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Monthly Newsletter: The MVPR Spectrum
Stockpiling Ammunition for Crisis Response
Nov 18 2004
Welcome to the MVPR Spectrum, an electronic newsletter published by Mt. Vernon PR & Communications. MVPR Spectrum features topics of interest to PR, marketing, and communications professionals and others in corporate and association management.
You are receiving this email either because you subscribed or were referred as someone who would be interested in the content. Feel free to forward it to your friends and colleagues who might enjoy it; they can subscribe by following the instructions below. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please scroll down to opt out.
In this issue:
-- Stockpiling Ammunition for Crisis Response
-- Free Crisis Communications white paper
-- Send us your tips
More and more organizations are creating disaster recovery, crisis response or business continuity plans, but many of them neglect to include a crisis communications component in their plans. If you haven’t prepared a crisis communication plan, you may find our free white paper helpful. The information below will help in making your preparations.
MVPR wishes you and yours a safe and happy holiday season and peace in the new year.
Best Regards,
Rosanne Desmone
Principal, Mt. Vernon PR & Communications
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MVPR Spectrum
Volume 2, Number 5
September/October 2004
The MVPR Spectrum is published by Mt. Vernon PR & Communications to provide our friends and clients with information on public relations and communications topics that we trust will be useful and/or interesting.
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***STOCKPILING AMMUNITION FOR CRISIS RESPONSE
Every crisis must be managed, because effective crisis management helps preserve a business’s credibility, reputation, and value. Crisis communications, which manages the public perception of your organization in any crisis, is a critical component of crisis management. Naturally, you have a crisis communications plan, part of which should include the gathering of information you may need to respond to any type of crisis. The more you do beforehand, the less scrambling you’ll have to do in crisis mode. Below are some examples of the kind of information you should have at your fingertips.
- General Organizational Information
If a crisis shines an unexpected media spotlight on your organization, you need to provide media know who you are and what you do: general information on your overall organization (annual report, corporate overview, organizational fact sheet, etc.). If you don’t have this already, prepare something— even a one-page summary is better than nothing – and be sure to keep this information up-to-date. The media generally will use the information you provide; if you give them nothing, they will find other sources— maybe even your competition.
- Specific Organizational Information
Once you have your organizational fact sheet, prepare one for each subsidiary, branch office, division, department, group, etc. – whatever is appropriate for your organization. Keep it simple… what each does, where they are, who’s in charge, and any other information that you feel will be useful to the media.
- Identify Potential Crisis Situations
Meet with key people in the organization to develop a list of the most likely crises that might occur; once you get people thinking, you’ll easily create a list. Then collect any information available—reports, clippings, internal actions, minutes of meetings—and create a file for each potential crisis you identify. Include whatever might later help you discuss what happened, why it happened, and what protections or preventive measures were in place to prevent it from happening. If similar incidents occurred in the past, have available all information on what was done to correct the problem. Again, keep these files current.
- Key Messages
For each potential crisis you identify, develop three key messages that you will include in all your communications about the crisis. These depend on the situation, but should convey, at a minimum, your concern and sympathy about what happened; that you had procedures in place to prevent the situation from happening; and that you are taking all possible actions to resolve the crisis.
- FAQ List
It’s pretty easy to figure out what questions the media will have about certain crisis situations. Take advantage of their predictability and develop for each potential crisis a list of frequently asked questions (and answers) that you can have at hand in case something happens. With this at the ready, you’ll just have to update it with current relevant Q&A as the situation unfolds.
While these items will help get you through a crisis, you may be able to think of additional items specific to your business or industry that should be included in your crisis response arsenal.
***FREE WHITE PAPER
This article is drawn from the MVPR white paper, “The Crisis Communications Challenge: Are You Prepared?” The white paper is available to view or download from a link on our home page, www.mtvernonpr.com.
***SEND US YOUR TIPS
If you have some tips that have gotten your organization through a crisis (or even a small blip), we’d like to feature them here. Please send them to info@mtvernonpr.com and let us know about your successes, and we will feature them in upcoming issues.
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Mt. Vernon PR & Communications (MVPR) provides a full range of public relations and marketing communications services to companies and associations on the move, in a hurry, and determined to stay on top. We specialize in creating and enhancing your visibility and credibility in the marketplace, using your unique capabilities and expertise as the building blocks. For more information about Mt. Vernon PR & Communications, please visit our web site at www.mtvernonpr.com
Check out the MVPR resources page and link to some of the Web sites we have found helpful. While you are there, you can sign up for our white paper alert service (http://www.mtvernonpr.com/resources_wp.asp). If there are topics you'd be interested in seeing in the newsletter, please send your suggestions to info@mtvernonpr.com.
Previous issues of MVPR Spectrum are available here: http://www.mtvernonpr.com/newsletter.asp
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