Common Mistakes in Measuring Internal Communications Data

Company meeting Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

The founder and managing director of PoliteMail Software, Michael DesRochers provides corporations with internal marketing solutions from his base in Greenland, New Hampshire. In addition to his responsibilities at PoliteMail Software, Michael DesRochers is writing a series of articles for forbes.com. His recent article “Why It's Vital To Accurately Measure Your Communications Metrics” shares best practices for measuring the effectiveness of internal communications.

The article begins by warning of the dangers of using inaccurate internal communications data to manage employees. A CEO Communications Audit produced by the gandalf group reported that increasing numbers of CEOs are giving more weight to internal communications than external communications, and with many quantitative surveying and quantitative instrumentation tools featuring built-in metrics, companies need to take precautions against using the wrong types of metrics.

One common type of metric that leads to an inaccurate picture of message uptake is web page views. Just because an employee lands on a webpage doesn't mean he or she has read its content. Further, the article warns of a poor return on investment regarding new social and mobile communications tools that record internal communications data. A business must focus on its primary internal communication channels first, and a Microsoft survey showed email and meetings are the main corporate communications channels across all employee age groups age 22 and older. The article ends by furnishing a variety of tips for developing effective ways of measuring corporate communications data.