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Communication Audit - DIY

A Communication Audit is a great use of time and has incredible ROI.  Whether you decide to use an external source or handle yours internally, here are a few helpful tips to get you started.   (To find out how a professional consultant can help, read here)

Where do we start?  Before you place another ad and before you plan your marketing strategy for next year - STOP to realign your messaging.  We must acknowledge that every organization is different (i.e, commercial or non-profit, large or small, business to business or business to customer); however, there are basic questions essentially any organization can benefit from.   

1.  Choose a key person or team and set a specific time-line for your initial audit process.     

2.  Collect and evaluate your past communications. 

• Spread all of your past communications pieces on a conference room table. Be sure to include internal and external.  If you use social media and e-news, print copies as examples for this task. 
• Who were our key audiences and why did we target them? Are we missing a target?
• What were our key messages?  Does our message resonate with each target?
• How did we make our business known? What worked? What didn’t?
• Were our graphics and format consistent across all pieces? 
• Did we receive media coverage? Was it effective/correct? How can we improve on our media impact? Can we be proactive and provide ready made material (fact sheets, press releases, media page)?
• Did our audience see the same story we were aiming to tell? 
• Create a written list of what worked, and what didn’t.    
• Did we implement social media?  Do we have an internal policy to harness this outlet?

3.  Look outward: Survey your customers and community at large.

4.  Look inward: Survey your staff and volunteers.

5.  Closely review your results and single out strengths, weaknesses and opportunities,

6.  Create an initial plan for immediate outages and work as a team to plan for future communications.

  Summary: For this sake of this blog I have condensed the process to six categories and have expanded on the COLLECT AND EVALUATE step.  As you can probably see, each step has the potential to expand tremendously based on your organizations needs.  Conducting an audit and creating a targeted approach can and has saved clients on their marketing efforts both in time and funding.  Consider contracting a consultant to help align your message before you go through the expense of relaying it. 

Are Consultants worth the Fee?

Most clients are happy to pay set fees.  On occasion I get questions as to how I set my rates or that my rate is much higher than their employees hourly rate. Here are 23 things to consider when looking at your consultant's rate:

Some Component Costs of a Consultant's Billing Rate  (taken from the American Planning Association).

1. Salaries of professional staff, secretaries, and technical aids
2. Sick leave, vacation, and holiday pay
3. Office supplies
4. Printing and copying
5. Travel (auto and other)
6. Postage, freight, overnight delivery services
7. Telephone and internet
8. Equipment purchase and/or rental
9. Office rent
10. Building and property maintenance
11. Utilities
12. Legal services
13. Accounting services
14. Technical publications
15. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions
16. Professional dues
17. Attendance at seminars and conferences
18. Group insurance
19. Insurance (unemployment, workmen's compensation, liability, fire, theft, etc.)
20. Pension expenses
21. Taxes and licenses
22. Business promotion
23. Subcontractors

Local Biz - Community Involvement

So what separates local small business with mass marketed national companies?  Community Involvement.  I look around Wayne County and see many local small businesses’s offering sponsorship, volunteer time and pure hands on interaction with their local customers. 

Sponsorship: The next time you attend a school or community event - pay attention to the sponsorships.   Sometimes you will see a national company - but more than likely those little logos come from local small business. 

Volunteer Time:  Take a look at all the work that goes on with local non-profits.  The volunteers sitting on those boards are all local guys - many small business owners.  They give their time and in some cases allow their employees to volunteer for efforts as well.  

Hands on: VanVleet Insurance Agency is holding a customer appreciation day to thank their customers.  And they are not just handing out free coffee or magnets - they are washing their customers cars.  Great idea and great for the customer too.  

Negative feedback can be positive

I just received negative feedback from a client. I regularly ask clients for feedback following a project- and I love to see the results.  I am always grateful when someone takes the time -  even if it's negative.  It stings at first, but gives me room to grow and lets me see things from my client's eyes.

This feedback came from a project for a Communication Audit. To save a little face - they did give high ratings on cost, value and actionable findings. So where did I fail? When asked to share room for improvement - they wished communication had been stronger in the beginning.  Working with 300+ employees and many departments - the flow of the audit was a little messy in the beginning. 

I agree.  I am learning that bold and clear directions are a must.  Also - one point man on the inside is a necessity - versus multiple contacts. 

I'll  be looking for a few good sources to brush up on my client communications / leadership skills.  Any suggestions?

Side note:  A Communication Audit is a great way to reconnect your employees and clients to your core purpose.  Start small by asking for feedback.  Don't be afraid to ask your clients / customers what they think.  It's the only way to discover outages and create solutions for them.  

Communication Audit - Wordle Style

Favorite local campaign

Hike Yourself Healthy campaign from Cope Environmental. Great things they are doing:

• Social Mavens: This group is using LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter, and personal emails from staff and board members to get the word out.
  
• Interactive: They also have an online form and tracker to record results.
• Campaign Identity: They created a unique domain name (hikeyourselfhealthy.org): This gives the campaign it's own identity but saves on cost and time by linking back to the site they already have.
  
• Sponsor Hype: Lastly - they are treating their sponsors well with front line space and link backs. Looks like several sponsors have also made personal goals to participate.

One more note: I was able to register and record activity on their site via my blackberry. Their site is smartphone friendly!