Written by Anna Zaslavska, copywriter at Writitude
The words “communications audit” may sound intimidating — and, we must admit, not without reason — but it is, in fact, an invaluable investment for your business.
In this blog post, we’ll explain what a communications audit is, why it’s necessary for your business and how it’s actually performed.
And to back up our advice with some practical help, we’re offering you a detailed corporate communications audit how-to guide and audit table template that you can use to conduct an audit of your company’s communications.
Article Highlights
(Check-ups and audits don’t have to be scary!)
- Wait, What Is a Communications Audit? (Taking care of your business’s health)
- Can You Give an Example? (Namaste! We can)
- And There’s More… (Including, but not limited to, these examples: communication channels, inconsistencies, best practices and new goals)
- But How Is It Done? (This part may sound a bit scary)
- No Need to Worry (We dispel your fears)
- Last But Not Least…
Wait, What Is a Communications Audit?
A communications audit is a procedure for assessing your brand’s communications — from your online and print content to the press releases, newsletters and e-mails sent to your partners and customers.
It can be performed internally or by an external consultant, and its main objective is to find inconsistencies in your brand communications. Eliminating these inconsistencies is crucial for maintaining a unified brand impression, which is key to a successful, ever-growing business.
To put it simply, an audit is like a health check-up. If you want to keep your corporate communications in the best possible shape, you need to make an appointment for some extensive tests from time to time.
And even if you don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with your business communications, a timely check-up can help you avoid many complications in the future.
Can You Give an Example?
Here’s a case from one team member’s experience. They were approached by a company that had built an office centre in an upscale business district, offering serviced office space for lease.
Everything about the office centre was Class A, from its lucrative location and elegant design to the highly professional work of the service and maintenance staff. Yet the demand for the office spaces was still considerably lower than expected.
The development company perfectly knew their product’s worth. However, they felt there was something wrong with their communications, but failed to pinpoint the issue.
This is why the company ordered a communications audit at a consulting agency where our colleague was working at the time.
After conducting an audit, the consultants were able to identify all the flaws in the developer’s communications and list them for the client.
Here are some of those shortcomings:
- Overly complicated sentences (many instances of more than two clauses in one sentence).
- Repetitiveness (e.g. the phrase “office centre” occurring up to four times in a sentence, with no attempt to use synonyms like “building”, “premises”, etc.).
- Almost no pronouns (always “NN Office Center” instead of “we”; “the future tenants of the office centre” instead of “you”, etc.).
All in all, the tone of voice was rather cold and bureaucratic and, thus, inconsistent with the purposes of social media communication.
Even though an office development is meant to sound business-like, its publications must also be readable and engaging.
To attract new clients and partners, you must acknowledge them as an audience and reach out to them, especially on your social media channels.
Actually, the consultants in our story could identify the main issue from the get-go. It took them just a quick scroll through the company’s Facebook page to understand what was going wrong.
But would it be professional of them to base their evaluation on a couple of examples? No, because getting a complete picture requires a thorough approach.
By conducting the communications audit, the consultants were able to precisely pinpoint the shortcomings of the client’s communications and provide them with clear recommendations for the future.
And There’s More…
As you can see from our example, ordering a communications audit from a third party is extremely helpful for business owners who outsource their copy.
A communications audit will provide you with an unbiased evaluation of your copywriters’ work.
If you have been feeling like switching to another agency for your communications, an audit will provide you with solid justifications for your decision. You will also obtain clear guidelines to pass to your content creators in the future.
And, of course, there is more. Communications audits cover a vast range of purposes, such as…
Identifying the most and least effective communication channels for your business. (Result: Communication becomes more cost-effective as your writing staff can now focus on the channels that attract more customers.)
Pinpointing nasty inconsistencies, like the wrong spelling of your own brand or capitalizing a letter you don’t need to capitalise. Is it Writitude, TextOK or TexTok? (You guessed right, it’s Writitude! )
(Result: Overall company image improves. Besides, eliminating minor inconsistencies is especially important if your business is hoping to bring in investors.)
- Checking if your content falls in line with good communication practices. Maybe your social media posts are way over the recommended 1-2 sentences. Maybe it’s time to remind your audience about your company’s mission, since all your recent content revolves around sales and giveaways.
(Result: Voicing your message more clearly improves your rapport with your existing customers and partners. It also opens up more opportunities for bringing in new customers and partners.)
- Defining your new communication goals. If your business has been on the market for several years, you are probably looking for opportunities to grow and expand.
You need to enter a new stage with fresh up-to-date visuals and, of course, innovative copy. And studying your previously written content is the best way to decide on the necessary changes.
(Result: You now have the tools to work out the best communications strategy for a glorious future, may your business grow and expand evermore!)
But How Is It Done?
As you can see from the previous section, a communications audit can serve many purposes. But whatever your goal is, you will first need to…
Identify or re-identify your target audience, your company’s vision and mission, and your business goals.
Decide if your current tone of voice fits all of the above.
If yes, what can you improve to make your business communications even more efficient and successful?
If not, what steps do you need to take to achieve the consistency which will make your business communications efficient and successful? But how exactly do you audit your communications?
As we’ve already said, this process is similar to a health check-up. A thorough check-up involves many tests and screenings because your physician needs to have a full picture of your health.
It’s the same for assessing your business communications. You need to look through the entire scope, page by page, post by post — and meticulously study them from all angles.
Everything is taken into account: particular keywords and general choice of vocabulary, grammatical errors and stylistic inconsistencies, use of punctuation and pictograms (such as emojis) and much, much more…
If your business is communicating in more than one language, in the course of an audit you need to see how consistently your content is localized. Does your international audience see the same picture as your local public, or do you need to adjust your tone of voice in other languages?
In short, a communications audit is a complex and lengthy process. Depending on your methodology, it might also involve focus groups (how does a certain audience react to this or that piece of content?
How does it make them feel?) and interviews. But, just like with a health check-up, it’s a necessary investment of time and effort that always pays off.
No Need to Worry
This may all sound rather frightening. In fact, we felt unnerved ourselves as we wrote this! But only a little bit.
Because our Writitude experts have already taken care of the scariest part of the job: we’ve written a detailed manual to guide you through the audit process step by step.
And to dispel the last of your fears, we’ve prepared an audit table that you (or your consultant) can fill with notes and samples that will comprise your actual audit.
You can fill out the table individually or as a team — our sharing tools allow this to be done completely stress-free, and all your notes are safe with us. You can also download the table for offline use.
Last But Not Least…
As we’ve already mentioned, assessing your (or your customer’s) communications will take some time, definitely more than a couple of days.
So, our last recommendation is to stay focused on your initial purpose.
A good health check is thorough, but it is still limited to a certain number of tests depending on your age, history, lifestyle, etc.
Because checking literally everything at once is simply impossible (and unnecessary, anyway).
The same goes for communications audits. Be thorough but stay on track! Remember what goal or goals you had in mind at the beginning of the audit.
You have the knowledge, you have the tools. You have a goal. So, have no fear and audit away!
We guarantee that it will do you a world of good.
