How do you evaluate your strategic communication activities and efforts?

Communication isn't a one way flow of information. It requires both expressing and receiving and if you aren't paying attention to how your message is received how will you know if you've communicated effectively? Take time to understand and measure how your communication efforts have landed with your audience(s) and then bring a lens of experimentation to your messaging to see what worked, what didn't, and what could be improved next time.

Evaluation can tell you which of your communication efforts are working and should be continued. But just as importantly, evaluation may let you know that some communication efforts aren't effective enough to keep active, allowing you to free up time and resources to focus on enhancing the materials that deliver the most value.

We are in a time of constant evolution of technology and communication platforms. With this, our audience's communication preferences could also change. Whether your audience is internal (employees) or external, it's imperative we evaluate HOW our audience(s) want to be communicated with, WHEN they want to be communicated with, and WHERE they want to be communicated with. What was effective just 3 years ago could very well not be the preferable communication choice now.

From a DEI perspective we need to constantly be evaluating our communication for tone, word usage, clarity and bias awareness. It is easy for people to accidently use terminology when writing quick communication that while inoffensive to them, could alienate a person or a group. Through self evaluation we get into better habits and have increased awareness.

Evaluation is a powerful tool when we can demonstrate how communication supported a business need and helped the organization drive revenue, build relationships and/or achieve relevance in the industry and brand ecosystem. While evaluation can include outputs (hits, impressions, etc.), senior executives care about outcomes, i.e., contributing to the business strategy, affecting change in behavior and attitude or facilitating action by the target audience. We have to show our value by focusing on how we help the company's bottom line. This requires creating partnerships and alliances by working collaboratively across the organization with HR, finance, operations, IT, legal, etc., to deliver collective impact.

In my experience it's important to determine whether your communication efforts are leading to the desired behavior change. For example, are people signing up for your newsletter, attending your events, or buying your products? If not, that may be an indication that you need to tweak your message.

One thing I've found most helpful is baselining quantity and digging into the details. I've built reports starting with readership, click rates and completion percentages to tell the story of effective communication. Storytelling helps to qualify (and eliminate) content, especially when communicating to large, inclusive audiences. Evaluating communication in your organization can also help identify and eliminate forms of communication that are ineffective, and help streamline the "how" of communicating.

I think that marketers today are needlessly bound by attribution metrics; meaning that thanks to influence from CFOs and/or investors, we're pushed to show ROI for every single communication touchpoint. In B2B, this sets unrealistic expectations, given that the B2B buyer's journey isn't linear and is often a 6-12 month process involving an abundance of digital due diligence prior to a potential customer ever being recognized as "a lead." As a result, I think marketers should be looking at composite metrics that signal success of a content ecosystem rather than being driven to evaluate the effectiveness of a single piece of content or communication.

I would say that to measure communication engagement effectively, it is essential to define clear goals and use relevant metrics, such as 1) Reach: This metric measures the number of ppl. who have seen or interacted with a particular piece of communication. For example, the number of followers, visitors to a website, or people who attended an event 2) Impressions: number of times a particular communication has been seen, a social media posting was viewed, a radio advertisement was heard 3) Engagement Rate: How much a given communication interacts or engages. Examples: likes, comments, shares, or retweets 4) Feedback and sentiment: This measures the level expressed by the action taken by the target audience in response to a communication

When creating communications materials that another team delivers to your company's prospects, it's important to understand both how and how often they are used. Software can track how often your materials are being used, who on your sales team is using them, and in some cases, how much time the prospect spends viewing them. However, numbers alone can't necessarily explain the full story about what works and what doesn't. Ongoing conversations with internal stakeholders are essential to the process of creating communications that provide real value to your customers and your company.

In my experience, you shouldn’t be holding out on evaluations for the end of the quarter or end of year. This should be a daily and weekly practice to properly gauge what efforts are working and what are not. There are so many variables in communications that waiting for a project’s end is too late. The evaluation shouldn’t be a reflection exercise. You need to be dynamic with your strategy and recalibrate as needed.

I've found it helpful to evaluate from a project management standpoint to remain agile enough to fix problems during a campaign but also be firm sticking to what definitely works and what definitely does not work. In my experience, a post-mortem/lessons learned meeting with all key stakeholders helps plan triggers for the next campaign, so I typically evaluate start to finish (live numbers, questions, etc.), and then finish to start (completion rates/actuals, develop FAQs).

It's essential to evaluate consistently to ensure that you're communicating how you want to communicate with your audience as well as to ensure that your audience is receiving your communication. If your message isn't being received, than resources are just being wasted. Evaluation should be done in the beginning, middle, and end, and your communication strategy should change based on the results.

Always show clients how you're using the analysis and insights to optimize your strategies. Tell a story with the data: What were the key takeaways and how are you putting those findings into action.

Don't sugarcoat or cherry pick the results you share. Be transparent and complete. Then show how you're addressing areas that need improvement.

Keep in mind the audience you are presenting data to and tailor the data so that it resonates with them. Not every client understands the ebb and flow of the modern media landscape or the value of public relations. This is the opportunity to demonstrate the significance of strategic communication tactics.

Different stakeholders value different data sets. For instance, a Benefits department may care about communicating changes to benefits packages and ensuring that existing plan holders renew, while HR or Security may care about mandatory training completions. It's important to know what your stakeholders need to measure their success before implementing any communications plans, so that you can focus on their goals and be strategic in content planning.