Describe The New Jersey SPCA Situation Analysis and Process Documentation
Project 1: Understand the Situation
Start Here
The next three projects (Project 2, Project 3, and Project 4) involve producing these tactics—products such as news releases, tweets, speeches, and scripts—to communicate your messages to different publics. The messages you develop now will be key to your success in those projects and to the success of SPCA in achieving its objectives.
It’s important as you work through all four SPCA projects to keep in mind the various meanings messaging has in strategic communications. In this project, it means writing high-level, media-agnostic statements that will help inform or persuade targeted publics in a way that will help your client achieve its communications objectives. Media-agnostic means that the messages can be put into any form—text, audio, video, news release, blog post, speech, tweet—and conveyed via any platform—Twitter, Facebook, a newspaper, a town hall meeting, and so forth. In other words, your messages should be able to have the intended effect on your target publics no matter what form they take or how they are presented. Another aspect of messaging at this level is iterating according to need. If Carmen finds that your messages do not align with the organizational objectives or that they are not the most effective ones for your target publics—or if SPCA’s situation or objectives change—you will modify and refine the messages in the plan—your core messages—as necessary.
In the upcoming projects, you’ll focus on the other aspect of messaging: how and where to communicate your core messages. This means choosing techniques (appeal, drama, logic, statistics, etc.), the form the message should take, where the message should be broadcast, how the message should be timed, word choice, tone, images, and other aspects of packaging and delivering a message, including working with a spokesperson.
Bear in mind that, whether you’re developing a communications plan or creating communications tactics, writing quality is paramount. Everything you produce must be clear, comprehensible, and well-formatted, with logical flow and appropriate language in AP style.
A final note: In these four projects, you’re working for a nonprofit. To put this work in context and get a sense of how strategic communications operates in the nonprofit world, take a look at Broom & Sha, Chapter 18: Nonprofits and NGOs, pp. 376–389.
Project 1: Understand the Situation
Step 1: Conduct and Document Your Situation Analysis
You’re working with your manager, Carmen, to draft the first half of a communications plan—situation analysis, goals, objectives, publics, and messaging—for your local SPCA.
The first item of business is to identify your SPCA. This can be a local organization or any other SPCA you choose (in your hometown, in another state or city, etc.). It’s best if the SPCA has a fairly well-developed website, as browsing the site will be part of your situation analysis. Conduct a search, find your preferred SPCA, and bookmark the site. Choosing a specific organization is critical; you can’t draft a communications plan unless you can research the entity, its publics, and its internal and external environment.
Locate and browse the ASPCA site as well. Although the national organization may not be affiliated with the SPCA you chose, the goals and objectives should align, and it’s a good idea to gain familiarity with both organizations.
SUBJECT: getting started
Good morning!
I know you’re starting your SPCA work and I wanted to help you along. Here’s a refresher on the communications plan and its components, as well as a reminder of how research is used in strategic communications. Gavin and Theresa reminded me that you worked on a communications plan in your last project, and I wanted to pass along the NazarOps comms plan for your reference. You’ll be happy to know we’re now on contract with the IT firm! Finally, here’s a pocket guide to writing goals, objectives, and strategies. This not only provides helpful verbs and phrases but also assists you in conceptually distinguishing the elements of a plan.
You worked on goals, objectives, publics, and messaging on the NazarOps project but, because the situation analysis is new to you, I’ll want you to run your analysis by me so I can make sure you’re on the right track. The research you conduct will inform every part of the communications plan … as well as the tactics you’ll be producing in the next few projects.
As you work through this step of the project, put together a neat and clear document telling me what research you conducted, what the results were, and what you extrapolated from them. Although your situation analysis will be just a paragraph or two in its final form, it will derive from a great deal of information that you’ll gather, assess, and synthesize. Your notes will not only give me a window into your methodology, but help you as you organize your findings to arrive at your problem statement.
Here’s one template you can follow or amend as needed:
Sample Situation Analysis Research Breakdown
Primary or secondary research? Qualitative or quantitative research? Results Insights
Was your research primary or did you find existing research (secondary)? Was your research qualitative (such as from personal conversations) or quantitative (data-based)? From the research, I found that… This tells me that…
How I arrived at my problem statement: After careful analysis, I found that xxxx seemed the most prescient problem or opportunity because of yyyyyy. I considered zzzzzzz, but rejected it because of wwwww.
Your research breakdown document doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, but just enough to give me a sense of your thought process and the techniques you employed.
Send me your breakdown and completed situation analysis by Day 5 at the latest so that I can get you feedback quickly. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Once you’ve reviewed the elements of a communications plan and how they fit together—and skimmed the NazarOps plan as an example—you’ll be ready to conduct your strategic communications situation analysis and fill in your research breakdown document. As mentioned in Carmen’s email, the situation analysis is a distillation of research into a paragraph (or a few paragraphs) outlining everything you know about the situation. Your situation analysis will include a review of internal factors—history, key actors, positions, policies, organizational structures and functions, and audit of the organization’s communications (to the extent to which you are able to conduct this)—and a review of external factors, which will include a stakeholder analysis outlining who the stakeholders are, what they know about the key issues, how they feel about the issues, and how they behave about the issues. It’s vital that you investigate the question, What are people saying? You’ll use your findings to conduct a SWOT analysis where you define the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to SPCA.
All this effort will culminate in your production of a problem statement, which describes in specific, measurable terms the problem you uncovered that requires a communications intervention. The word problem is used loosely here; this doesn’t have to be a crisis situation or anything overtly negative. The “problem” could be an opportunity the organization is missing, an improvement that could be made, a situation that could use mitigation, or a potential negative outcome to stave off. As you review your research and conduct your SWOT, you’ll use your insights to identify the problem to which your data point.
To get you started on conducting the research and filling out your situation analysis research breakdown, Carmen stops by for a quick chat.
“Now that you have a better sense of what to do, you may be wondering how exactly you’re going to conduct all the research you need in order to obtain the most accurate problem statement. Let me recommend a few techniques.”
“First, make sure you’ve studied all the resources we’ve shared with you, particularly the Broom & Sha readings, which contextualize all parts of the situation analysis. The resources include a sample marketing situation analysis, sample SWOT, and stakeholder analysis template that might prove helpful.”
“Then, use web research as part of a situation analysis. In addition to general online keyword searches, tools such as as Meltwater and Google Analytics will help you understand the organization and its possible competitors, get a sense of your publics, and know what they’re saying on various channels (newspapers, radio, social media, community forums). Use Meltwater for at least part of your research so that you can take advantage of the searching and analytic capabilities. The Parabolic discussion Meltwater: Guidance, Questions, and Discoveries is a good place to ask questions and seek information about the tool itself.”
“You might also want to conduct interviews as part of a situation analysis. This requires identifying people to interview, reaching out to them, coming up with a list of questions written so as to obtain all the information you need, and synthesizing the qualitative data. I would love it if you could conduct at least one interview! If you do, please include your questions as part of your situation analysis research breakdown.”
“You may have noticed that even the research part of communications planning requires ingenuity: You get to use creativity and mindful self-direction to figure out which avenues to pursue. You may uncover research opportunities we haven’t identified in our resources; use these with zeal! I may end up learning something from you.”
“Lastly, please reach out if you have any questions about how to conduct your research and where to focus. I’m here to help!”
Remember the professional development series I mentioned? I’m sending you a case study analysis one of the senior account executives worked up that shows the kind of magic that can happen during this phase of communications planning. The situation analysis can be much more than the sum of its parts!
Welcome to the first in our case study series! I think you’ll find this illuminating.
In 2015, the City of San Diego conducted a situation analysis that led to an ingenious approach to garnering support for the use of recycled water. As you read the case study, consider the research methods the city employed, the group the city called upon for ideas—this might surprise you!—the stakeholders the city identified, and the strategic decisions the city made to fulfill its objectives.
Case Study: Pure Stone (PRSA Silver Anvil Awards)
For more on Stone Brewing’s role in all this, and to read an exemplar of PR writing in itself, visit the Pure Stone blog (URL below) (Koch, 2017).
Koch, G. (2017). Stone Brewing and Pure Water San Diego go full circle. Retrieved from https://www.stonebrewing.com/blog/beer/2017/stone-brewing-and-pure-water-san-diego-go-full-circle#ageGatePassed
Using all the resources Carmen has provided, conduct your situation analysis and fill out your research breakdown document. Retain all your situation analysis notes; you will need them in future projects as you create documents such as fact sheets.
Next, you’ll distill your findings into a few paragraphs and a problem statement.
Project 1: Understand the Situation
Step 2: Draft and Discuss Your Situation Analysis (Submission)
Now that you’ve conducted and documented your research, you’re ready to synthesize your findings and draft the situation analysis. This will be just a paragraph or two culminating in the problem statement. . . . just want to give you a little guidance on the problem statement in case you haven’t written one before.
You recall the statement from the NazarOps plan:
The challenge for the communications program is to successfully introduce NazarOps to the DOD’s acquisition team, senior TRADOC leadership, and key congressional staff members, as well as differentiate the SecondSight Tactical Simulation System from its anticipated competitors.
This is a good example of a problem statement. It’s succinct and clear, lists key stakeholders, and follows the model in Broom & Sha (2013, pp. 244–245):
• Write it in the present tense.
• Describe the situation in specific and measurable terms (if applicable, the what, where, when, who, how, and why, similar to the contents of a SMART objective).
• Don’t imply solutions.
• Don’t place blame.
And remember that the “problem” can be an opportunity or even an acknowledgment that you’re on the right track and just need to stay the course.
When you have a completed draft of your situation analysis and process documentation, send it to Carmen.
Project 1: Understand the Situation
Step 3: Write Communications Goals and Objectives
Now that Carmen is reviewing your situation analysis, you can begin drafting the other components of the communications plan to which you’ve been assigned. You’ve likely already begun thinking about the goals and objectives; you’ll write these first and then use them to identify your publics. Finally, you’ll create messages for those publics. Note that you might make some revisions to the situation analysis based on Carmen’s feedback. If you do this, you’ll have to make sure the other plan components align with the updated version.
Your task in this step is to draft the Goals and Objectives sections of the plan. You’re unlikely to find anything that resembles goals or objectives on the SPCA site—especially not communications goals or objectives. You will, however, find clues in the mission statement, vision statement, general goals and/or objectives, policies, positions, About Us section, reports, summaries of achievements, and so forth that you reviewed during the situation analysis. You may find that some of the organization’s wants and needs are unstated; you’ll make inferences as you review your research and comb the information provided on the SPCA site. The ASPCA site might also give you some inspiration; any goals and objectives you see implied on the site might apply to your local nonprofit.
Use your research skills, creativity, and writing talent to generate aspirational statements (goals) and three communications objectives for SPCA. You’ve learned about the different types of objectives, including outtake, outcome, and output. The strongest strategic communications plans have a mix of all three, so be sure to include one of each type. You may want to refer to your notes on SMART objectives to refresh yourself on the different types of objectives and how to make your objectives specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. The pocket guide Carmen sent you in her Start Here email will also help you write the Goals and Objectives sections of the plan.
Once you’ve written your goals and objectives, you’ll identify and prioritize your publics.
Project 1: Understand the Situation
Step 4: Segment and Prioritize Publics
You’ve conducted your situation analysis and written your goals and objectives; now, you’ll identify, segment, and prioritize your target publics, both external and internal. You got some practice in these tasks with the NazarOps plan, but here, you’ll identify all your target publics instead of researching one or two. During the stakeholder analysis and other aspects of the situation analysis, you probably came up with a pretty good idea of who these publics are and how they should be segmented. Now is the time to make sure you understand your publics and fill in any research gaps with information such as the following:
• Who are your publics?
• What are their perceptions as related to your problem statement and objectives?
• What are their information consumption habits?
• Where are they located?
• What are their demographic and psychographic characteristics?
Take notes and hold onto them so that you can add context to the plan.
As you develop a well-rounded picture of your publics, refer to your notes on segmentation of stakeholders and other publics to make sure you’ve clearly identified and defined your publics, both internal and external.
Now, you can prioritize your publics. As with the NazarOps plan, you’ll assess the impact of the plan (or at least your draft of it) on each public as well as the potential impact of that public on SPCA. Your prioritization will determine how resources are allocated. In the Publics section of the plan, describe your publics and organize them under the subheadings Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.
Once you have all publics identified and prioritized, with sufficient detail about each to help Carmen write the other parts of the plan, move on to your final task for the SPCA communications plan: creating the messages.
Project 1: Understand the Situation
Step 5: Write Your Messages
You’ve come up with your situation analysis, goals, objectives, and public segmentation and prioritization; now, craft three messages you want to communicate to all your publics that will help fulfill the objectives.
Refer to your notes on messaging (developing messages) as needed. You may recall from your work with NazarOps that the messages in a communications plan—your core messages—should be high-level and not specific to any channel or platform. Each message should have a list of proof points; you can cull these from your situation analysis or conduct further research as needed.
Your messages for SPCA will not be specific to any given public (that is, they will be meant for all your publics), but note that more complex plans can involve message segmentation, or the creation of different messages for different publics. This is a communications planning technique you should know about even if you’re not segmenting messages in this case.
Finally, even though your messages will be conveyed in modified form in different products and will likely never reach your publics verbatim, they need to be clearly written in the plan so that they can be repackaged accurately. You’ll be creating tactics based on these messages in later projects, so be sure you’ve defined what you want to communicate.
Before you move on, perform a final check to make sure your messages align with and support all of your objectives. This is a great opportunity for you to do what all effective communications strategists do: bounce ideas off trusted colleagues. Your fellow junior account executives will serve as several pairs of fresh eyes. They may help you with your messages, or they may help you find that, although your messages are effective, your objectives need fine-tuning. Holding your objectives-messaging framework up to scrutiny can help you verify the alignment of all parts of your communications plan.
Project 1: Understand the Situation
Step 7: Revise and Refine Your Half of the Plan (Submission)
By now, Carmen has reviewed your situation analysis and provided feedback. You’ve also checked your objectives and messages with your peers. Take another look at the parts of your communications plan; review it holistically, ensure that all the components align with and support each other, make sure all parts are based on the research you conducted, and check your work for clarity and grammatical cleanliness. If need be, consult the Parabolic Writing Toolbox.
Before you hit the send button, make sure your plan has the following:
• a situation analysis culminating in a problem statement,
• communications goals,
• three SMART objectives (outcome, outtake, and output),
• a list of segmented and prioritized publics, and
• three media- and public-agnostic messages, with proof points for each.
Also prepare the file with your professional goal, target public, and message(s).
When you’re sure your half of the SPCA communications plan is perfectly composed and organized to help your client achieve its communications objectives, send the file to Carmen along with your professional messaging document.
