How Do You Value Communication?

Public relations practitioners typically work at two levels – as strategic advisors to CEOs and senior management and as a support to marketing – following are some insights into their value.

As a strategic advisor

Consider the climate when your organisation is undergoing major internal issues such as enterprise bargaining negotiations.

The worst-case scenario in this process would be industrial action. The value of preventing this action and having the process run relatively smoothly is very high.

Your communication advisor should work with you to clarify the relationships with each of the stakeholders, identify their communication needs and then deliver consistent messages.

It is critical to be alert throughout the process, so another key role for the communicator is to monitor all the external and internal messages that follow the issue, in particular the media.

If your organisation is high profile it is more likely to be targeted by the media during this process and possibly used as an example. If the situation is taken out of context it could ‘fire up’ the negotiation process and also have a negative impact on your reputation in the marketplace.

Having a solid communication strategy in place before such an incident hits is your insurance policy.

As a support to marketing

In this role, your public relations strategist might be called on to support the launch of a new product. You will have identified expectations of market share, profit margins and you also need to define your expectations of public relations.

For example, if it is a completely new concept, the role might be to ensure the target market understands the need for the product. This might be achieved through carefully targeted publicity or through building relationships with organisations or individuals that can offer endorsement.

Could the product be launched without this support? The answer is, yes, of course. But a better question might be “What impact would a negative relationship with the media or with a key organisation have on the launch and subsequent sales of the product?”

These examples demonstrate the value of public relations – the next step is how you measure it.

It is not surprising that measurement and evaluation of communication strategies is the fastest growing service area for many public relations consultancies.

Increasingly, CEOs are demanding measurable results from the money they invest in communication activities.

Like any area of business, whether it is sales, marketing, accounts or customer service, there is an increasing trend to ensure that investment in communication is achieving measurable outcomes.

It is also essential that measurement and evaluation methods are an integral part of the planning and implementation of your strategy, not an optional add on. To be effective, evaluation should be built into the input, output and outcome levels of your strategy.

So what does that mean?

Input – as part of your strategy development you need to be clear on the following:

• Does your audience want or need this information?
  
  
• What is the best way to communicate with them?
  
  
• How often should you communicate with them?
  
  
• Who will they listen to?

Output – once you have delivered the communication, regardless of whether it was a meeting, an event or a newsletter you need to find out the following:

• Did they understand the communication?
  
  
• Why did they attend the event?
  
  
• What was their response?

Outcome – in most cases the outcome is based on getting your audience to do something differently (behaviour change) or think something different (attitude change). Sometimes this is obvious but in situations where you have a large number of people you are communicating to or the change is gradual you need to track the outcome.

There is a wide range of evaluation methodologies available to prove the value of your communication activities.

Some examples commonly used include:

• Surveys of stakeholder groups, readers of your publications, employees or journalists
  
  
• Focus groups
  
  
• Analysis of website statistics
  
  
• Media content analysis – the message, its audience and reach, all have positive or negative impact on its value
  
  
• Linking results to behaviour change through performance reviews.

Is your communication activity achieving your outcomes or making a difference?

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