To communicate or not to communicate

Spanish Version

A communication action that aims at achieving concrete goals must be previously evaluated for its cost-benefit. That is, how much time, energy and money it will take, and how profitable it will be. It is that simple.

How to evaluate that equation? Communication must be analyzed as an investment and a business unit. An investment involving the risk of a capital that is made up of media advertising, message production and professionals' fees.

The risk and evolution of that disbursement is similar in any business. For instance, when a bakery thinks about buying an oven, it studies how much time it will take to recover the investment and what profit it will yield, as a business unit itself. The same happens with communication.

Let me give you a personal example. For a long time, I wanted to advertise my studio in the English magazine The Economist because its readers were my dream clients. I gathered the money, designed my ad and published it. For three months, my advertising reached everyone I had desired. As a result, I got a client in China and another in Switzerland. However, the expense was greater than my earnings. And the impact of diffusion and positioning, measurable by the number of visits to my site, did not increased as expected either. In consequence, I canceled the diffusion after that period.

So, as an investment and communication, what I did at The Economist was not very positive. Nevertheless, I can conclude that that action helped me to learn and experience new markets. Also, thanks to that, I can now offer this humble advice.

In short, you should always analyze your communication in terms of cost-benefit. If you are willing to invest, first of all, know the potential of this business that is communication.

The next question is how to anticipate the effectiveness of communication, in order to guarantee that benefit, but that is another post…

Spanish Version

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About Me

I have a Ph.D. in Communications & Image (Kent University, England). Trusted by companies from 32 countries around the world, I designed more than 500 successful brands.

If you’d like to know more about me and my work, please visit www.guerriniisland.com and https://lospoderesdeldiseno.com/

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Team

Sebastian Guerrini | Laura Lara | Juana Daroda | Josefina Zapata Andrada