Accountable Communications: What are we doing here?

With clients, in Shayna’s Georgetown class, and in conversations with others in the field, we’ve been grappling with questions about communications accountability: how can we be sure that our online and offline communications activities are making a difference?

Here’s where our thinking is. We’d love to know what you think about these three things for accountable communications:

1) If you don’t know EXACTLY where you’re trying to go, you’ll never get there.

We’ve been on the goals soapbox for a long time now, and we’re still up there. Setting and articulating goals that drive communications planning and action are the difference between doing the things that matter and just doing things. Goals should be S.M.A.R.T.: This means they are:  Strategic, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic and Time-Bound.  Without these five characteristics, a goal isn’t a useful tool for decision-making or guide for action.  For example:

Bad Goal: Get More Media Coverage
Good Goal: Get at least one article, Editorial or OpEd and 2 Letters to the Editor placed in the hometown newspapers of our 6 top congressional targets prior to the August recess.

Bad Goal: Pass Comprehensive Universal Healthcare
Good Goal: Working with partner organizations, we will leverage our relationships with 3 top Senators with a goal of getting 2 signed on as public supporters of a bill that includes X, Y & Z before the Holiday break.

[more on our approach to goal setting in this 3 things from way back: Defining Your Goals]

2) Experiment constantly, evaluate ruthlessly.

As Charles Best noted in his guest 3 Things post, there are new opportunities to do all kinds of things less expensively, more quickly, and perhaps more effectively. Charles pointed to engaging volunteers in core organizational functions, figuring out ways to engender competition amongst your supporters, and looking to new models of cause marketing. DonorsChoose.org has done all three to help meet it’s well-thought S.M.A.R.T. goals, and has done so in a spirit of experimentation and ruthless evaluation.

If volunteers didn’t reduce the turnaround time for project evaluation, Charles and his team would have tried something else. Team DonorsChoose.org discovered that while the Blogger’s Challenge was a success in terms of raising money, in activated only a small portion of their target audience so needed some rethinking and retesting to see if they could better meet their goals.

Online and offline, there are ample opportunities to try new approaches, messages, even technologies at very low cost. Be relentlessly focused on finding better ways to meet your communications goals, be unafraid to try new things and fail, and be quick and ruthless in your evaluation of experiments so you can maximize the benefit and minimize the risk of innovating.

[read more about failing productively: Seth Godin and Michael Silberman/Jon Warnow]

3) Ask two questions about everything, from the press release you’re working on to the big new campaign you’re planning: why, and what if?

Just two questions can help you think about whether you’re working strategically, or just working:

Question 1: what specific part of my goal is this email, press release, grassroots action in service to?

Again, be ruthless. If you’re getting ready to send out another online advocacy ask, is it because you can honestly say you think more emails to the Hill will move your legislation? Or is it because your press people want to be able to include a big number in their release? Or is it because you haven’t asked people to do anything in awhile and you think you ought to (a volunteer management goal).

Question 2: What if this email, ad campaign, press outreach is successful – what will I have accomplished?

Another way to get at Question 1, this is about being clear about the hoped for result of your activity, campaign, or message. For example (a dramatically simplified example), if every person who hears your message understands that, say, kids should eat more vegetables, what will be the outcome? Does knowing about vegetables translate into eating more vegetables (if that’s your goal)?  If your email open rate is 100% and click through is 90%… then what?  What will have been accomplished?