Why annual comms measurement reports are a waste of time

The end of 2016 is upon us, and communications teams are scrambling to put together year-end measurement reports.

If you’re among them, stop it. Unless you’re diving deep into the data to produce measurement insight, you’re wasting your time.

Last year I wrote that annual communications reports are a waste of time, mostly because it’s silly to check your progress once a year in a communications environment that changes monthly. Imagine if, as a parent, the only time you checked your child’s health was right after Christmas.

The problem with annual activity reports is that they merely compile what happened: the releases released, placements placed and links clicked. They don’t tell you anything you can do anything about.

Hindsight might be 20/20, but if you can’t make decisions on it, who cares?

The people for whom you are preparing these reports won’t read or care about them unless you add insights. Leaders want to know: “What can we learn from what we did wrong, and how can we take advantage of what we did right?”