How to Measure the Impact of Strategic Energy Communications
When energy communications is strategic, it easily conveys intent to the target audience. In our introduction to strategic communications webinar, Sola Abulu, our principal consultant explained that strategic communications will help gain trust and build positive relations amidst many other things. Catch up on the video here.
In energy communications, professionals need to understand if their activities achieved the desired result by understanding how to measure the impact of strategic communications. Measuring the impact ensures effectiveness and helps to continuously improve the strategies.
Understanding Strategic Energy Communications
In energy communications, strategic communications involve various deliberate and purposeful messaging that manage information flow between an organisation and its stakeholders. This includes (but is not limited to) internal communications, media relations, crisis communication, etc. Strategic energy communication should primarily align communications with the intended objective.
In energy communications, professionals must be trained to understand advanced communication skills like the art of simplifying complex energy concepts for a diverse range of audiences, stakeholder management and the ability to adapt to technological advancements that shape communications. Energy industry leaders understand the importance of communication and to be effective in leadership will require integrating tested and proven communication strategies into the overall business plan.
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Metrics for measuring the impact of communications in the energy industry
Below are some useful metrics that help in measuring the impact of strategic energy communications.
- Media reach
Measuring the media reach is a useful metric in realizing the impact of a strategic energy communications effort whether in a crisis scenario or for day-to-day communications campaigns. This is made easy with social listening tools that help brands identify media mentions and point out sentiments. An instance is using Hootsuite to track media mentions in blogs and publications. This will reveal the effectiveness of your media relations or expose gaps for improvement.
- Stakeholder Engagement
Apart from social media engagement that can provide insight into stakeholder engagements, you can also measure the impact of energy communications from stakeholders through surveys and feedback forms. With social media, when the engagement level is high, we can deduce that the communications strategy resonated well with the audience. Social media is also useful for a reputation audit as it can reveal the perception of the energy organisation in the public’s eye.
- Speed in de-escalating negative sentiments
In a crisis scenario, it is expected that the crisis communications team is very strategic in their timely response. The effectiveness of this response is seen in how fast the negative sentiments are de-escalated. On the contrary, if after issuing a response, the sentiments remain and even gain a wider spread across the media, it shows that such communication had no impact and did not achieve its goal. You will find our previous article on Measuring the impact of crisis communications very useful.
- Internal communications metrics
To measure if communications efforts impact the internal stakeholders, it becomes important to monitor engagement in events, email open rates and the display of their understanding of the company’s vision and core values. When all of these are positive, it indicates strategic energy communications
- Financial metrics
This involves monitoring the return on strategic communications investment. For example, analyzing how much was spent on a communications campaign that was meant to increase sales or improve stock performance. Does the communication outcome show a good return on investment? If not, this measurement should show why and what can be done differently to achieve better results in future communications.
It is safe to say that in measuring the impact of energy communications, professionals need to adopt a holistic approach that includes both qualitative and quantitative metrics.
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Sola Abulu & Associates is a strategy and communications consulting and training firm committed to enabling businesses, brands, and organizations to achieve their objectives through strategic communications, organizational effectiveness, and reputation risk management. Chat with us for more information on our courses.