“Marketing” and “chaos” are synonymous in some organizations. Everybody has a better idea. Each manager is off doing his/her thing.
- The new marketing director doesn’t like the company’s color scheme.
- The CEO’s husband never liked the firm’s logo.
- The sales department is using an outdated positioning statement on all of their proposals.
- Your promotions director ordered a zillion keychains to hand out at Taste of Chicago, but he forgot to include your Web site address on the artwork.
- Maybe that’s a good thing, because your Web site hasn’t been updated since before the iPod was invented.
It’s Time for a Communications Audit
Your corporate balance sheet lists such organizational assets as real estate, equipment and your company-owned Lexus. You’ll never see Web site domain names, brochure designs, signage and YouTube videos on the balance sheet, but they are assets, too.
Whether you’re non-profit or highly profitable, you need to maximize your return on investment. Your communications assets should carry coordinated messages. The graphics and colors should look similar. Your Web site should be customer-friendly.
I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but I suspect you might want a little help putting your knowledge into practice. An outside, unbiased eye might be just what you need.
What is a Communications Audit?
Tell us about your organization’s goals, then send us everything you can find that has, or should have, your company’s name or logo on it. Send us links to Web site examples and samples of email newsletters.
We’ll give you a written evaluation of everything, along with creative suggestions on how to make the overall package deliver a better ROI.
To make it more fun, we can do this evaluation in your conference room, interactively in workshop format with your key people. (No, I’m not really kidding about the “fun” part.)
The outcome may be a plan for a new logo, or simply an edict from the CEO reminding people to toss the business cards that still carry the name of the company from before the big merger.
Materials to be Evaluated in a Communications Audit
- Web site(s)
- E-mail newsletters
- Brochures
- Sales presentations / proposals
- Trade show booth
- Fund-raising materials (non-profit)
- Investor relations materials
- Signage
- Logos and corporate identity
- Use of new media
