There’s no doubt that a great corporate communications strategy must be dynamic. Your team should be equipped to pivot when necessary; analyze and test its approach; be ready to adjust as needs, demands and the business landscape change; and expect the unexpected.

But as important as it is to have a flexible mindset and workstyle, it’s just as important to have a plan. That tried-and-true adage says it best: “Failure to plan is planning to fail.”

Many communications teams are currently fleshing out their plans for 2025, or soon will be. Are you? Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Look back to look ahead: Knowing where you’ve been helps you get where you want to go. How has 2024 gone? Have you accomplished what you set out to do? This is a great time to evaluate your successes and challenges. Maybe a splashy ad campaign fell flat. Or you still couldn’t attract the interest of your industry’s most important trade media. Perhaps an employee messaging campaign was met with great enthusiasm or a social media effort enrolled more new customers than you hoped. Use this information to shape next year’s communications plan.
• Build buy-in: Having in-house advocates and evangelists for the communications team’s work in general, and your 2025 plan in particular, can be a game-changer. What are the priorities of the C-Suite leaders? Have you asked them? How about the divisions that depend the most on your team’s support, whether sales or franchise management or production? Simple surveys, one-on-one conversations, intranet forums or even employee town halls all build buy-in. You’ll still have to balance competing demands and priorities, but these steps can give you direction.
• Always ladder up: Communications goals must always align with the overarching goals of the organization. Otherwise, you may put in the hard work and maybe even make it to the top of the summit, only to find you’re atop the wrong mountain range altogether. If your 2025 is filled with successes in refining the corporate brand or creating a great collection of internal messaging materials — but the companywide priority is attracting more customers younger than 40 — it might not look like success.
• Identify and fill in the gaps: Now’s the time to figure out where your team, and its output, fall short. Maybe you need to experiment more with AI platforms and invest in some of the many apps and tools out there. Perhaps there are other holes to address, through better technology, more training, outside partnerships, mentoring relationships, professional development opportunities, team-building exercises, additional staffing, or more-robust customer data collection and analysis. Identifying the gaps can help you allocate resources better; build a stronger team; and advocate for the tools, time and teammates that you need.
• Hash out the nitty-gritty: Constructing a 2025 communications plan means wrangling lots of details. Who are your key audiences, both internal and external? What are your goals and objectives, large and small, as well as the tactics you’ll use to deliver against them? What channels matter most to your stakeholders? How about metrics — which ones matter most? When, how and where will you monitor and collect that data, and how will you use it to move your communications forward? Have you drawn up a roadmap for core areas, such as media relations or ad campaigns? (See “Let your editorial roadmap lead the way.”) What cadence fits best — perhaps daily customer emails, thrice-weekly social media posts, weekly planning meetings, monthly calendars for every project and platform, quarterly brainstorming sessions, semiannual public forums and annual internal town hall meetings, and so on?

The bottom line: It’s work, but worth it

The process of building out a communications plan may be a lot of things, but “simple” isn’t one of them. At the end of the day (or, well, the end of the year), though, all the work, research and strategizing set your team — and the entire organization — up for success.