Communication is at the heart of all spread initiatives, and it is the central activity of the spread agents and the key messengers. Because of its importance, organizations need a communication campaign to organize and carry out spread activities over the course of the spread initiative (Hirschorn, 2002).

The purposes of the communication campaign are to build awareness of the new ideas and provide technical support to those ready to adopt the ideas. The purposes should be matched with the appropriate methods of communication (Fraser, 2002). For example, large meetings may help to build awareness while one-to-one conversations may be more effective to move people closer to the decision to adopt or to provide the detail about how to make the improvements.