An effective crisis communication strategy can protect and defend an organisation’s reputation.
Often thought of as a defensive strategy, crisis communications should be considered proactively, in line with a marketing and communications strategy, with scenarios and responses planned accordingly.
Whilst we often don’t want to think of the ‘worst case scenario’, building a list of responses for scenarios that might impact your organisation protects against a reactive or poorly considered reactions – ensuring your company responds to every scenario with a concise and measured approach, quickly.
Effective crisis communication involves a few components, including:
The guide below helps ensure that a pre-planned communications strategy is considered, so that a swift approach can be delivered from the moment (where appropriate) a scenario occurs.
Mitigation
A proactive mitigation of crisis communication, which is often overlooked, is consistent, positive communications across your company’s key communications channels. This means ensuring that a marketing strategy is clearly defined and executed by a company and key opinion leaders at your company. When done correctly, this can help mitigate some of the potential reputational damage of crisis communications.
Creating a crisis communications plan
At the core of crisis communications, is having and maintaining a proactive plan with scenarios that might impact your organisation. This is an exercise that every organisation should go through and will involve multiple stakeholders in an organisation. To build a crisis communications plan, follow the steps below:
1. Assemble a crisis communications team
Identify key members of your organisation who will be responsible for handling crises. This often includes representatives from marketing (or public relations), HR, legal and key members of the executive team, including the CEO. Clearly define roles and responsibilities for each team member.
2. Identify crisis scenarios
With this group, brainstorm crisis situations that could impact any part of the organisation, these should then be categorised in order of likelihood and severity. Issues to consider include:
3. Develop response strategies
For each crisis, you should:
4. Create a location on your internal server where key parties can access relevant information
5. Train and prepare your team
Ensure all team members understand the plan and their roles.
6. Review and update regularly
Other crisis PR do’s and don’ts
When considering writing responses and planning for your crisis communications plan, here are a few other considerations to take onboard:
Crisis PR “do's”
Crisis PR “don'ts”
Additional resources
Axios Communicatons: Axios is a good resource to subscribe to when thinking about how to approach crisis communications, as well as offering a range of relevant templates to take from.
Please reach out directly should you have an issue that warrants crisis communications management. Folklore has a range of recommendations to suit specific circumstances.
This resource, and any guidance within it, must not be relied on as legal advice. We recommend that you seek specific advice to deliver an outcome best suited to your situation.
An effective crisis communication strategy can protect and defend an organisation’s reputation.
Often thought of as a defensive strategy, crisis communications should be considered proactively, in line with a marketing and communications strategy, with scenarios and responses planned accordingly.
Whilst we often don’t want to think of the ‘worst case scenario’, building a list of responses for scenarios that might impact your organisation protects against a reactive or poorly considered reactions – ensuring your company responds to every scenario with a concise and measured approach, quickly.
Effective crisis communication involves a few components, including:
The guide below helps ensure that a pre-planned communications strategy is considered, so that a swift approach can be delivered from the moment (where appropriate) a scenario occurs.
Mitigation
A proactive mitigation of crisis communication, which is often overlooked, is consistent, positive communications across your company’s key communications channels. This means ensuring that a marketing strategy is clearly defined and executed by a company and key opinion leaders at your company. When done correctly, this can help mitigate some of the potential reputational damage of crisis communications.
Creating a crisis communications plan
At the core of crisis communications, is having and maintaining a proactive plan with scenarios that might impact your organisation. This is an exercise that every organisation should go through and will involve multiple stakeholders in an organisation. To build a crisis communications plan, follow the steps below:
1. Assemble a crisis communications team
Identify key members of your organisation who will be responsible for handling crises. This often includes representatives from marketing (or public relations), HR, legal and key members of the executive team, including the CEO. Clearly define roles and responsibilities for each team member.
2. Identify crisis scenarios
With this group, brainstorm crisis situations that could impact any part of the organisation, these should then be categorised in order of likelihood and severity. Issues to consider include:
3. Develop response strategies
For each crisis, you should:
4. Create a location on your internal server where key parties can access relevant information
5. Train and prepare your team
Ensure all team members understand the plan and their roles.
6. Review and update regularly
Other crisis PR do’s and don’ts
When considering writing responses and planning for your crisis communications plan, here are a few other considerations to take onboard:
Crisis PR “do's”
Crisis PR “don'ts”
Additional resources
Axios Communicatons: Axios is a good resource to subscribe to when thinking about how to approach crisis communications, as well as offering a range of relevant templates to take from.
Please reach out directly should you have an issue that warrants crisis communications management. Folklore has a range of recommendations to suit specific circumstances.
This resource, and any guidance within it, must not be relied on as legal advice. We recommend that you seek specific advice to deliver an outcome best suited to your situation.
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