Conducting a Comprehensive Communications Audit

By Barbie E. Keiser and Pamela H. Stein

Organizations recognize the benefit of keeping their customers, clients, investors, partners, and/or members aware of happenings both within their organization and in the field, profession, industry sector, or subject area of interest. The techniques they choose are varied, ranging from the “tried and true,’’ such as direct mailings, to both “push” (e.g., e-mailings) and “pull” (e.g., Website postings) variants of high tech tools. Technology has enabled organizations to customize the communications vehicles, permitting targeted content while respecting personal preferences concerning format and frequency of notification. As users become more comfortable with technology, the ways in which they get information from organizations (and how they expect to receive and retrieve information) change, so the vehicles utilized must be modified accordingly.

Today, many organizations find that they make use of too many vehicles to communicate with their varied customerbases, partners, memberships, and other constituencies, and that these vehicles consume much time and effort to maintain and update with any meaningful frequency or regularity. Often, it is not clear which vehicle is most effective, whether there is a differentiation among types of users as to which is consulted most regularly (if at all), or even what information is needed most from your group. (For the purposes of this document, we will refer to members as the group that needs to be contacted for their opinions, but if not apropos for your organization, please think of your clients, partners, affiliates, investors, patrons, staff, board of directors, or other groups that receive your communications vehicles.)

A comprehensive Communications Audit—an in-depth analysis of all communications vehicles—allows an organization to determine how it can best provide the information needed by its members. The findings of a comprehensive Communications Audit enable an organization to eliminate superfluous vehicles—streamlining communication with members without compromising efficiency and reach—redesigning the communication vehicles around the needs of the membership for which it exists to support and encourage.

This article will take readers through a set of integrated activities that will allow an organization to accomplish the objectives of a Communications Audit, including conducting (1) a comprehensive survey of members designed to assess how they use the organization’s communications vehicles, both in terms of content present and needed information that is absent; (2) focus group discussions with membersthat delve more deeply into existing challenges and point toward potential solutions; (3) interviews with selected members via telephone, verifying findings through actual observation on-site (because what people say they do and how they use the organization’s Website may not be entirely accurate); and (4) objective reviews of marketing and promotional efforts, including any newsletters/e-newsletters and Websites, through observation and analysis of extant data (e.g., Website statistics and metatags).

Determining the Need

Communications vehicles employed by organizations today range from the traditional (e.g., telephone conversations and in-person meetings; direct mailings; print newsletters) to newer initiatives, such as Communities of Practice (CoPs), with a wealth of options in-between: Websites and portals, enewsletters, bulletin boards, listserves, email discussion groups, and other online fora; webcasts; instant messaging; and blogging (text and video). Newer tools are being developed every day. All of these techniques require considerable effort on the part of the producers (in order to reach its targeted user market) and have an impact on the way users interact with the organization and others. While efforts to measure“user satisfaction” may be undertaken, and ad-hoc improvements to existing communications vehicles occur (such as adding graphics to an e-newsletter or revamping a Website), a comprehensive Communications Audit will help you:

n Present the information you wish to convey to targeted audiences, assuring that it is useful, and reinforced through a variety of means

n Avoid overloading your members with too much information for them to absorb and use

n Present information to members in the way that they seek it or expect to find it

n Minimize the workload of your staff as they increase the types of communications vehicles employed, frequency in which they are delivered, and the customization of messages to target user groups with related information needs and concerns.

To accomplish these goals requires that you understand what your users seek from your organization, where they go to find information when it’s not from you (the type of information and the organizations that succeed in getting the information to your members, i.e., your competition), what drives your members to other groups before your own, and how you might better serve them, encouraging interactivity through the sharing and exchange of knowledge, stories, ideas, and best practices.

Six Steps for Conducting a Comprehensive Communications Audit

A comprehensive Communications Audit consists of six major activities: Orientation, Survey, Focus groups, Website usability testing, Audit and benchmarking, and Synthesis of data for final reporting. Each activity is designed to augment the others in order to produce recommendations that are congruously revealed by two or more activities. The following paragraphs describe the importance of each activity to the Audit.

Orientation. Perhaps the most important element of a Communications Audit is the way that it is introduced into and shepherded through the organization. Explaining the importance of staff and member participation at the outset, and continuous communication about progress being made, is essential to retaining cooperation with the various aspects of the Audit that require participation of staff and users as well as patience as you implement the various recommendations that are a result of the Audit.

Survey. A Web-based survey of your members will help to shape your communications vehicles in the future. Organizing surveys in a logical fashion, making response requirements simple, and using plain English in survey instructions and questions affect the willingness of people to complete surveys and the time demands to complete.[1] Web-based surveys bring the additional need to be “user friendly.” The effort is to get as many members as possible to complete the survey, providing input to the Communications Audit.

The survey you design should capture the elements necessary for analysis of data at the level of detail required to accurately portray members’ assessment of the vehicles employed by your organization to communicate with them. The sequence of questions should be logical and the language employed refined so that all will understand the survey questions and associated response choices presented. This requires a testing of the survey instrument itself, as well as the user-friendly interface employed, ensuring that all responses will remain confidential.

Focus groups. Focus groups will corroborate and confirm findings from the survey and Website usability tests, generating additional ideas (potential solutions) for effective communication with your target audiences. Focus groups convened will assess the communication wants, needs, and opinions of target audience groupings, supplying additional data on users’ expectations, frustrations, and experiences interacting with your staff through the mechanisms you have created. The purpose of these sessions will be to obtain information and clarification on:

n Issues that are a priority

n Features that are important

n Extent to which users will have influence over the content of the various communications vehicles employed in future

n Ways to measure success.

Focus groups are conducted to ascertain how effective your communications efforts have been in the past and what might be done to improve them in the future. Exercises during those sessions can help you discern:

n Awareness of the services you offer and their relative value by participants

n Adequacy of communication about those services

n Availability and accessibility of services

n Opportunities for improvement.

Website usability testing. Whether designed as a marketing tool, intended to convey information to the general public or a specific audience, or to facilitate transactions, the Website is a primary communication vehicle employed by organizations today. To be effective, a Website must be intuitive to navigate as well as easy to learn (in other words, consistent with members’ existing knowledge of how Websites work). The site must provide visual cues that accurately reflect its structure and be organized so that members can quickly and easily accomplish the tasks that they seek to perform during their visit to the site. Our approach to evaluating the design of a Website is both user- and usage-centered.

User-centered design ensures that a Website meets members’ needs for information by keeping the members actively involved in the analysis process and, eventually, in any redesign efforts. It concentrates on getting to know who the members are, understanding their goals for the system within the scope of the organization’s vision and mission, and appreciating how the interface needs to be organized so that it is easy for them to navigate.

Usage-centered design ensures that the Website meets members’ needs by documenting the tasks that they seek to perform—such as searching for information, registering for workshops—so that appropriate processes can be built into the Website’s functionality. Usage-centered design concentrates on the tasks that members expect to accomplish when visiting the Website (i.e., their process for searching and locating information) so as to facilitate them doing so.

From an operational standpoint, Websites should:

n Be easy to maintain and update

n Permit visitors to execute what they need to do online with no or little assistance from others

n Accommodate additional content areas and added functionalities without major restructuring

n Integrate several communications vehicles, such as an e-newsletter

n Promote automated services, such as online registration for workshops, reducing staff interaction for routine activities

n Encourage users to share and exchange experiences, ideas, and knowledge

n Conform to user-centric design.

Taking into account these three elements of good design (user-centered, usage-centered, and operations) will yield a Website that fits the purpose for which it was intended and does not strain the organization’s resources in doing so.

Audit and benchmarking. Every organization has anecdotal data indicating that members have difficulty navigating, finding, and retrieving information. A Communications Audit attempts to quantify and qualify the difficulties and to solicit input on causes and potential solutions. It critically reviews the content in relation to the organization’s stated vision, mission, goals and objectives. Based on our:

n Knowledge of best practices for communication vehicles and Website design, we evaluate the existing efforts, make recommendations as to improvements, and identify examples from similar organizations that may serve as models for future product development.

n Knowledge of best practices in terms of marketing materials we make recommendations, such as improvements in terms of formatting and the use of graphics.

n Experience designing Websites, we evaluate the navigation of the site, examine the usability/human factors, assess the calls to action on the major Web pages and flow of Web copy, and identify interactive techniques that can increase member usage of the site.

We compare the marketing materials for your organization, including Websites, with those of your competition to contrast what your organization has chosen to offer through its site vs. others (i.e., organizations that have similar purposes and constituencies). The results of the reviews, accompanied by recommendations for improvement, provide yet another series of data to incorporate into our final report.

Synthesis of data for final reporting. To synthesize the needs assessment, usability testing, interviews and focus groups, extant data, and Web-based survey into a cohesive set of findings, we review and analyze all the data. Common themes that emerge in the data findings are summarized and a matrix is created that succinctly and efficiently presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations. The matrix also indicates potential technology considerations when implementing a recommendation, growth and maintenance considerations, and the original data source (e.g., existing data, usability test, focus group, survey) for the conclusions leading to the final set of recommendations.

Benefits Derived

A Communications Audit examines and recommends improvements in the way an organization communicates internally, among its staff, as well as with its members. Based on the results of a comprehensive communications audit, a set of recommendations is developed. The goal is to have an integrated set of communication vehicles and tools to both inform and develop leaders.

For additional information concerning Communication Audits, contact:

Barbie E. KeiserPamela H. Stein
BEK Inc.Clientize.com Inc.
6101 Edsall Road #1502 1700 S. Dixie Hwy., Suite 506
Alexandria, VA 22304USA Boca Raton, FL 33432
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