It’s time to rethink how you measure the impact of your communications

Whenever you’re rolling out a new messaging campaign at your organization, its worth will ultimately come depending on what, and how you measure its effectiveness on your desired audience. In the absence of clear goals and focus for your audience, you risk repeating mistakes and honing in on the wrong metrics or insights. Thankfully, there is a framework that can help communicators measure their successes.

Now in their third edition, the Barcelona Principles are a set of guidelines that help communicators measure the effectiveness of their communications campaigns. Agreed upon by The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), the principles set up a global standard of measurement for all communications campaigns. Updated in 2020 just before the comms landscape changed forever, the Barcelona Principles 3.0 focus on how communications campaigns can be measured to account for the choice of language and inclusion on an international scale. There are seven main principles on the list, but here are a few that are particularly important for you to understand today.