Writing your crisis comms playbook: Free guide reveals key techniques

Your crisis could start with a data breach. Or a recall of your flagship product. Or as a tweet that becomes an avalanche of negativity on the Internet.

Wherever it begins, key to a successful response is preparation.

That means that long before the crisis breaks, you must write a communications playbook that lays out how your organization will respond. Learn how in this free guide from Nasdaq Corporate Solutions and Ragan Communications.

The guide, “How to Build a World-Class Crisis Communications Playbook,” details how to build a crisis response team, anticipate incidents you may face and rehearse for crises. The free guide is available for download here.

“In today’s world,” says Richard B. “Rick” Goins, director of global communications for McDermott International, “there’s such a need for immediacy, you can get out in front of yourself if you don’t have a good playbook in hand.”

When traditional crises intersect with social media, having a playbook—and rehearsing your response—has become more vital than ever. Crises demand sure-footed preparation and speedy responses, be they to a recall, a data breach or an activist investor knocking your management in the press.

You’ll learn:

• How to build an incident response team. You can’t predict the next crisis that could damage your company, but effective preparation can mitigate its effects on your organization’s reputation and bottom line. Find out who should be at the table, including public relations, investor relations and your security team.

• How to prepare for activist investors. In publicly traded companies, crises can emerge when activist investors zero in on an organization and begin criticizing its management in the press. Find out how to prepare a response team before you face this issue.

• Why you need comprehensive contact lists. Depending on the size and reach, you may require lists of local, regional, national and global journalists to contact.

• How prepared statements written long before a crisis strikes can help you respond faster and more thoughtfully.

• Tips for holding drills for various crisis scenarios. Some organizations conduct drills annually; others, in high-risk industries, do so even more frequently. Learn how to prepare through drills and evaluate your effectiveness afterward.

• How “dark websites” prepared in advance can speed your response. If you’re working in an industry that has inherent risks-food tampering, a data breach or a plane crash-prepare a dark site that you can activate, says Nicholas F. Peters, senior vice president of CommCore Consulting Group.

• The importance of regular media training for your executives. McDermott schedules annual media training, and executive team members cycle through it every two years.

• How to monitor social media and set up a listening protocol, whether it’s monitoring keywords or keeping an eye on journalists and other influential people.

• How to conduct a postmortem examining how well your spokesperson did and how you were portrayed in news media coverage. Ask yourself, “What aspects do we need to review to reinvigorate and to ensure that we’re on the right track?” says Matthew Doering, president and senior partner at Global Gateway Advisors.

Download your free copy of “How to Build a World-Class Crisis Communications Playbook.”

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