In our more than thirty years of experience, we’ve seen a lot of Emergency Plans – some of which were extremely comprehensive. But most gave short shrift to the communications aspects of emergency management, punt the responsibility to the marketing communications team, and call things good. It’s not, because the mar-com team needs a plan, too – and it needs to seamlessly dovetail with your Emergency Plan.

Consider: communications during major events isn’t just about dealing with reporters and social media. It involves every single one of your stakeholder groups: victims and survivors, your clientele, your staff, your real and online communities, regulatory and elected officials at the local, state and federal levels, chambers of commerce, vendors, and more. In a major event, you may need to be in regular contact with any or all of these stakeholder groups.

The basic rule of thumb is that everyone gets the same information. But the way that information is delivered varies according to the stakeholder group. For example, you don’t want your staff finding out about a major event by reading about it on social media. They need to hear it from you, and you need to understand the most efficient and effective way to reach each group. Our Emergency Communications Plans facilitate doing just that.