Sure you do.
At PRSA’s webinar, Internal Communication during COVID-19, my colleagues and friends Becky Graebe from Dynamic Signal, and Ally Bunin from Reynolds Russell Associates and I talked about a heap of ways to do a good job communicating during these exceptionally interesting times.
During that conversation, I shared the AMMO planning model that I’ve been touting for literally YEARS. I gave a quick “back-of-the-envelope” explanation, and shared my article from a few years ago in PRSA’s The Strategist publication. I wanted to add the slide deck I used in Fall 2019 at PRSA International Conference in San Diego, along with a little more color in putting it to use.
The AMMO — Audience, Message, Method, Objective — is designed as a fast, memorable means of planning comms. You can use it for broad strategy, or for situational communication. You can think through it fast, though, and that’s why I brought it to the webinar.
The details are in the Deck, but briefly, this is how it works.
Audiences: Who will we be communicating with. I know that our constituencies, stakeholders or publics aren’t passive receivers of whatever we share with them, but audiences has a simplicity to it that works well. Initially, be exhaustive. Capture as many as possible. And then…
Objectives: What do we want those people to think, feel and/or do? When we start with who and what, we set up the messaging better and ensure we’re using the methods we need to realize our objectives.
Messages: What do we need to communicate to make the objectives happen? What do we need to tell and hear? Messaging is the idea that underpins copy and imagery. It’s not a tag line, a slogan or a mission statement. Those things INSPIRE messaging, and messaging serves to set guidelines around our creativity.
Methods: Too often we start here! “We need a video.” “We need an email from the CEO.” No, thanks. Start with A/O/M – get those right and the methods will reveal themselves!
That’s the thumbnail – Check out the deck, and feel free to reach out to me if you want to talk about this stuff. I’m a highly compensated academic now, not a filthy capitalist business guy, so no pressure! (You can hear my esteemed wife roaring with laughter now…)
Note: When I was at True Digital Communications I did a webinar about the AMMO method. It’s still available if you want to give a listen.
