AMEC 2016: AMEC research shows where comms is in the ‘measurement journey’
Chris Foster, worldwide executive vice president at Burson-Marsteller, has published worldwide research, in partnership with the Ipsos Global Reputation Centre, which highlights where the industry stands in its ‘measurement journey’ and how it can look to improve.
The global research, which consists of 9,000 respondents, was launched by the partners to discover how far businesses and industries are in their ‘measurement journey’. The study shows many companies are still looking at simplistic methods for measurement.
One in seven of those surveyed still do not measure their work. In addition, 36% of those who do measure their work are only measuring outputs – such as Tweets, likes, retweets, mentions etc. At the same time, 75% of respondents are not integrating statistics for measurement purposes.
Foster argues that this leaves the comms industry with “significant room for growth and sophistication”. He says this means constant measurement of real-time data and actions, in response to this data, is still needed.
The research has found that there are seven main barriers to better measurement:
- Staff don’t understand its value
- Leadership doesn’t understand the impact of communications
- Cost
- Solutions are not demonstrating communications impact
- It is not in the business’ planning process
- Leadership does not recognise the value
- Solutions are not available
Foster and the survey’s partners plan to help build a ‘maturity model’, with additional research. Ultimately, he says they want to use the findings to “create cultures that understand how to use data to make decisions.”
