This document provides an overview and summary of a lecture on communication planning. It discusses a 6-step model for planning communications that includes identifying objectives, recipients, channels, matching messages to recipients, getting feedback, and developing an action plan. It also covers non-verbal communication, cultural differences, and 10 rules for effective language including simplicity, brevity, credibility, consistency, novelty, sound, visualization, asking questions, and providing context. The document concludes with an assignment on interview skills.

1. DA010 - Professional Diploma in Public Relations - COMM6005EP
Public Relations Presentation and
Communication Skills (2011/10)
Lecture 5
Communication Planning
Developed and Presented by
Roy Ying, Msc., B.Comm.
Note: Pictures used in this power point file
is for academic Purpose only

2. Table of Content
• Planning communications under a 6-stop
models
• Practice non-verbals
• Choosing your words:
– 10 rules in effective language

3. Communications Planning
• Every piece of communication tool a PR
practitioner produces should be done in
conveying a message, including news
release, speech, video, event, survey,
award….even down to the souvenir
Class discussion:
Class discussion:
How do you decide
How do you decide
what message to
what message to
convey? Who gives
convey? Who gives
you the instruction?
you the instruction?

4. Step 1 - Identify your objectives
• Ask yourself the following types of
questions:
– What do I want to achieve?
– What do I want the receiver to be able to do
or think as a result of my communication?
– In what ways am I trying to influence them?

7. Step 2 - Identify the recipients
• Who needs to know what you are
communicating?
– Who absolutely must be informed?
– Who also needs to know?
– Whom it would be courteous to keep informed?
– Who do you think the message will be
forwarded to?

10. Step 3 - Choose the method or
channel of communication
• The method or channel must be suitable for the
purpose. Face to face, telephone, report or
email are the main considerations.
• If the wrong approach is taken then
communication can be misunderstood or
breakdown completely.
• Choosing an obvious channel or method may
not be straightforward and may need
consideration depending upon who you are
communicating to eg. customers, senior
management, colleagues.

11. Step 3 - Choose the method or
channel of communication

12. Step 3 - Choose the method or
channel of communication

14. What medium would you choose?
• If you want to communicate with:
– Successful business leaders
– Post 80s young people
– Pregnant women
– Investors
– Politicians
– House wives

15. Step 4 - Match the message to
the recipient
• You can only communicate well when:
– you have an accurate profile of the recipient
of the message
– you convey your understanding to the
recipient in the way you communicate.
• Pre-test your message
“It’s not what you want to tell them, it’s what they can hear.”

16. Step 5 - Get feedback
• True communication involves a complete loop
between sender and recipient.
• Before moving forward to develop materials or
activities, we urge you to pretest your messages
with your intended audiences to determine if they
are persuasive.
• How?
– Surveys
– Focus Group
– Brainstorming
– Or simply ask few people in
the target groups

17. Step 5 - Get feedback
Χ

19. Step 6 – Develop Action Plan
• Purpose: To determine where, when, and how
each task will be done to successfully implement
your communication plan.
• Your action plan can be as simple or as complex
as your needs require, but at least:
– A listing of major activities, tasks, and subtasks
– The target date for completing each task
– The person responsible for ensuring each task is
completed.

20. Sample of action plan

21. Non-Verbal Communication
• Definition:
– It involves those nonverbal stimuli in a
communication setting that are generated by
both the speaker and his or her use of the
environment and that have potential message
value for the listener.
– Basically it is sending and receiving
messages in a variety of ways without the use
of words.

23. Examples of non-verbals
• touch • facial expression / pause
• glance • intonation
• eye contact • dress
• volume • posture
• smell
• proximity • word choice and syntax
• gestures • sounds (paralanguage)

24. Why is non-verbal
communication important?
• Used to repeat the verbal message
• Often used to accent a verbal message
• Often complement the verbal message
• Regulate interactions
• May substitute for the verbal message

25. Cultural Differences in Non-
verbal Communication
• General Appearance and Dress
• Body Movement
• Posture
– Bowing must be done right (Japan)
– No hands in pocket (Turkey)
– No hand shake to women (Arab)
• Eye contact
– Arabic cultures make prolonged eye-contact.
– Japan: avoid eye-contact to show respect

26. Cultural Differences in Non-
verbal Communication
Touching – it’s culturally determined.
• Most African Americans touch on greeting
but are annoyed if touched on the head
• Islamic and Hindu: typically don’t touch
with the left hand as it is a social insult.
• Islamic cultures generally don’t approve of
any touching between genders.
• Many Asians don’t touch the head

28. 10 Rules of Effective Language
1. Simplicity: Use small words
– PR communication is about trying to impress
people with your wealth of vocab.
– It’s about getting your message across
2. Brevity: Use short sentences
– Better than a Post-it note
– Less complex than a poem
– Just somewhere in between depending on
your audience

29. 10 Rules of Effective Language
3. Credibility is as important as philosophy
– Hillary Clinton never did the voice for her ads.
She always had someone else talking about
her. That just didn’t resonate with people
because they wanted to hear what she had to
say.
– Barack Obama did exactly the opposite. All
his ads featured him, and they had a much
greater impact.

30. 10 Rules of Effective Language
4. Consistency matters
– People can get confused if you start mixing
metric and imperial system.
– When you start listing items, remember that
you should never lose count or miscount
5. Novelty: Offer something new
– When doing PR presentations, you want to
catch the media’s attention. They are more
likely to carry the novelty words or phrases

31. Use novelty - Example
• Do you remember the title or the sub-title
better?
Title
Sub-Title

32. 10 Rules of Effective Language
6. Sound and texture matter
– Oil companies rarely use the word “drill” on
their websites. Instead, the word “explore”
has become popular.
– What’s the difference?
7. Speak aspirationally
– Unless you are Nelson Mendella, nobody is
going to listen to your monotonic speeches

33. 10 Rules of Effective Language
8. Visualize
– Use it carefully. You don’t want people start focusing
on the screen over your words
– Generally, illustrations, graphs and tables are better
presented using visual aids
9. Ask a question
– Rhetorical questions will make the audience murmur
to themselves to arrive at the message you want to
deliver.
– Instead of you declaring to them, they declare to
themselves

34. Ask a question - Example
• Start off by asking “Are you better off today than
your parents were at your age?”
• Then follow-up by asking “Are your kids going to
better off when they reach your age?”
• The answer to the first one is yes; the answer to
the second one is likely to be no
• It’s much better than a boring lecture on the
generation Y problems, wealth poverty gap,
education system, etc…….

35. 10 Rules of Effective Language
10. Provide context and explain relevance
– If I simply list down these 10 rules without any
context or examples, how much can you
understand?
– This is why you are coming to listen to
lectures instead of self study at home.

36. Assignment 2
• Interview skills
– In pairs. There will be 2 interviews
– The first interview will be student A acting as reporter
and student B acting as interviewee
– Their roles will reverse in the second interview
– You pick the topic (approval from instructor required)
– You will come up with a list of questions for your
interviewee (part of your assessment – to be
submitted one week prior to the interview)
– Both interviews will be on video
– Students will then be asked to cross-criticize

37. Assignment 2
• Topics – by 7th lecture
• Initial questions – by 8th lecture
• Revised questions – by 9th lecture
• Presentation – 10th lecture
• Judging criteria:
– Quality of questions
– Interview skills
– Are you getting your core message across?