This weekend I was reading an article in the Fall Harvard Business Review OnPoint magazine (How to Get Your Message Across edition) called “Five Ways to Sharpen Your Communication Skills” by John Baldoni. The article was interesting, but what was more interesting was the comment they selected to share in the Reader Comment section after the article.

John shares these five tips:

1. Know the fundamentals (Understand the written and spoken word.)
2. Think clearly about what you will say (Don’t use PowerPoint as short-hand for thinking)
3. Prepare for meetings (Take the time to think about what to say before you say it.)
4. Engage in discussion (Debate. Hear all viewpoints. Don’t engage in group think.)
5. Listen to others (Discussion is meaningless if no one is listening. “Measure what you treasure.”)

Sounds like everything we learned in kindergarten, right? Still many marketing, public relations and communications pros struggle with these basic elements when it comes to communicating with customers, stakeholders and other employees.

The comment, from Gretchen Anthony, is indicative of this very situation businesses are challenged with:

“One of my favorite quotes on the subject of communication is attributed to George Bernard Shaw, ‘The problem with communication… is the illusion that it has been accomplished.’

To Baldoni’s final point about the need to measure and demonstrate effective communication, we as leaders in our organizations miss this point time and again. How do we know if we’ve accomplished our intended communication goals (and realistically, are we even setting communication goals)?

Where formal measures are lacking, the gut-level measure of trust kicks in. A team, organization, business unit or organization leader who appears to have the trust of their team is most likely a leader who demonstrates a commitment to effective communication. Look to the trusted leaders within an organization and you’ll often see demonstrated the communication skills that work within that organization.”

I’d like to focus on the measurement part of the article and comment. As smart communications pros, we can and absolutely should measure if our message is being communicated properly, but more importantly we should measure if it is being understood.

Five Quick Steps to Make Sure Your Message is Being Understood

1. Analyze Current Data (Collected data about market segments, stakeholders, employees, etc.)
2. Benchmark Current Levels of Message Understanding
3. Develop a Plan that includes an Outtake Objective (For the message you’d like to be understood)
4. Implement the Plan (Be sure it includes measurement. Note: This slide deck is for social media measurement, but the principles can be used for traditional communications as well.)
5. Test to Make Sure The Outtake Objective Was Achieved (or Not)

If this seems too simple, then I’ve done my job here. The point is we tend to overly complicate what is a basic process that works. Where it does get complicated, of course, is when people come into the equation. Corporate politics always have a tricky way of rearing their ugly head, don’t they?

Some additional challenges include not understanding customers enough to know if they fall into the “I’ve tuned you out” category or the “I like what you have to say, it’s relevant to me” category. This is where step one is crucial.

There is also often a communication failure internally. Communicators and management fail to honestly try to understand how employees feel about their position within the organization. Sure, employees are given options to receive internal communications, but are you sure it’s what they need to hear? Are they comfortable and secure enough to tell you the truth?

Is there a communication gap between organizations and the stakeholders that can help spread our messages to others? Benchmarking can help you to understand if there is and what the plan needs to include to close the gap.

What would you offer when it comes to understanding if messaging is being understood? What has worked for your organization? What examples (successes and failures!) would you share?

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There’s been a lot of buzz around measuring the ROI of social media here and other places and it seems to come up a lot during the #pr20chats (PR 2.0 chats on Twitter). Sometimes measurement is a deadly sin (lack thereof) and sometimes it’s seen as a holy grail (can’t get there). Whichever it is, it’s not limited to social media…measuring ROI is also a huge issue for marketers and PR folks too.

Measuring marketing, PR and social media can be relatively simple if you have a plan. And the plan is probably the hardest part, especially getting consensus (management and co-workers), being able to implement it and-most importantly-being agile enough to change on a dime when an element of the plan isn’t working.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, I didn’t learn how to write objectives (the part of the plan that makes it measurable) in college or on the job. Nope! In fact, I learned how to write measureable objectives from the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) when I took their weekend APR (Accreditation in Public Relations) course about 8-9 years ago. Because understanding how to write a plan with measureable objectives is a large part of achieving the APR, it was also a large part of the weekend course. Since then, I have used what I learned for marketing and PR campaign plans throughout the years and it’s really been helpful to show management if campaigns have been successful (or not) and how I’ve been a contributing member of the marketing team.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that there isn’t standardization when it comes to measurement. I’d say what I am about to share is as standard as it gets… And if you haven’t already picked up a copy of Katie Paine’s ‘Measuring Public Relationships,’ you better rush on over to Amazon.

Some of this you might know, some maybe not. In any case, feel free to share your best practices.

Writing a Plan: The Basic Elements

A basic plan should have:

• A goal (One. If you find yourself writing “and” in your goal, you’ll probably need two plans)
• Measurable objectives (as many as needed)
• Strategies (every objective gets its own strategies)
• Tactics (every strategy gets its own tactics)
• A way to measure

A plan could essentially look like this:

• Goal
• Objective 1.1
• Strategy 1.1
• Tactic 1.1
• Strategy 1.2
• Tactic 1.2
• Objective 2.1
• Strategy 2.1
• Tactic 2.1
• Strategy 2.2
• Tactic2.2

[This basic plan assumes you know your or your client know their challenge, audience, budget, etc.]

Basic example:

Goal: I want to lose weight.

Objective: I want to lose 10 pounds by July 15th

Strategy 1.1: I will go to the gym 5 times a week

Tactic: I will use the elliptical machine, weights and the pool at the gym

Strategy 1.2: I will watch what I eat

Tactic: I will write down everything I eat

Measurement: I lost 8 pounds by July 15th (I didn’t achieve my goal)

Knowing the difference between goals and objectives

When I ask marketing/PR folks what’s their measureable objective is I often hear “to generate more sales” or “to get our key message out.” These are not objectives…they are goals. And because goals and objectives are often confused, it leads people thinking that they can’t be measured in a truly impactful way.

Outputs, Outtakes and Outcomes: Three types of objectives

For objectives to be measureable they must include (no exceptions):

1. A specific desire communication or behavioral effect;
2. A designated public (or publics) among whom the effect is to be achieved;
3. The expected level of attainment; and
4. The timeframe in which those attainments
   are to occur.

Basic Example: To increase number of presentation downloads by online public #1 by 20% within 3 months. (Pretty easy, right?)

Once you understand what is required for a measureable objective, then you need to understand what type of objective makes sense: output, outtake or outcome.

• Output: Physical products (i.e. whitepapers, tweets, blog posts, articles, etc.)
• Outtake: What will the publics take away? (i.e. messages, perceptions, understandings)
• Outcome: What quantifiable changes in attitudes, behaviors, or opinions (i.e. did they buy something?)

Here’s the catch:

Outputs are easy and it’s apparent whether or not you did what you said you would in your plan (was that whitepaper written and tweeted out?). Outtakes require bench marketing and monitoring (how do you know where you ended up, if you didn’t know where you started). And Outcomes require heavy lifting. Because, and this is VERY important, Outcome objectives are usually where ROI ties in, and an organization will need to track all efforts and follow them, most likely, through a CRM system, which isn’t always easy to do.

So what’s the point to this post? Well, people are losing patience when it comes to conversations around social media (as well as marketing and PR) not being measureable. Everything is measurable; you just need to make the time to plan for it. And trust me, as I have said in the past, I have never worked for an organization that enforced or required a plan. That said, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have one. A plan is a great way to show, whether you’re client or agency side, your value as a marketing, PR or social media pro. That said, no one ever said it was easy…

What do you think? Too basic? (That was the point.) Not real-world enough? If so, why are we trying to complicate it?

As always, I am interested in your thoughts, experiences and where this is all heading.