Speak the language that makes your value as communicator undeniable

With budgets tightening across the board due to a tricky economy, metrics are one of a communicator’s best ways of getting sought-after parts of the budget allocated their way from leadership. When you can show the top brass exactly what comms is bringing to the table in raw data, it’ll drive the importance of your function home.

At Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference in October, Johnna Muscente, vice president of communications and PR at Corcoran, told the audience during her panel, “Metrics that Matter: Proving Integrated ROI in a Tighter Economy,” that it’s on comms pros to bring proof to leaders with an understanding of metrics.

Certain C-suites or founders still see comms as nice-to-have and not core to the business,” she said. “But we know communications isn’t the how — it’s the why, the who and the what’s next. We drive alignment, trust and revenue. We just need to prove it.”

Muscente said that communicators should carefully consider not just the measurements they’re taking, but the language in which they translate them for leadership.