2. Suicide Prevention Resource Center
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Suicide Prevention Resource Center
Promoting a public health approach to suicide prevention
The nation’s only federally supported resource center devoted to advancing the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.

3. Communications Planning 101: What is a communication plan and why is it important to have one?
MassTAPP Campaign for Change Conference
September 18, 2015
Elly Stout, M.S.
Director, Grantee and State Initiatives
Suicide Prevention Resource Center, EDC

4. Today’s Session Why Communication Planning?
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Today’s Session
Why Communication Planning?
Overview of Communication Planning process
Planning for Your Own Program

5. What actions are needed to reduce substance use/misuse?
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What actions are needed to reduce substance use/misuse?

6. Why Communication Planning?
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Why Communication Planning?
Good intentions can go wrong:
“The results of this case study suggest that the advertisement was poorly constructed, which decreased its effectiveness and led to confusion about the… message.” Russell et al., 2005, p. 57
Russell, C.A., Clapp, J.D., DeJong, W. (2005). Done 4: Analysis of a Failed Social Norms Marketing Campaign. Health Communication, 17(1), 57–65.
ADD Russell to references

7. Features of Successful Communications Campaigns
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Systematically planned
‘Formative Research’
Communications tied to overall strategy
Clear audiences and goals
Clear call to action
Pre-tested
Evaluated
-- in particular I want to highlight the second bullet, which is a very robust finding across the health comm lit and also supported by some research in the suicide prevention field
-- the literature review mentioned under the second bullet point also included efforts like GKT as well as more informational campaigns, and overall found some knowledge/attitude change, however as of 2009…. (point on slide)
-- If, as public health suggests, we need to *change* risk and protective factors to decrease suicide, then we have to articulate what changes we’re going to make and then figure out how communications will support that change
So communications planning allows you to:
Know who you want to reach and what you want them to do
Use communication tools and tactics effectively
Be sure your audience hears what you want to say
Integrate communication with other efforts

8. Communication Planning Steps
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Communication Planning Steps
1. Analyze your situation
2. Identify and understand your audience
3. Develop your message
4. Create/implement your strategy
5. Evaluate your plan
We’re going to be referring in throughout our presentation today to a great resource: “Making Health Communication Programs Work” (called the Pink Book for short), which was developed by the National Cancer Institute. This is a really helpful guide to communication planning, and offers tools and tips that you can use at each stage (the url and some key pages from the book are included in your handouts)
What you see here is the Pink Book’s Health Communication Program Cycle, which is the model we recommend to help you in planning your communication campaigns. You’ll see that, like the public health model, this is an iterative process (not linear). Today, we’ll be focusing most of our attention on steps 1 and 2, since those are key in ensuring steps 3 and 4 are effective. The Pink Book itself has a lot of resources that can help you work through each stage, and we have some additional resources in your handout.
So let’s start with step 1: Analyze your situation

9. What problem are you trying to solve? What else is being done?
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Step 1: Analyze Your Situation
What problem are you trying to solve?
What else is being done?
What is your organization’s capacity?
How can communications help?

10. Your goals: What problem are you trying to solve?
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Who is most affected by the problem?
Why is this group affected?
What can be done to lessen, prevent, or solve the problem?
So here you’re really focusing in on your long-term goals and the strategies you will be implementing to help you get there.

11. What resources does your organization have?
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Budget
Staff
Timeline
Technology
Community Partnerships
Here you’re thinking ahead of time about what you CAN do realistically, so you don’t start dreaming up a huge multimedia campaign and then discover belatedly that you don’t have what you need to actually pull it off.

12. Where will communication work best?
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And remember, communication may not always be the way you will advance your strategy.
Changes in health care services, technology, regulations, and policy are often also necessary to completely address a health problem.” (Pink Book, p.3)
Communication CAN do things like:
Increase audience’s awareness, knowledge of health issue, problem, or solution
Influence beliefs and attitudes
Prompt action
Demonstrate health skills
Communication CANNOT do things like:
Produce sustained change in complex health behaviors without larger environmental change
Compensate for inadequate services or access to those services
Address all issues effectively
Be sure you are using the right tool for the problem at hand!

13. Sample logic model Problem to be addressed: Misuse/abuse of opioids
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Sample logic model
Problem to be addressed: Misuse/abuse of opioids
Local Manifestation of the problem: 7.43% of local high school students in grades 9-12 report past 30-day misuse of prescription opioids.
Create take-back days in the community and drop boxes in police stations
 Use of drop boxes and take back days by parents and grandparents of school-aged youth
 Access to prescription pain medication in the home
 Rates of 30-day prescription drug abuse among
13-17 year olds
Media campaign to promote take-back days and drop boxes to parents and grandparents
 Messaging promoting take-back days and drop boxes
 Motivation to use take-back days and drop boxes

14. Narrow down who needs to change Set communication objectives
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Step 2: Understand your Audience
Narrow down who needs to change
Targets vs. Agents of change
Set communication objectives
Learn more about your audience
Audience profile
Audience persona

15. Communication efforts
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Who is your audience?
Who has influence
Agent of change
Communication efforts
Who should change
Explain the chart
Target of change

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For the actions we brainstormed earlier, what audiences might influence those actions?

17. Why narrow down your audience?
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Why narrow down your audience?
With limited resources, it can be tempting to try and reach all of the audiences listed for your particular goal. But communication will not be as effective if your target audience is “everybody”
Are her attitudes, beliefs, barriers to finding help for a student…
The same as his?
Then the same message will not be effective for both.

18. Communication Objectives
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Communication Objectives
What do we want the audience to do ? (sometimes also know, think, feel)
What exactly do we want them to change?
Awareness is not specific enough
Be clear: how will the change contribute to your overall goals?
Next, we want to set specific communication objectives we want to achieve with each audience. What do you want that audience to do (sometimes also know, think, feel)?
Be specific about the action you want them to take:
What do you want to change, exactly? BE SPECIFIC – AWARENESS IS NOT ENOUGH
Increase knowledge of available services
Increase motivation to seek help for a friend
Reduce the behavior of underage drinking
Always be clear about how will that change contribute to your goal AND make sure communication can make that change.

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Activity
Worksheet 1:
Pick a project goal that communication can support
Identify one audience for your communication effort
Write the communication objective for your audience

20. Learning about your audience
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Learning about your audience
Audience research helps you get inside your audience’s head. Why do they behave they way they do now? What do they believe about the behavior you’re trying to get them to do?
The point here is to figure out how your intended audience sees the behavior you want to promote, and find ways to motivate them to change based on THEIR priorities, perceptions, and beliefs, not YOURS.

21. 4/17/2018
What do we want to know?
Understanding what it will take for your audience to take the desired action
Readiness to act
Motivations
Values, beliefs
What do they think about the desired action?
For your chosen audience & desired action:
 Understand what actually affects their behavior
 Understand what they believe about the problem and the behavior (right or wrong)

22. Formative research Community assessments Focus groups
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Formative research
Community assessments
Focus groups
In-depth interviews
Published literature and national surveys
Polls
Observation
Remember, it’s about what they think, feel, and value, not what you think they should.

23. 4/17/2018
Audience profiles
Audience profile (CDC example from:
Audience persona (an archetype or model of someone who could be found in your intended audience.

24. Build motivation, highlight benefits Use fear messaging with caution
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Step 3: Develop your Message
Include call to action
Build motivation, highlight benefits
Use fear messaging with caution
Use sensitive language that resonates

25. Characteristics of good messages
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Characteristics of good messages
Appealing
Culturally appropriate
Audience’s own language
Attention getting for your audience
Clear -- don’t trade cleverness for clarity
Visuals/sounds match and support the message
Remember, it’s about what they think, feel, and value, not what you think they should.

26. Fear Appeals May work, if the audience: If not, can backfire
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Fear Appeals
May work, if the audience:
Feels at risk
Believes acting will lower risk
Feels/is able to act
If not, can backfire
Fear appeals can grab attention
Are intuitively appealing, especially to prevention folks like us, who are motivated by the negative outcomes behaviors can lead to

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What’s the message??

28. Pre-Test Messages & Materials
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Pre-Test Messages & Materials
Ask target audience for reaction
Understandability, clarity, language
Does anything distract from the message?
Use broad prompts (don’t lead)
Take pre-testing feedback with a grain of salt
Prompts:
“Tell me about the people in this ad”
“What key point would you take away from this ad?”
Cover the text and ask: “what is this ad about?”
“Blink message” – at a distance, what is message?

29. Using sensitive language
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Using sensitive language
Choose humanizing language
Avoid stereotypes
Avoid jargon
Cultural and linguistic competency (more than translation!)

30. Choose your Channels Write a Creative Brief Develop an Action Plan
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Step 4: Create and Implement your Strategy
Choose your Channels
Write a Creative Brief
Develop an Action Plan

31. Getting your Message Out
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Getting your Message Out
Channels = paths to share messages
Consider a broad range
Think creatively!
Consider:
What does the audience use?
What is credible to the audience?
How complex is the message?
What is your message and where will the audience best receive it?
Part of your audience research should have been where your audience spends their time in terms of media and what sources they find most credible.

32. 6 Main Channel Categories
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6 Main Channel Categories
One-on-one communication
Local outreach
Mass media campaigns
Media relations/PR
Social Media
Non-traditional
What is your message and where will the audience best receive it?
Part of your audience research should have been where your audience spends their time in terms of media and what sources they find most credible.

33. Writing a Creative Brief
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Writing a Creative Brief
Create buy-in
Keep team members on the same page
Clarify priorities and available resources
Use as a reference for action planning
Avoid wasted effort

34. Action Planning Specific calendar, including:
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Action Planning
Specific calendar, including:
Detailed steps for each channel
Who is in charge
Partner/staff responsibilities
Milestones to monitor progress
Regular team meetings to identify roadblocks and make adjustments

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Activity
Worksheet 2:
Using the audience and communication objective from Worksheet 1, fill out your creative brief

36. Plan for evaluation from the start Process and outcome evaluation
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Step 5: Evaluate your Plan
Plan for evaluation from the start
SMART Communication Objectives
Process and outcome evaluation
Improve and sustain
Consider finding an evaluator to help

37. SMART Objectives for Evaluation
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SMART Objectives for Evaluation
Plan for evaluation from the start by setting SMART communication objectives
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-sensitive
Measurable
Relevant answers the questions, "should it be done?",  "why?" and "what will be the impact?"  Is the objective aligned with the S/C/D’s implementation plan and the university’s strategic plan?
Example:
Instead of saying: The campaign will increase parents’ awareness about underage drinking
Say: By July of 2017, 20% more of parents of middle school students in Worcester will report that they have talked to their child about underage alcohol use (caution when picking percentages – require a baseline

38. Evaluating your communication efforts
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Process measures: are you doing what you planned and is it reaching people
Outcome measures: did the campaign get audience members to do what you wanted?
Were there unintended effects?
Process measures = reach/exposure
Attendees at events
People reached through mass media
Hits on websites/likes of pages
New volunteers or coalition members
Reach/exposure is important, but not enough
Did knowledge/attitudes change? Behavior? Did changes last?
Any unintended effects?

39. Using Evaluation Results
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Using Evaluation Results
Use evaluation results to:
Identify needed improvements and modifications
Demonstrate impact
Share successes to build sustained support and buy-in
Empower other coalitions/groups to follow in your footsteps

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What are some ways you could evaluate the communications efforts you developed in the worksheets?

41. Summing up 1. Analyze your situation 3. Develop your message
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Summing up
1. Analyze your situation
2. Identify and understand your audience
3. Develop your message
4. Create/implement your strategy
5. Evaluate your plan

42. Final Thought: Managing the Message
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When working with partners, ad agencies, youth, or others to create messages:
Provide guidelines and parameters
Use a creative brief or other tool to keep everyone on the same page
Review messages to ensure they meet guidelines

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Questions?

44. Director, Grantee and State Initiatives
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Thank you!
Elly Stout, MS
Director, Grantee and State Initiatives
Visit the SPRC website!
EDC Headquarters
43 Foundry Avenue
Waltham, MA 02453

45. 4/17/2018
References
CDC (2012). Audience Insights: Communicating to Teens (Aged 12-17).
EDC (2012). Logic Model Framework for Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation.
EDC (2015). MassTAPP Communications Toolkit.
Eukanuba (2008). Everybody Wants to Be a Dog Poster. Accessed Sep 2015 at
National Cancer Institute (2002). “The Pink Book”Making Health Communication Programs Work.
Partnership for a Drug Free America (1987). This is Your Brain on Drugs. Accessed Sep 2015 at
Russell, C.A., Clapp, J.D., DeJong, W. (2005). Done 4: Analysis of a Failed Social Norms Marketing Campaign. Health Communication, 17(1), 57–65.
Witte, K. (1992). Putting the Fear Back into Fear Appeals: The Extended Parallel Process Model. Communication Monographs, 59,

46. 4/17/2018
Funding
SPRC funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) under grant no.5U79SM
SPRC is a project of EDC