications efforts are progressing at the right pace. For example, are you amassing more Twitter followers or requests for more information, and meeting business objectives like total sales. As you write your plan, include:

• Starting Point Metrics: Identify where you are in your current efforts by the numbers.
• Midpoint Metrics: Determine how far you’ve progressed to your goal.
• Final Assessment Metrics: Iterate the ultimate objective for your company, campaign, or crisis plan.
• Platform Metrics: Set goals for each communications platform. Use web analytics and track your progress to benchmarks.
• Budget Metrics: Check results against your total budget regularly (weekly is best) to make sure you’re tracking to your allocated spend.

Raffetto is emphatic about the use of metrics in his plans. “Metrics are a must in communications. Anyone can feel that the program is winning or having an impact, and often that is the case, but at the end of the quarter or year all executives and even board members want hard evidence that the investment in PR and communications made an impact on the top strategic objectives of the company,” says Raffetto. “The only way to show that is with credible metrics. We use a heavy dose of quantitative measures – everything from media impact to video views to domain authority to UTM link tag analytics – and then we also look at more qualitative measures such as Are reporters now reaching out to us for a perspective on breaking news? or Does the CEO get invited to speak at key industry events? These are measurable as well and are built into the metrics in the planning phase.”

The power of the social media ecosystem in reaching consumers and other audiences continues to grow, notes Raffetto. “Social media is indeed important, and is extremely powerful when it’s closely integrated with other communications programs like media campaigns or events. For this reason we do not treat it as a separate program, but rather we layer it into all other programs. So for example, if we are doing a speaker program for a top executive, we will build in a social media component to that,” explains Raffetto. “The tactics will include channel selection, content development, audience identification and engagement, and measurement. Measurement is fairly easy now with all of the analytics tools available. It is fun to see a client's social media program and engagement get supercharged by PR wins like a huge media hit or a keynote address.” 

Booher advises, “Far too many people and organizations spray paint on social media. They have no strategy. Therefore, they spend a little time here and a little time there on the various platforms, staying virtually invisible on all of them. Social media experts advise that you formulate a strategy to master one or at most two platforms. Decide where you’ll find your audience and go there. Then master that platform. Use those one or two platforms to drive traffic to your own website — the one place where you actually have control of the traffic and what they see. The tactics on social media are all the magnets you use to put buyers into your funnel on this platform and gradually lead them to your website. Finally, know what you want them to do when they get to your site: Read a blog? Buy a product? Sign up for an ezine? Register for a free webinar? Attend a paid event? The more specific the action you want them to take, the easier to measure your results. Give them a vague action, and you’ll likely have a vague notion of whether you’re succeeding.
 

Social Media Audit Template

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Auditing your metrics monthly and comparing them to the previous month and year helps you understand if your objectives are being met and what you may want to change to accomplish goals. Edit this simple spreadsheet to include all of the social channels and metrics you want to track, and update it when you make any shifts in your social media strategy.

‌ Download Social Media Audit Template

Social Media Marketing Plan Template

This social media marketing plan template and calendar makes the complex planning involved in multiple channels easier. You can gather intelligence about how target audiences respond to content and which sites are sending you the most referrals. Use the data you gather to understand which outlets are most effective, and which days and times to post work best.

Download Social Media Marketing Plan Template

Excel | Smartsheet

Putting all the work and necessary activities in a calendar with key communications tasks, budget, and resources goes a long way in delivery on strategy. Highlight specific projects, events or publications that you know need to happen in a particular timeframe.

Communications Strategy Planning Calendar Template

This detailed calendar template provides a way to track annual plans or in a single month snapshot, and helps you work back from upcoming deadlines. Call out metrics at the top of the template, while there is a space to note marketing effectiveness data at the bottom of the spreadsheet. This comprehensive template offers sections for social media, online content, press releases, email, advertising, and more. Adapt the fields to make them appropriate for your organization to more effectively track your weekly and monthly progress.

‌ Download Communications Strategy Planning Calendar Template

Find more templates, books, and professional organizations to start or improve your planning process here.

More Helpful Templates
You can always make tasks easier for yourself and your team with easy-to-use templates like these:

To Do List & Progress Monitor Template

Get your team on the same page with a consolidated view of responsibilities across multiple projects and priorities with this comprehensive action tool. Use the template to create transparency as it tracks task progress with Harvey ball symbols, and also flags high-priority items.

‌ Create a To Do List & Progress Monitor Template in Smartsheet

Check out more templates in this 15 Free Task List Templates article.

Project Budget Template

Creating and tracking an accurate budget is the make-or-break factor of managing successful communication plans. Stay on top of budgets with this template, that helps you track labor, material, and fixed costs. You can also monitor the difference between your actual and budgeted amounts for each task.

Download Project Budget Template

Excel | Smartsheet

Find more useful budget templates for download at Top Excel Budget Templates.

Tactical Marketing Management and Project Team Template for Excel

As you implement your marketing strategy, track tactics that you need to complete to keep your plan and team on schedule and assess progress. This template lets you list your project team, monitor who’s responsible for which tasks, dates, expenses, action, and status every step of the way.

Download Tactical Marketing Plan Template

Excel | Smartsheet

Find more templates to download in this Free Marketing Plan Templates for Excel article.

Risk Assessment Template

    
Particularly helpful for crisis communication planning, this template gauges and captures essential information your organization needs to assess potential risk. List and categorize each risk, rate its relative likelihood and severity, and chart all the risks in an aggregated view. Risk can be color-coded to denote risk rankings for a prioritized, at-a-glance view to enable readiness.

Download Risk Assessment Matrix Template Below
Excel  | Word  | PDF  | Smartsheet

Find more risk assessment templates here: All The Risk Assessment Matrix Templates You Need.

For those who are new to communications strategy and planning, terminology may be hard to understand. Here are some free, easy to use guides to marketing, PR, and communication terms for you to download and refer to as you develop your communications strategy and plans. 

• Dictionary of Media and Communications by Marcel Danesi: A comprehensive, 349-page reference to terminology that covers every aspect of media and communications terms.
• IUCN Commission on Education and Communication Glossary edited by Frits Hesselink: A handy international guide to terms used in effective communication. 
• The Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication by Daniel Chandler and Rod Munday for Oxford University Press: Over 2,200 entries on terms used in communications arranged with A to Z tabs for easy access.

Keep up to date with the latest best practices in communications strategy with information from these professional organizations that cater to communications and marketing professionals:

• American Marketing Association (AMA): The AMA provides thought-leadership, research, webinars, technology, and other resources for marketers and academics. 
• Public Relations Society of America (PRSA): The PRSA provides articles, publications, research, and other resources to communications professionals and students in every industry sector. 
• Sales and Marketing Executives International (SMEI): The SMEI is a global association that provides online forums, webinars, courses, and certification for sales and marketing professionals.
• International Association of Business Communicators (IABC): The IABC is an international network of communication professionals whose goal is to improve organizational effectiveness through strategic communication and provides articles, podcasts, videos, and more to its members. 
• The Data and Marketing Association (DMA): Formerly known as the Direct Marketing Association, this organization champions deeper consumer engagement and business value through the innovative and responsible use of data-driven marketing. They provide coursework, information about regulatory impacts, and other resources to members.
• Business Marketing Association (BMA): The BMA is geared to B-to-B marketers. They offer training, career development, online resources, research, and more to its membership.

Some current, in-depth books that detail every aspect of strategy and strategic communications planning: 

• Brand Media Strategy: Integrated Communications Planning in the Digital Era, by Antony Young. A guide to planning in today’s more sophisticated media landscape. 
• Crisis Communications: The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message by Steven Fink.  A complete toolkit to create communications and business success in the face of crisis.
• Crisis Communication: Practical PR Strategies for Reputation Management and Company Survival, edited by Peter Anthonissen. Proactive crisis communication and proper planning guidance.
• Simply Communicate: A Business Guide to Strategic Communication by Kristel Keys Running. Steps businesses and managers through the details of communication strategy. After reading the book and following the steps, readers will have a customized and solid organizational communications strategy.
• Strategy Builder: How to Create and Communicate More Effective Strategies by Stephen Cummings and Duncan Angwin. An interactive, visual guide that uses practical tips and real world examples to build your optimal communication plan. 
• Strategy-In-Action: Marrying Planning, People and Performance (The Global Leader Series Book 4) by Thomas D. Zweifel. A holistic approach to the design and execution of strategic process for organizational leaders.
• Strategic Public Relations Management: Planning and Managing Effective Communication Campaigns (Routledge Communication Series). An evidence-based, applied approach to strategic public relations management -- this is an instructional textbook.