Measure Your Crisis

Measure Your Crisis

In the world of communication and marketing, we see measurement being put on the back burner. We see a lack of budget toward it, a lack of staff or tools to measure anything and we see a lack of understanding the importance of measurement.

In times of crisis, even if we have a plan, we seem to just hope that we make it out alive. We look to the plan for help and right practices, but we really just want to do our best to stay above water. We know that our reputation is on the line, the trust of our audiences could be on the line and we know that what we do can change everything. However, crisis is bound to happen. It won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last. So, how do we prepare after the crisis is over? We measure. Katie Paine notes in her book “Measure What Matters” to measure in the following ways:

1. Measure what is being said about you – Your media monitoring and listening to your customers should be constant.

2. What people believe about you – are your messages being heard and believed as they are going out?

3. What people do – measure long-term effects and use follow-up research.

4. Trust is the key to building and defending your reputation – trust or lack thereof, has a measurable effect on the financial health of any organization because it affects customer loyalty, word-of-mouth, employee retention and ultimately reputation.

Crisis communication plays a crucial role in how an organization handles crisis and what customers will trust after it occurs. Your communication plan should address not only what to do, but how to measure it so you can communicate effectively throughout the crisis and when it is finished.