linda limBy Linda Lim

You’ve launched a great campaign and garnered millions of impressions on social media with engagement rates that are above industry benchmarks.  You know you’ve made a difference – but how do you connect these activities to their impact on business performance?

The business communications professional, similar to other important members of the business team, enables growth by targeting those who buy or sell our solutions. We help to drive demand and build brand preference by creatively and strategically using the tools and channels available to us. Depending on the purchase cycle, business leads would materialize in the short term or it could take several years.  However, every communications campaign and public relations effort continues to influence those purchase decisions.

Today’s tools enable us to collect more data points than in the past. We have tons of numbers – engagement, click-through rates, volume of visits, etc. With all the available data, have we come closer to being able to demonstrate the impact of brand preference and the business impact of communications?

In this LinkedIn post, I offer a potential model to align data to business and communication objectives and to develop a dashboard to both track and guide future communication activities.

In addition to her role as Associate Director, Global Business Communications, Dow Water & Process Solutions, Linda Lim also serves as Secretary of the Board of IABC Minnesota.