Setting goals is an absolute prerequisite to communications planning, measurement and evaluation

04/11/2023

analysis suite media analysis barcelona principles

No matter what you are going to measure, there must be a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your communication.

Some companies have well-developed strategies and plans for how communication should best support their business and how to evaluate communication. Others lack well-structured plans but have a clear idea of what they want to achieve. Regardless, it is possible to set goals and measure communication.

Goals also help us plan our time, to prioritize when time is of the essence, to agree on what is most important and to know when you have done what is expected of you. The list of arguments for working with goals can be made much longer, but the point is that all these arguments also apply to communication goals.

An important prerequisite for setting goals for your communication is to start from the SMART model, meaning that the goals should be specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-bound.

But how do you actually set communication goals?

Download our e-book to learn more about principle 1 and much more!

The Barcelona Principles

The Barcelona Principles were first agreed upon by PR practitioners from 33 countries who met in Barcelona, Spain in 2010 for a summit convened by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC). The principles have since then been updated twice, in 2015 to the version 2.0 and in 2020 to the latest version of Barcelona Principles 3.0. Regular updates respond to the rapidly advancing change in the communications industry.

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Setting goals is an absolute prerequisite to communications planning, measurement and evaluation

But how do you actually set communication goals?

Our analysts about the Retriever way of measuring communicati ...

Why and how to measure your communications?