Crisis Communications: Planning for the Unplanned

Part of working in the PR field (or any marketing-related field) means working with clients to develop plans. Here at Off Madison Ave, we have plans for everything – from events and interviews to outreach and strategy, we develop plans. They give our clients (and us) peace of mind that we have everything under control; we know what is going on and we know how to handle it. But what happens when the unexpected occurs? There’s an app for that – well, not really, but hopefully there is a plan.

And, if there isn't - or it hasn't been revisited in quite some time - here are some tips and friendly reminders to keep in mind for crisis communications planning:

Plan for as much as you can, as far in advance as you can.

• Everyone needs a crisis communications strategy, but often it’s the one thing people do not want to plan for, or fail to create. The official crisis strategy mantra should be: make a plan, test the plan, update the plan and USE the plan.

• When making a plan, outline potential crisis situations. Basically anything that disrupts normal operations within business – good or bad – can be considered a crisis. Posing and answering all possible “what if?” questions to anticipate scenarios will be extremely helpful down the road.

• Address the before, during and after stages of a crisis for all potential scenarios to create a well-rounded plan.

• Consider all possible platforms for a crisis, including social and traditional media. Keeping Twitter or Facebook in mind while planning is extremely important, especially because if a crisis breaks out online there will be drastically less time to react and respond.

Get your internal team on board and prepared in the early stages.

• Include all necessary people including CEOs, the legal team, board members etc. in the planning process. Create a chain of command for when a crisis situation breaks out and pinpoint points of contact for media, community etc. that are comfortable with and prepared for that role.

• Keep a current list of contact information for every single person that is involved in the crisis plan – keep that information up-to-date!

• Craft key messages and statements that will be pre-approved by the legal team if needed. This way, the statements are ready to go should a crisis occur and an immediate response is necessary. If any other foundational documents may be needed, prepare and approve those as well.

Once you're prepared, be persistent, adaptive, responsive and resilient.

• Be willing to respond, be timely and communicate openly. Establish communication and then continue to follow up and provide updates as they become available. One blanket statement won’t do the trick.

• Once the plan is created, test the plan. Update the plan regularly to make sure it is as up-to-date as possible when it actually needs to be used.

Last, but certainly not least, when a crisis hits, remember to use the plan – that’s what it is there for after all!

Image Credit: Ross Hawkes

About the Author: Kayla Weimer

In her role as account coordinator, Kayla assists the PR team in producing and organizing a variety of items for international, national and local clients. She particularly enjoys media and community outreach, cooking, being outdoors and exploring Arizona one restaurant at a time. Kayla recently graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in Communication and minors in English and Sociology.

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