In order to know if your communications strategy has been successful, you need to conduct an evaluation. You'll learn valuable insights into what worked well and what to do differently.
To conduct an evaluation, you need to review the objectives you set out in your communications strategy. These objectives outline what you're trying to accomplish and identify the metrics you can use to gauge your success or identify areas to work on.
In our go-go-go world, it can be easy to feel pressure to jump straight into the next project, but evaluation is essential to know whether we’re being as effective as we can be with our resources.
3 reasons why evaluation is essential for communicators
1. Evaluation lets you know if you met your goal.
No more wondering if you achieved what you wanted to, no more reliance on anecdotes, and no more uncertainty about what parts of your communications strategy were most effective. If you've created a communications strategy, knowing what to evaluate won't be difficult. Take a look at the SMART objectives you created and measure those items. Going through each objective allows you to understand the detailed parts of your communications strategy and when you review them all together, you'll gain a comprehensive picture of your results.
2. Evaluation encourages reflection on what worked and what didn’t work.
When you created your communications strategy, you likely developed it using a blend of past experiences, research and both tested and new ideas. Evaluation of each aspect of your communications strategy will help you know with certainty what worked best and what didn't work.
Conducting an evaluation mid-way through your evaluation period, or on more regular intervals, gives you time to make and implement changes based on what the data is telling you. The final evaluation provides you with tangible data you can use to inform future communications strategies.
3. Evaluation generates ideas about what to try next.
By having reviewed what approach and tactics work best to achieve your goals, you can explore similar ideas for your next strategy. To do this, look at your tactics and figure out which ones were most successful in reaching your objectives. For example, if your objective was to increase social media engagement by 5%, look at the social posts that had the highest engagement rate. This tells you the type of content your audience is most interested in. Now you can build more content like that.
Yes, strategic communications is about having a plan, but it's equally about evaluating the plan. Evaluation will help you make your next communications plan even better.
Recommended resources
- Measuring the Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Katie Delahaye Paine
- AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework
If you have questions about how to evaluate your communications or would like to discuss your current evaluation methods and see if there are areas to re-fuel, consider booking a Lunar Excursion Consult.