Goal-setting for Effective Communications Measurement

By Jun Quintana, VP, Head of Analytics and Insights

Eastwick is dedicating its September newsletter to measurement in support of AMEC’s (International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) observance of Measurement Month.

Underscoring this month is the revisiting of the Barcelona Principles, a set of voluntary guidelines for research in PR and other communications disciplines. Central to the updates made to the research guidelines is an acknowledgement that the communications landscape has changed since the original drafting of the guidelines five years ago.

PR is only one of many components of an increasingly integrated approach to marketing communications. It is integrated, in ways that messages are disseminated (paid, earned, and owned media) and how communication performance is measured (both quantitatively and qualitatively). This integrated landscape benefits CMO’s and others in similar roles as they face increasing pressure to show how their efforts align with and contribute to their company’s overall goals and objectives.

The importance of goal-setting is core to these revised measurement principles. The question at the forefront of every goal-setting exercise is: “What do you ideally want to happen?” The goal becomes an objective when you are able to be more specific about the goals themselves by phrasing them as an action, place it along a timeline, and set measurable outcomes.

Measurement starts with clear program goals and communication objectives. Properly formulated objectives address the following questions:

• Who? (your target audience)
• What? (the change you want to instill)
• By how much? (how much change are you aiming for)
• When? (the time-frame by which you want to achieve your objective)

Examples are:

• Increase website visitor whitepaper downloads by 10% by Q4–2015
• Increase positive industry analyst mentions of Client A by 5% by end of year 2015
• Increase Client B CMO quotes in top-tier press by 20% in Q3–2105

Communications objectives provide the following key benefits when formulated correctly:

• Offers a clear path to prioritizing elements of a program
• Reduces chances of disagreements among stakeholders
• Aligns communication objectives with business objectives
• Prescribes areas for program change and improvement
• Provides a path for performance benchmarking and evaluation

At Eastwick, we are strong proponents of benchmarking communications programs with the right performance metrics. That means measurement approaches are not one-size-fits-all. Depending on your clients’ communications needs, measuring against program goals and objectives spans the phases of communication: from awareness, knowledge, interest, support, and all the way to action. For example:

• Designing and tracking communications objectives for an early cloud computing services start-up desiring visibility in a crowded media landscape will heavily rely on awareness metrics. These include tracking volume of coverage mentions, percent share of voice relative to competitors and prominence in coverage. Trending these results over time will allow clients to see if they have made progress towards their goals.
• On the other hand, an online financial trading company needing to differentiate itself from a fragmented market would benefit from crafting, promoting and tracking key messages that sets it apart from the pack. Are their key differentiating messages resonating in their target press? How about with relevant social influencers? What percent of their total press mentions contain their key messages?
• If a health IT services company’s communication objective is to win media, analyst and grass roots advocates to speak out for privacy around patient data access, one metric to track is influencer quote mentions. How often is the company positively referenced by health tech influencers in patient privacy stories? How many percent of your total social media mentions come from influential patient advocacy blogs?

Goal-setting is a discipline that allows us to 1) know where we are coming from (benchmark), 2) monitor our performance against our objectives (including setting up targets) and 3) evaluate program success.

This approach enables our account teams and clients to monitor performance, celebrate successes and course-correct where necessary. For CMOs, having clear program goals and measurable communications objectives enable them to demonstrate if their efforts have moved the needle.

Interested in learning more about Eastwick’s measurement philosophy and how we can help measure your communications programs? Drop us a line.