Communications Audit who hears your message

Communications audits – who hears your message?

Public relations is the ongoing process of helping a company or organisation build mutually beneficial relationships with its important publics.

Sometimes a company needs to gauge public, employee or media opinion concerning its image or functions. After all, if a company wants to respond to or change attitudes, it needs to have a clear understanding of what drives those beliefs. A communications audit is a useful tool to test the waters.

An audit has several advantages:

• It is independent.

• It helps understand the mindset of target audiences.

• It shows your willingness to respond to other people’s views.

• It can make practical recommendations on improving two-way communication and building community and staff support.

• It provides a snapshot of a company’s communication needs, policies, and activities.

• It reviews coverage by newspaper, radio and television media and can provide explanations for why your company is not receiving regular media coverage.

Recently Durning PR undertook a communications audit for a national sporting body, which is carrying out a benchmarking process comparing its operations with internationally recognised standards. For this to be done properly, the organisation needed an indication of how good were its internal communications and media relations.

The communications audit involved telephone interviews with board members, district presidents, development officers and media representatives throughout New Zealand.

It has revealed that communications from board level are good, communications to immediate audiences are also well received but the further down the chain one goes, the less effective are the messages.

Communications to national media are also satisfactory but not so good at provincial level.

So the organisation has areas it needs to improve, but it is only when armed with solid research that it can make sound decisions.

An audit can provide your company with the information needed to set your company apart.

- John Durning, Durning PR, Public Relations and Media Advisers, Christchurch, New Zealand. Ph 64-3- 365 2579, email: john@durning.co.nz; www.durning.co.nz



To learn more about this author, visit John Durning's Website.

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