Can You Hear Me Now?

By Kim Mozingo
Contributing writer

At some point in the communication process, someone is bound to wonder, “Is this working?”

That question should come early in the process and should be, “How will we know our communication is working?” The answer will come from the way you decide to ‘measure’ your success, from the metrics you develop.

Let’s go back to the football analogy from my first article to see how our quarterback uses metrics. A football team uses metrics all season long; long-term (win the Super Bowl), mid-term (win each game), and short term (get enough downs to score a touchdown). That is a fairly clear-cut, simplified view.

The problem is that measuring progress toward goals isn’t always that clear-cut, especially if you’re measuring the wrong things. Let’s switch analogies and take a look at baseball’s Billy Bean, General Manager of the Oakland A’s.

In the book, Moneyball, author Michael Lewis describes how Bean changed the way players are selected. Very simply, Bean began analyzing what was really needed to win a game, analyzing different kinds of player stats rather than what was standard in their industry, which included, at least in part, how a player ‘looks’ on the field. In learning to ask the right question, baseball improved the way players are selected.

So the question is: What, exactly, are good measures or metrics for a communication campaign designed to help reach a specific goal? The Mayo Clinic’s engagement strategy provides a great example.

In 2010, the Mayo Clinic embarked on a quest with one primary goal: To help their diverse employees deliver an unparalleled patient experience. A pretty lofty goal for a 58,000 person organization full of physicians, scientists, residents, fellows, students, and staff. Their employee engagement campaign includes tried and true communication tools, a strategic plan, a moving video presentation, and, to truly involve employees, tools to promote conversation such as social media, newsletters, and contests.

Mayo’s ultimate metric is based on seeing real change. Their communication campaign is now a long-term, ten year one, but waiting ten years to see if they’ve effected change isn’t very realistic. The campaign has been broken down into several phases with the first being Awareness.

While it may be tempting to count the number of page views or numbers of comments on blog posts, neither really give a good picture of whether or not engagement is occurring and awareness is being achieved. Those metrics can be useful in informing progress, but alone are insufficient. Mayo produced a survey asking how aware people are learning of the current initiative. They also asked where people received information about the initiative; that will help the communication team plan future efforts by choosing to deliver information where it is most likely to have impact and be seen.

So just like 10 yard lines, metrics that count the number of website views, blog posts, and other quantitative measures are useful for telling us we are at least moving. But asking the right questions to gain qualitative information is a better way to gauge progress toward the goal.