Post on 04-Jan-2016
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Taking Communications to the Next Level
September 24, 2007
ORAprès Kate, Le Deluge
More than you ever wanted to know about a couple things from
the tool kit.
Agenda
• Research for the Rest of Us
• Communications Audits
• Brand Stewardship
Research for the Rest of Us
• Research can be expensive and complicated.
• But you shouldn’t have to have a PhD to apply some basic tactics to your communications planning.
Know What You Need
• Objectives (business and research)
• Hypotheses
• Action standards
• Predetermined feedback loop
(Source: Brand Aid, Brad VanAuken)
One-on-one Interviews
• Members and Non-members
• Ask about needs, desires, fears and concerns in running a business
• Ask about what the Chamber does well
• Ask who they think the competitive set includes
Focus Groups
• Rank information you gather in one-on-one interviews
• React to communications materials
• Rank the competitive set
• Associate with other brands
Qualitative Methods
• Word association
• Ranking
• Mapping
Statistical Surveys
• Web-based alternatives to phone surveys:
www.surveymonkey.com
www.surveygizmo.com
www.zoomerang.com
www.surveyshare.com
Your Own Website
• 24/7 opportunity for interaction
• “Real Time” feedback
• Online community:– Directories– Bulletin boards, chat, blogs– Guest books, cave drawings– RSS– CRM
The Audit
• “A brand is…the product of a thousand small gestures.”
-- Michael Eisner, Disney
Communications Audits
• “A strategic communications audit is a systematic assessment, either formal or informal, of an organization’s capacity for, or performance of, essential communications practices.”
(SOURCE: Strategic Communications Audits, Julia Coffman, 2004)
Audit Components
• Organizational Review
• Materials Review
• Audience Assessments
Organizational Review
• One-on-one interviews
• “Appreciative Inquiry” methodology
• Roles and responsibilities
• Looking for gaps
• Efficiency
Materials Review
• The brand promise as litmus test
• Key messages
• Tone and personality
• Duplication, overlap, gaps, opportunities
• Effectiveness
Audience Surveys
• Time-specific incident surveys
• Group observation
• Written surveys
• Delphi Technique
Communications Audit Matrix
• Strategy – what we set out to do and why
• Implementation – delivery mechanisms
• Integration – messaging and overall “lift”
(SOURCE: Strategic Communications Audits, Julia Coffman, 2004)
Brand Stewardship
• “Effective communication is 20 percent what you know and 80 percent how you feel about what you know.”
-- Jim Rohn, author and motivational speaker
Brand Stewardship
• Who is your brand leader?
• Do you have written standards?
• How often do you train board and staff?
• How formal is your assessment and feedback process?
• How careful/strategic are you with associations?
Final Thought
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that is has
taken place.”
-- George Bernard Shaw
Consensus, LLC is a facilitation and communications consultancy headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. For more information, contact Dale Erquiaga at (602) 705-3532 or by email at dale@getconsensus.com.