Design Thinking for Strategic Communications: Start With the Audience
Communications planning often begins with a request: promote a program, create a campaign, or bring people to an event. The next conversation can quickly become a list of deliverables, deadlines, and logistics.
Before we make those decisions, we need to understand the people we hope to reach. Who are they? What matters to them? What gets in their way? What would make it easier for them to participate, stay involved, or take the next step?
Design thinking gives strategic communications a practical way to work through those questions. We investigate the audience’s experience, define the challenge, brainstorm possible responses, assign next steps, and return to evaluate what we learn. The plan develops through that process and remains open to change.
Ryan Abramson, director of strategic communications at Penn State Lehigh Valley, working with nursing program leaders on a design thinking exercise for marketing the program.
Bring the right people into the room
The people involved in the planning process matter as much as the questions we ask. Bring as many people relevant to the issue as possible into the same conversation, including those who know the audience, deliver the experience, manage the requirements, and carry out the plan. Hearing those perspectives together helps a team connect information that might otherwise remain in separate conversations.
The exercises we design should encourage dialogue, curiosity, and shared investigation. Ask participants to map the audience’s experience, identify obstacles, or explore possible responses together. Make space for questions and disagreement while keeping the conversation focused on understanding the challenge. When someone says, “We’ve always done it this way,” there is an opportunity to ask why that approach was chosen and whether it still serves the audience.
Examining an existing approach does not mean the past was wrong. The current direction may still be the best one. Renewing our confidence in a plan can be just as valuable as finding a new way forward, especially when the team understands the reasoning and evidence behind it. Experience provides useful context, and new perspectives give us a chance to examine that context together.
Team buy-in is an ongoing goal. As new colleagues join, new ideas emerge, and circumstances change, people need opportunities to contribute and understand how decisions are made. Returning to the conversation helps the team maintain shared ownership of the work and confidence in its direction.
Understanding the full student experience
In my work as director of strategic communications at Penn State Lehigh Valley, we used this approach to think through communications and student engagement for the Practical Nursing program. The program offers an 18-month curriculum with evening and weekend instruction, preparing students to pursue practical nursing licensure.
Our discussion started by drilling down on the audience. Who are the students considering this program, and who are the students already enrolled? What challenges do they face in completing it? Why do they stay? What does participation cost, including expenses beyond the program’s tuition? How many students remain for the entire program, and what could help improve retention?
We also explored visibility and connection. How could more prospective students learn about the program? How could we strengthen students’ affinity for Penn State Lehigh Valley throughout their experience? What obstacles might our own processes or communications be creating? Which obstacles could we remove, and which fixed requirements could we explain or approach in a more useful way?
Those questions broadened the assignment. Promoting the program became part of a larger conversation about helping people understand the opportunity, prepare for its demands, and remain connected as they moved through it.
Design thinking includes turning questions into assignments
The next step was to give the investigation structure and assign responsibility for moving it forward.
One assignment was to build a yearlong calendar identifying everything we knew about each month from two perspectives: the current cohort and potential new students. Looking at the year this way could help us anticipate when people need information, support, reminders, or encouragement. It also gave us a shared view of the experience we were asking people to navigate.
Another assignment was to research how video could make program information more accessible. Someone considering nursing may have only a lunch break or a few minutes between other responsibilities to explore the opportunity. Clear, focused videos could allow that person to learn on their own time and return when they were ready for more information.
We assigned work to understand how additional expenses might be minimized. We also assigned a review of the licensing requirements relevant to plans for expansion, so that compliance would inform our decisions from the beginning.
These were concrete next steps that came from investigating the audience and the program together. They also showed how strategic communications can help reveal questions about operations, student support, and access that require collaboration across a team.
Applying the same approach to a LaunchBox event
We followed a similar pattern with Penn State Lehigh Valley’s LaunchBox, this time focused on an event where area entrepreneurs could have fun and build connections.
The game night concept came from the LaunchBox board, a group of volunteers committed to LaunchBox and its initiatives. That idea gave us a starting point. We then worked through whom we wanted to reach, how to invite them, and what support the event would need.
We assigned responsibilities and added paid LinkedIn advertising targeted to our key audience. We also made the requests for volunteers and helpers more specific, clarifying the jobs people could take on and the contribution each would make.
The result was a successful night with 40 participants and strong energy and enthusiasm for the new event. A board-generated idea became an opportunity for connection through clear responsibilities, focused outreach, and a shared understanding of the audience.
Keep the plan intentionally fluid
The nursing program and the LaunchBox event involved different audiences and objectives. Both benefited from a planning process that began with research, investigation, and brainstorming, then moved into specific assignments.
That process needs a rhythm of coming back together. What have we learned? What is working? What needs to be redirected? Where should we encourage the team to keep going? The measures will depend on the goal: attendance and participant feedback for an event; inquiries, student feedback, retention, and completion for a program.
The critical part of design thinking is that the plan is intentionally fluid. Realities change. People change. Opportunities change. A new insight can improve an idea. A constraint can prompt a more useful approach. Feedback can reveal a need we had not understood.
Clear objectives and assigned responsibilities give the work direction. Regular reflection allows the team to adapt with purpose. Planning begins with the audience and continues through listening, action, measurement, and adjustment. That is how strategic communications can support both the organization’s goals and the people whose participation makes those goals possible.
About the author: Ryan Abramson is director of strategic communications at Penn State Lehigh Valley and is based in Langhorne, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His work focuses on strategic communications, audience engagement, storytelling, and collaborative planning.
Comments