The Importance Of Communications Audits

Do you know exactly what all your important audiences -- internal and external -- think about you TODAY

? Not just what they tell you to your face, but what they might say in confidence to others? If not, you are conducting public relations, community relations, advertising, employee relations, even business-to-business communications, on a "best guess" basis. As a result, a percentage, perhaps a high percentage, of your communications will be off-target. They will either not achieve your goal or, worse, damage the chance that the goal will be achieved at some point.

The process of collecting in-depth, accurate information regarding your audiences' perceptions is called a communications audit. The audit can be limited -- strictly to determine how to create a public relations or advertising plan, for example -- or it can be comprehensive enough to afford the organization an opportunity for radical process improvement. A truly thorough communications audit can dramatically alter an organization's way of doing business. Typically conducted by an outside consultant, in order to help ensure objectivity (and because company insiders are often more comfortable talking to a consultant who promises anonymity), a communications audit usually involves interviews with people inside and outside the company. Employees in key information flow positions (e.g., a receptionist, who can see and hear a lot more than we realize) as well as senior management. Area community leaders, and long-time contractors or consultants.

The combined perspectives are analyzed to identify trends, good and bad, to find where obstacles to effective communication exist, and to help anticipate and prevent, or prepare for, future crises. Results can be surprising, negatively or positively, to the organization's top leaders -- I was dismissed from one consulting assignment after presenting the initial results of an audit to a CEO who I had to tell, as diplomatically as possible, that he was perceived as the organization's biggest obstacle to effective communication!

With that one exception, I have always found clients extremely grateful for the insights granted by a communications audit. Consider having one conducted before finalizing your next annual or longer-term marketing or business plan.

by: Jonathan Bernstein

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