Data-driven decision-making in corporate communications: Can you manage what you can’t measure?
Intuition is valuable in communications, but without data to back it up, it isn’t repeatable.
For many years, measurement was the weakest link in corporate communications. Today, media monitoring, tone analysis and search data make it possible to read the impact of communications far more clearly.
The first step in measurement is asking the right question: instead of “How many stories did we get?” the question should be “Which message resonated with our target audience?”
The second step is setting a baseline at the outset. Without knowing the share of voice, search volume and tone distribution before a campaign, the change that follows can’t be interpreted meaningfully.
The third step is linking data to decision-making. If a report only describes the past, it is an archive, not measurement; if it changes the plan, that is data-driven decision-making in the truest sense.