My contribution on “Measuring Marketing Communication” is included as a chapter in IABC’s (International Association of Business Communicators) recently released book The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication. It’s a great book (even if I do say so myself!), with contributions from a wide range of communication experts on topics including how to manage communications, internal communication, public relations and marketing communications.
I particularly enjoyed my chapter assignment-which wraps up the book-because I believe that measurement is critical to any marketing (or communication) effort. Particularly in a tight economy, business leaders are going to be understandably concerned about the impacts of their marketing efforts. Fortunately, there are some simple ways that communicators-or business leaders themselves-can measure these efforts. A few key tips:
- Build measurement into the process from the very beginning of your marketing effort. As you develop plans, consider how you will know if your efforts “worked.”
- Determine what you most want to measure: awareness? interest? response? purchase? impact? Quantify your desired outcomes.
- Recognize the factors that can impact your results (including competitive actions, the economy, salesforce activities, etc.).
Everythingcan be measured; sometimes it just takes creativity, time and- yes-money, to measure it effectively. Consequently, it’s important to measure only what matters and to invest the appropriate level of time and resources into getting the information you need to make good communication decisions.
