22 essential actions and items to consider for your higher education communications measurement program.
If you’re in the process of implementing a measurement program at your institution, make sure you work through the following measurement checklist and have the requisite data on hand. Use this checklist along with our article “Academic Communications Measurement Excellence: 7 Steps to Get an A.” (To print out this checklist, click here to download it as a PDF file.)
Step 1. Define your measures of success and KPIs
__ Make a list of senior leadership decision makers that play a role in setting your budget and establishing institutional goals.
__ Set up a meeting with those people to reach consensus on organizational goals and measures of success, then create a meeting agenda. (And maybe bake cookies or bring donuts; food tends to lead to greater cooperation.) In this meeting you will discuss/define the following:
__ Senior leadership’s institutional goals
__ Communications’ goals
__ Your team’s goals and your institution’s communications programs
__ Map out the path between those institutional goals and your daily activities
__ Determine how PR/social media/events/digital marketing or whatever other activities you are responsible for contribute to those institutional goals
__ Define acceptable proxies that will demonstrate your progress towards those goals
__ Define who or what your results will be compared to
__ Define the timeline for your measurement effort
__ Determine the budgetary parameters and/or limitations for measurement. Do priorities have to be set?
__ After the meeting, summarize the agreed upon definitions in a document. Make sure you articulate specific definitions of good and bad, quality/desirable vs. undesirable. Also include a list of the key metrics (including the KPIs) you’ll be reporting on in your dashboard.
Potential metrics might include:
__ Increase in media or digital content quality scores
__ % reach of key messages
__ % increase in conversions
__ % increase in qualified inquiries/applications
__ % increase in share of voice on key issues
__ % increase in alumni engagement
__ % increase in share of desirable coverage
__ % decrease in share of undesirable coverage
__ % increase in visibility of key initiatives or campaigns
__ Attendance at events (invited vs. attended)
__ % increase in trust
__ % increase in awareness
__ % increase in consideration
__ % increase in preference
Step 2. Define your universe
__ Make a list of the stakeholder groups that impact your success, e.g., parents, advisors, alumni, foundations, faculty, students, and staff.
__ Get clarity and/or research on:
__ Where do they get their information?
__ Who or what influences them? What media outlets or platforms or other sources do they trust for reliable information about higher education topics?
__ Find out what other research exists, including social listening, alumni engagement, student and/or faculty attitude studies, as well as any research about what any of your stakeholder groups currently perceive about your organization.
__ Brainstorm with your team about what correlations or connections you need to prove in order to make better decisions going forward. Check all that apply:
__ Relative impact of email, social media, and earned media on conversions
__ Relative impact of email, social media, and earned media on engagement
__ Relative impact of earned media on the marketing mix
__ Relative impact of events on engagement
Step 3. Determine all the activities that you need to measure
__ Traditional media outreach
__ Owned social media
__ Earned social media
__ Paid social media
__ Email marketing
__ Digital advertising
__ Blogging and content marketing
__ Live events/conferences
__ Online conferences
__ Podcasts
__ Video
__ Web marketing
__ Lobbying
__ Internal engagement efforts
Step 4. What data source(s) do you need to be able to calculate your acceptable proxies?
Check all that apply:
__ Online news media monitoring
__ Print news media monitoring
__ Video news media monitoring
__ Sentiment analysis
__ Message analysis
__ Spokesperson and/or quote tracking
__ Competitive data (list your competitors)
__ Progress of desirable legislation
__ Progress of undesirable legislation
__ Influencer opinion
__ Influencer relationship data
__ Conversion data from Google Analytics
__ Transaction data from CRM
__ Survey research to track change in beliefs, perceptions, preference or consideration
__ Issue tracking
__ Likelihood to refer or recommend
__ Turnover rate
__ Engagement rate
__ Volunteerism data
__ Perceived engagement rate
__ Attitude pulse surveys
__ Tone of comments on social media platforms
Step 5. Define your measures of success
Check any metrics that reflect your contribution to the goals
__ % reach of key messages
__ % increase in conversions
__ % increase in qualified leads
__ Share of voice on key issues, e.g., diversity and affordability
__ Share of desirable coverage
__ Share of undesirable coverage
__ Visibility of key initiatives or campaigns
__ % increase in attendance at events (invited vs. attended)
__ Reduction in cost per attendee
__ % increase in trust
__ % increase in awareness
__ % increase in consideration
__ % increase in preference
__ % increase in commitment/renewals/petitions signed
__ % increase in satisfaction
__ % engagement with content
__ % increase in volunteers/donors/members
Step 6. Design your reporting
Who will see your report? __________________________________
How often do you want updated data?
__ Real-time
__ Daily
__ Weekly
__ Monthly
__ Quarterly
__ Annually
In what formats might you need to present results?
__ An online dashboard
__ PDF
__ PowerPoint
__ Google Docs
__ Excel
__ Put all relevant data into an Excel spreadsheet.
__ Based on your KPIs and definitions of success, force rank all your programs from one to however many programs you are measuring.
__ Assign a “resource investment” category to each program that reflects the total amount of resources that the program required. We recommend the following four categories:
- Low (easy-peasy; takes no extra work)
- Medium (takes a normal amount of time and effort)
- High (requires a reprioritization of daily work routines and possibly bringing in outside help)
- Very High (requires all-nighters and all hands on deck)
__ Create a quadrant chart. Plot where each program falls in terms of engagement and resource use. See the example in this article.
__ Look for failures: Where did a program not deliver?
__ Look for exceptional successes: Where did a program really deliver?
__ Drill down into the data to determine cause and effect.
__ Put the most relevant data, along with charts, into a PowerPoint presentation.
__ Report results, draw insights, and make actionable recommendations.
And if you don’t have the internal resources to develop your dashboard, feel free to call Paine Publishing. Katie Paine will be happy to help you design and/or implement it. She’s reachable by phone (603-682-0735) or simply email her.
(To print out this checklist, click here to download it as a PDF file.)
