Tracey Arial

Ten Steps for Successful Communication

1. Establish the purpose for each entity involved in the project and set clear measurable goals for each.

Clear measurable goals are crucial so that everyone involved in a project understands what successful communication means.

2. Meet with entity leaders to strategize about means to achieve each goal within set budgets.

This step usually limits the goals of communication to attainable levels.

3. Determine implementation calendar.

Entities have limited time and energy for communications, which are an important but secondary task to any project.

4. Create project style guide and template to ensure consistency in style, format and language.

Organizations and individuals often skip this crucial step for communications plans that include the written word. Readers don’t like to ask themselves questions about format or style when referring to a document. They like the organization of material to be straightforward and obvious based on purpose. Guide books need lots of headings, listings and steps; novels need a compelling story about imaginary circumstances; non-fiction needs to present the real world in business, guidebook or novel-form, depending on whether the goal is sharing of information, practical instruction or story-telling.

5. Prepare materials.

Written materials might include reports, flyers, posters, newsletters, speeches, websites, multimedia scripts, training materials or biographies.

6. Distribute materials.
7. Evaluate results from material distribution.
8. Prepare and distribute new materials if necessary.
9. Evaluate results from second material distribution.
10. Repeat steps eight and nine until goals are reached or budget is depleted.