The Devil is in the Detail
Traditionally media monitoring and media analysis have been time consuming exercises. So time consuming, it’s usually an after thought for communication professionals and organizations. Yet, analysis is one of the most important activities a communications professional should be engaged in.
In fact, professional associations, such as the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), will deem a project incomplete without an evaluation phase.
However, because of the time consuming nature of media analysis, people either opt for other methods of evaluating their organizations communications activities, or they do very high level media analysis, which generally results in ‘benchmarking’.
Benchmarking is a very useful exercise, but it doesn’t come close to telling the whole story and the main reason for doing analysis or evaluation, is not to do it because it’s on the list, but to learn from mistakes and build upon trends and successes. That’s the only way to succeed in business.
Again, this is not to discount high level analysis or ‘benchmarking’. However, as the old saying goes, “the devil, is in the detail.”
Ultimately, you should be able to drill down into information, especially when you see trends. For example, if you do a report for a project you were working on and it finds that your communication efforts reached a large amount of people and then you report the project was a success based on that analysis alone.
However, other indicators, such as sales numbers provided by your company’s sales department, shows that there was little impact from your project. The reasons for this might have been revealed to you, if you had simply drilled down further into the information.
For example, you could have further segmented your information by publication or region. Maybe you only reached media that was outside of your company’s sales territories? Maybe you hit the wrong demographic?
The bottom-line is, analysis is an important function to your organization’s communications efforts and it should not be treated as an after thought. Furthermore, since evaluation has traditionally been left to the end of a project, there is a greater risk for failure. Ideally, media analysis should be real-time, allowing communication strategies and tactics to remain fluid.
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Hi Brett,
I totally agree with everything you say. I have worked in PR consultancy for ten years now and last summer joined Metrica – a PR measurement, media analysis and evlaution firm – because I have become so passionate about the difference measurement makes to the profession, both in terms of its success and credibility.
Hard data, real facts about what PR can and can’t achieve is critical to support consultancy – both in terms of delivering results and counselling clients – yet very often the investment required to deliver those hard facts is not made.
While I understand that budget is often a factor here it is worth giving consideration to the fact that analysis and evaluation in the PR lifecycle not only proves ROI, important for protecting budget, but also for improving effectiveness and efficiency of budget.
As you say, analysis is an important function of an organisation’s communication effort – only by proving the value of what PR does will it ever get the true credit it deserves.
Thanks for your comments Claire.
You’re right, analysis does improve effectiveness — resulting in ROI for an organization’s communications activities.
Furthermore, if organizations establish or adopt well thought out business processes, even greater ROI can be realized.
That said, I truly believe communication professionals can even have a greater role within their organization. Their role should also encompass being the eyes and ears of their organization by engaging in issues management and competitive analysis.
By leveraging the media and providing intelligence, communicators can help energize sales, provide valuable information to marketing, and help steer strategic decisions.