It Takes a Strong Communication Plan

A pandemic flu, as it spreads, will have a significant economic impact on business. When the SARS epidemic hit Toronto a few years ago, employees and customers stayed home sick or scared. As business there learned, communicating appropriately in a crisis can help your brand stay healthy.

Research has shown that organizations with a crisis plan fare better in a crisis than those who do not. It's not the plan as much as the institutional knowledge that comes from developing the plan and the commitment to perform at a high level throughout the crisis.

Organizations without plans do not need to scramble at the threat of this flu pandemic. All the necessary resources exist through government agencies, management associations and medical organizations to help firms small and large smartly manage the challenges of a flu pandemic. Communications firms are expert at leveraging these resources so that employees and other stakeholders can be informed and empowered to make the very best of what will be a difficult time.

If you have crisis plan, you've already noticed that it needs fine-tuning because every crisis has its own set of unique challenges that necessitate recreating the plan on the fly. But you do have a go- forward outline and that's a great start.

If you don't have a crisis plan don't panic. You're not that far behind. Form a team to report to the CEO. Follow closely what the government agencies are doing. Check in with management associations on crisis management issues unique to your industry. Then develop your action plan of "must do's" and "nice to do's." Commit to communicating regularly to your stakeholders about what your company is doing, and provide them clear information on what they can and should do to sustain the enterprise.

$5 Quick for a Good Cause

Have you ever thought of your cell phone as a fundraising tool? Text-to-give campaigns may be the wave of the future when it comes to soliciting individual donors, particularly the new market of those 18 to 24 year olds targeted by many nonprofits.

While many charities have established websites with online donations, this new mobile giving tool appears to be outperforming Internet donations in its first year of development. In 1997 when online giving began, $300,000 was donated to participating causes. In 2008, mobile giving in its first year crossed the $500,000 mark. Mobile phones offer a higher market penetration than either cable television or the Internet and they are particularly well suited to impulse giving.

The numbers for such a venture add up. Giving to charities in the U.S. amounts to $300 billion a year and 75% of that comes from individuals. There are 250 million wireless subscribers and 90% can send text messages. That means there is a potential audience of 225 million individual donors who could be giving $5 through text messaging.

The Keep A Child Alive campaign recently learned the power of a text campaigns. During an American Idol appearance, Alicia Keys made a text messaging appeal for the organization. In the days that followed 90,000 donors gave the HIV-Aids group $450,000. The American Red Cross has raised over $190,000 thru their Text2Help campaign when disasters strike and United Way raised $10,000 following a ten second appeal during the Super Bowl.

To manage this new avenue for giving, marketers are relying on the help of the recently formed Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF), headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, that was founded by veterans of the wireless industry. MGF seeks to harness the immense power of wireless communications for nonprofits by giving wireless users a single Mobile Giving Channel over which they can receive and respond to appeals from worthy causes. By using a designated short code and keyword, the wireless subscriber can donate $5 to their favorite cause and that amount is charged to their wireless bill.

MGF works with all the wireless carriers to ensure fees are waived for 501-3C charities, allowing the charity to collect 90% of the contribution. Donations are made in $5 increments thru MGF which is positioned to be the approval and payment processor for participating nonprofits. The ten percent withheld covers the cost of messaging, setting up the short codes and enabling the campaign.

Here's how it works:
. A nonprofit applies to the Mobile Giving Foundation
  to participate. Charities that raise $500,000 or
  more make the best candidates.
. Wireless carriers waive all fees for premium SMS
  donations thru the Mobile Giving Foundation.
. The nonprofit hires a marketing communications
  vendor for campaign execution.
. The Foundation takes 10% out of the text donation,
  an amount that may be reduced to 5% as the
  volume of the campaign increases.
. Payments are processed in 60 days at which
  point the nonprofit receives a check.

In these tough economic times, a mobile campaign to raise $5 from 10,000 donors may be easier than raising $10,000 from an individual donor. Text messaging can be your newest tool to tap into money quickly and engage a whole new audience in your cause.

Strategic, thoughtful brands will survive

Budgets slashed, jobs eliminated, CEOs forgoing bonuses. With so much negative news and distractions, this may not seem to be a great time to focus on bolstering a company's brand. But although it might appear counter intuitive, this is a critical moment for your brand's success-there has never been a better time to address what constitutes your brand and how that is communicated.

The branding conversation has been played and replayed-to the point that it sounds like old news. But now more than ever, the strength and consistency of your brand and the clarity surrounding your company's promise is going to influence future success. Is your brand's reputation built on an authentic foundation that makes promises and delivers on those promises for stakeholders who value the brand? Is your brand promise transformative, but delivered through old channels in tired communications?

Taking advantage of this pause in the full-throttle modern economy means increasing your chances for future success.

The messages you communicate-both visually and verbally, externally and internally-can be distilled to their most competitive essence, and the means by which they are delivered can be optimized and modernized.

Most companies have robust systems and processes in place to market and communicate. Those systems are dependent on good data and information so that they can create smart and effective campaigns and plans. As we've seen with the recent election, '08 holiday sales cycle, and the collapse of traditional media advertising, consumer behavior is going through a metamorphosis. Understanding where stakeholders are headed - where they get their information and what they do with it - requires a change in how we communicate.

Start with your own internal audiences. Ask them why they care about the brand they work for (rather then telling them why). Think about new ways to talk to external audiences. Investors, customers, analysts, the media-all possess invaluable information and insight about your brand.

While marketing budgets may have tightened, our ability to communicate has never been more affordable and efficient. Earned media, digital communications and experiential marketing can be leveraged in new and creative ways to communicate with stakeholders.

Work to sustain confidence in your brand-it will help ensure your future.