Comms needs to bring its own chair to the table

Communicators can draw metrics from lots of different things like opens, clicks or employee sentiment. But leadership only wants to know one thing about those numbers: the “so what” of it all.

During Ragan’s Communications Measurement Virtual Conference, Catherine Hernandez-Blades, communications executive and an independent board director for nonprofits and public companies, said that reaction doesn’t mean leaders don’t value the work communicators do.

“What it typically means is that we’re not speaking the language of the business,” she said. “We’re speaking the language of communications, and we’re expecting those leaders to translate it. We would be much better off if we did the translation ourselves before we walked into that room.”

Doing that translation right means knowing what leaders value most. Oftentimes, that’s revenue, growth or keeping customers.

“Before you build your communications measurement plan you need to ask yourself, what does the business need to achieve and then work backward from there,” she said. “What do the stakeholders have to do, think, feel or believe for communications to provide enterprise value? How will we know if we achieved that level of influence?”