Angela Sinickas, the Diva of Diagnostics, shares her award-winning entry
When International Association of Business Communicators Gold Quill judges gather for a drink or three after a day of being deciders, we joke that we should put on a seminar about how to win a Gold Quill award. We’d call it:
“You may already have lost.”
The reason: Too many communicators submit award entries without the winning component — measurement. In fact, to save time in the judging process, I often start by looking at the evaluation section. No measurement? No statue.
So I was delighted when Angela Sinickas — ABC, IABC Fellow, president of Sinickas Communications and guru of communication measurement — sent me her latest Gold Quill Award-winning entry.
Here’s how she set and measured her goals for the project, a two-part article about creating communication dashboards for Strategic Communication Management. (That’s right, an article — not a multibillion-dollar marketing campaign.)
How Angela Sinickas measured her results | |||
| Objective | Measurement | Evaluation | Result |
| Expand the reach of Sinickas Communications’ reputation as a leading-edge expert in measuring communication effectiveness | Have at least 25% of the article’s readers find it valuable enough to share with other communicators or their business management | A survey, administered through SurveyMonkey, sent to 59 communicators who had requested a copy of the article |
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| Increase the likelihood of people hiring us for projects or buying our products | Obtain at least one client project as a result of their having read the article | Customer queries | Four queries from people who said they’d read the article; one paid off in a consulting engagement. |
| Provide enduring value to the article’s readers | Output target: Write the article at a Flesch-Kincaid grade level readability score of 12.0 | Microsoft Word’s Readability Statistics | The Flesch-Kincaid grade level score was 11.7. |
| Knowledge target: Have at least 50% of readers say they learned something new | SurveyMonkey survey | 39% said they learned something new. | |
| Attitude target: Have at least 50% of readers feel more confident in their ability to develop performance measures | SurveyMonkey survey | 54% said they felt more confident because of the article. | |
| Behavior target: Have at least 25% of readers say they used the information to change the way they set performance targets, measure their progress or report on their results | SurveyMonkey survey |
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Tricks to steal from Angela
Note Angela’s four-part format:
- Objective
- Quantifiable measure for that objective
- Measurement tool
- Statistical result
You need all four of these to create and measure bottom-line business objectives.
Also, notice her tools — Microsoft Word’s Readability Statistics, for gosh sakes! (Rev Up Readership members, download a free e-book on how to use this valuable gizmo.) You don’t need to fund a statistically significant study to measure communication results.
No wonder she earned a Gold Quill!
How can you find inspiration in Angela’s approach to provide world-class measurement for your own communication campaigns?
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