Communications Assessment

What IS a communications assessment?
Why, I am so glad you asked!

Communications assessments are what we here at Tricomm Strategies refer to as the first of three pillars of effective communication. In a nutshell, a communication assessment (or audit) answers the questions:
- What are we doing?
- Is it working for us?

Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Hee hee.

There is a lot of background work that needs to happen in order to find the answers to these questions. It means evaluating how your communications vision aligns with your organization’s overall mission, assessing the types of goals that are used, how your target audience is defined and what types of tools you are currently using.

I won’t kid you, an assessment can be a difficult process. It’s a bit like standing naked in front of the mirror and turning on the fluorescent lights. You need to take a good hard look at the good, the bad and the ugly of all of your interactions.

• Does your website still look current?
• Does your brochure accurately reflect your brand?
• Is your messaging clear and concise?
• Is one area of your organization going rogue on you and producing the equivalent of an ugly cousin flyer?
• Does your leadership buy in to the communication vision?
• Are they trained in delivering your key messages?

These are just a few of the questions you should be asking as you go through the process.

The upside to all of this work is that after all is said and done, you will have a very clear picture of where you stand with your organizations communications – what’s working, what’s not and what areas need work.

This picture will form the basis upon which to build a strategic communications plan – the second pillar of effective communications – that will make the most of your communications efforts and optimize your always limited resources.

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