Given January's cachet as being a great time for fresh starts and New Year's resolutions, it's only appropriate to consider ways to improve professionally as well. Communications audits are a great tool to measure PR impact at both an individual and departmental level. And, done properly, communications audits can be very insightful, constructive, and encouraging.

Here are six steps that will help make your communications audit more effective and engaging:

1. ESTABLISH A BASELINE

The goal of a communications audit is to take a picture of your company's PR activities at any given time in order to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

What makes a communications audit even more effective is to compare results of several select research categories over a period of time.

When developing questions for your audit, look to develop phraseology that will stand the test of time and ensure that the same queries can be used quarter after quarter, year after year.

For instance, if your company is a leading producer of plastic beverage containers, don't just limit your questions along the lines of liquids. It might make sense to expand the phraseology to embrace other markets where plastic storage containers are used, such as for food and garbage--all segments that your company may be involved with in the future. Alternatively, ask which segments of the plastic container business your participants most associate your company with.

Or say that you have a charismatic CEO--don't tailor questions too much around him and his identity as being tied to that of the company. You never know what management shake-up may be in store in the future, which could leave your survey high-and-dry.

With a well-developed baseline in place, you'll find it much easier to track your PR team's progress on the issues you consider most important.

2. KEEP INTERNAL AUDIENCES IN MIND

Often, communications audits focus on the effectiveness of a company's PR program as it reaches its target audience.

What can be equally important is to understand how well internal clients and partners are satisfied by your team's efforts. Be sure to ask your legal, marketing, and HR counterparts about how they feel the PR department is doing. Develop specific questions for them that will help you to better identify areas for improving the team's inter-organizational rapport and effectiveness.

While overall ROI may be measured on how well messages are received by their intended audiences, it’s also important to consider how well the PR team is working with others to get those results.

3. PROVIDE OUT-OF-THE-BOX QUESTIONS.

Many participants in communications audits won't take the process as seriously as you. While they'll provide answers, the amount of thought put into each of those responses is fair game to being called into question.

To help overcome this issue, present engaging and perhaps even humorous questions that help respondents to really think.

For example, instead of asking someone to circle five adjectives out a list of forty that describe the qualities of your widget, try requesting the name of which celebrity has the personality most like that of your product. Then, follow up by asking what those qualities are that the celebrity and widget have in common.

Amazingly, a lot of the same words will most likely be used by your respondents. When they’re not the same, the words and celebrities of the same vein can often be group together. The end result is that you end up with a much more detailed and participant-driven feedback, all without putting a heavy burden on the respondent.

4. SEPARATE THE PRODUCT AND THE PEOPLE FROM THE COMPANY

For some conducting abridged communications audits, the temptation is to lump together into a single question many different elements of an organization. For instance, a ‘one dimensional’ question designed to understand a company's image may be along the lines of "how well do you like our brand?"

The problem with this approach is that it homogenizes feedback better suited for a multi-dimensional question. It's important to understand the differences between a company's brand, its products' brands, and the company's people with whom the target audience interacts—three very different and distinct dimensions. Often, the results between a question being asked in a one- and three-dimensional format are dramatically different.

For instance, one technology company conducted an audit and discovered that reporters loved its products and effectively couldn't imagine customers living without them. However, the corporate brand was considered untrustworthy, monopolizing, and not interested in the needs of its customers. The supporting PR team was considered non-existent--very difficult to get a hold of, unresponsive to inquiries, and condescending.

Were that question one-dimensional, it's clear that the answer would most likely appear to be rather confusing and contradictory. However, by taking the time to break out the components of the company's brand and investigating each element separately, core issues could be identified and subsequently addressed.

5. BE TRUE TO YOURSELF

While it's important to measure the impressions that your organization leaves with people, it's also critical to size up the metrics around your PR team's processes--including your own.

If you haven't done so already, develop formal processes for your PR team. Operational rigor is an often neglected—yet vital—lifeblood of a communications group. Be sure to measure your team’s compliance to those processes by asking such questions as:

• Do the articles in the company's newsletter regularly measure between the allotted 300-500 words?
• Is the promised two-day turnaround period for the VP of Communications’ approval of press releases regularly maintained?
• Did we promote six "success stories" within the last year, as promised?

Also, aim more for the abstract, asking such questions of the PR team as:

• I have all the help I need from my management to effectively get my job done.
• Our group has a clear vision for what it is to do and what my role is in its overall success.
• I know what I need to do to expand my career possibilities within this company.

6. GO FOR STRUCTURED AND UNSTRUCTURED QUESTIONS

It's really tempting to make a communications audit that relies strictly on structured data, e.g. measuring everything on a scale of 1-10 or 1-5. While this is terrific for quantitative analysis and developing bar and pie charts for the audit report, using this tactic exclusively can make the depth and substance of the report seem more like a backyard pool than the Pacific Ocean.

Take the time to develop unstructured questions, ones where the answer isn’t a circle around a number or a check in a box but instead relies on the respondent to write a few of their own words. Ideally, unstructured inquiries can be made in-person, either on the phone, over lunch, or during a focus group. But nevertheless, they’ll help you round out the picture of your audit.

CONCLUSION

Communications audits, frankly, can be grueling. Finding participants, arranging their cooperation, assessing the results, and making necessary adjustments for next year is never fun...it can feel like a trip to the dentist. However, the results can truly be worthwhile and lead to the long-term taste of sweet success.

LACP MEMBERS: Access the communications audit templates.