When a crisis occurs, your team must manage communications effectively and efficiently so key stakeholders are informed. For greatest success with these time-sensitive communications, establish your crisis response communications protocol before a crisis occurs.
Deana Haworth, Chief Operating Officer of Hirons Agency, shares best practices on how to prepare for crises. “If you have discipline and you start adopting this process, every announcement, every update that you need to provide to your stakeholders is easier and easier and more efficient.”
Categorize Your Target Audiences
Haworth suggests a concentric circle model with the primary audience at the center, surrounded by rings of other groups based on information priority.
The center includes an internal team. “We always want to talk internal before external,” she advises. “We certainly don’t want those closest to us to have surprises. We also want to follow reporting lines and perceived rank.” The people at the center are the ones who think about the sequence of crisis communication for each crisis.
The next circle includes innovative and influential people. They’re opinion leaders and powerful people in your community.
The third group includes disseminators. Public relations teams and people with a broad reach fit here. Haworth mentions, “These are the folks that we can always rely on to get the word out, to spread the information.”
“Our overarching goal is that there are no surprises and that everyone feels special in knowing that we identified them, and we cared enough about them to engage them,” she clarifies. With your target audiences sorted, you can better disseminate appropriate and timely information to your community and beyond.
Prepare Your Message
“Once you identify your stakeholder base and the order in which you want to communicate with them, then it’s time to think about what is that message,” notes Heron. Messages must contain the most compelling and important things for people to know.
Message development needs to be simple, planned, and explicit. Heron advocates for three key messages to support an overarching message. Each key message needs a supporting message or further details for depth, as needed. Stakeholders, influencers, and disseminators can use your overarching, key and supporting messages to get the word out. These messages hold the takeaway for the situation. They keep everyone on the same page in a crisis.
Haworth suggests planning ahead using issues management whenever possible. “That is a commitment to work with your leadership team and your key comms team to identify possible issues that you could be facing in a crisis,” she explains. “Many times, our crisis communications plans are actually identifying these issues. We draft statements around issues that are expected.”
Reach People Where They Are
With your target audiences triaged and your message developed, it’s time to get the message out. Your customer relationship management system is crucial in times of crisis. Your team needs up-to-date contact information to reach out to those in your concentric circles to get the information out. Haworth urges, “You have to make sure that someone in your organization is the keeper of that information and that you can trigger them quickly to do that outreach.”
Consider advertising and digital partners. You may have to cease or begin broadscale communications. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people spent more time on social media, watching television and streaming services, and listening to podcasts. These marketing channels helped people get timely updates as news of the pandemic developed.
“We find that in most cases, stakeholders appreciate an update as soon as you can provide it. They also appreciate knowing that you are aware of the situation. Stay on top of the conversation on social media. Make sure people know that they’re heard.”
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Deana Haworth
Chief Operating Officer of Hirons Agency |
Learning More
- This blog was based on Deana Haworth, Chief Operating Officer of Hirons Agency’s presentation that took place at SHSMD Connections Virtual Conference, October 19-21, 2021. To view the SHSMD Connections conference full agenda, click here.
- To view the recording from the virtual conference SHSMD Connections, register here ($200) to access on-demand content featuring BONUS recordings from the in-person and 30+ new content from the virtual conference.