Not just numbers

How can we most effectively make a case to stakeholders for the array of business and sectoral challenges that our clients face, and the action required to solve them? The consistent challenge for businesses when engaging with political audiences is to cut through an often-packed news and political agenda, in which policy priorities range significantly and compete for attention.??

Businesses must be agile and creative to ensure they articulate their key messages authentically. At Lexington, we know that taking an evidence-based approach using data-driven insights provides our clients with the best chance of success for i) aligning on strategic objectives at the outset of a project, and b) ensuring messages are concise, can cut-through, and crucially, are considered by stakeholders.??

In essence, Data and Insights at Lexington means to carry out targeted data analysis across various channels - such as media, social media and Parliamentary discourse - to obtain a greater understanding of how a particular issue or organisation is being represented by a given audience. Securing and engaging with this data through specialised platforms enables us to attain a far greater appreciation for both the challenges, risks and opportunities that any business faces.??

Mapping risk and opportunity for stakeholders and communications audiences?

Emerging issues and opportunities can gain traction quickly in today’s media and social media environment, and it is imperative for businesses to be laser-focused on changing attitudes and trends across media, social media and Parliamentary activity – ensuring prompt action can be taken as they arise. Our Data and Insights team at Lexington operates as an extension of your team – identifying changes in patterns of discussion, and implementing strategies to mitigate and respond to emerging risks.??

Data and Insights approaches to Risk Mapping ultimately allows us to identify early onset risk and subsequently create better informed strategies to address it in tandem with our Public Affairs and Corporate Communications teams. We’ve carried this out for a number of businesses in the property, food and drink, and healthcare spaces, where we’ve helped them to model future risks and opportunities amongst corporate communications audiences.?

Likewise, our Data and Insights approaches allow businesses to elucidate data on policy landscapes to stakeholders in the policy space. Data-driven insights achieve this by tracking interactions with key content alongside highlighting the sentiment and prominent actors within debates of key issues, which statistically informs the direction of external campaigns to have a greater impact on policy debates, based on previous activity. We’ve carried this out for a number of businesses in the housing, healthcare and transport spaces.?

Evaluating success to inform future campaigns?

Elsewhere, data is also able to intricately demonstrate the success and shortcomings of campaigns launched by businesses. Data-driven insights achieve this through considering the response to a campaign and the subsequent shifts in the volume of discussion of key issues and organisations across key channels. Using this data, we can identify the arguments that landed best – and the ones that may have fallen on deaf ears. This is a valuable resource to inform strategic planning, and understanding how key messages can be refined to optimise future engagement with key audiences.?

Overall, Data and Insights approaches can help to generate insights on the effectiveness of past campaigns and learnings on previous competitor campaigns. Indeed, these insights allow us to act on previous performance with full confidence and enable businesses to learn valuable lessons about which arguments and messages gain real cut through with policy makers.?

All in all, our Data and Insights team and approaches are baked into our day-to-day processes and work as a bedrock of audience, campaign and landscape insights, from which our consultants can learn from and use to inform strategies, tweak tactics and build our businesses’ political profile. This is in line with industry best practice using frameworks from AMEC, where one of our team judged the awards in 2024, and from case studies at the APG too. At Lexington, we don’t just provide numbers, but bring a living, breathing bedrock of insights across our teams. ?

Please do get in touch with George Gers ([email protected] ) and Vinay Chhana, Lexington’s Head of Data and Insights ([email protected] ) for more information on how we can support you with creative and data-driven campaigns.?