Leonardo ENERGY’s Impact

Assessing the Impact of the Leonardo ENERGY Initiative

Entries Tagged as 'tools'

4 type of communications – 4 campaign types

March 20th, 2008 · No Comments · impact, reception analysis, technical communication, tools

Communication can serve 4 purposes:

  1. inform – raise awareness
  2. interpret – raise understanding
  3. convince – support readers to develop an opinion or correct a misunderstanding
  4. behaviour change

Obviously, the ultimate goal is behaviour change, this is largely an outcome beyond our control. Most communication are inputs designed for #1-3, with the ultimate purpose of achieving number 4.

This list may be of interest to think about our marketing communications. In essence, it reiterates the point of an earlier post on measuring impact from a different perspective.

The key question is the level of resources we choose to deploy towards a given objective. This needs to be combined with a benchmarking approach on cost effectiveness and quality of the action. As an impact assessment methodology, I sense there is something fundamentally different, but cannot yet put my finger on it. To be continued.

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Surveying users

February 28th, 2008 · 5 Comments · evaluation, impact, reception analysis, tools

We need to decide whether we want to survey few users in-depth, on many user groups on a variety of issues in a shallow way.The latter appears more appropriate considering the rich content of LE. In this case, a simple attitudinal measurement instrument is needed. Ref [1] divides groups in 5 categories of receptivity: hostile, neutral, uninterested, uninformed and supportive. Each group requires a different approach:

  • hostile: find areas of agreement, use solid science, phrase proposals in value terms. The goal is to divert negative activism into neutrality.
  • neutral: spell out benefits, focus on the downside of not accepting a proposal, discuss alternatives. Keep it simple. The goal is the convert neutrals into supporters.
  • uninterested. these people are informed, but simply don’t care. Appeal to their self-interest.
  • uninformed: lack information. Establish credibility. Keep it simple. Find an emotional link (stories, anecdotes, case studies, …).
  • supportive: keep them on your side. Recharge them, remind them of the stakes, help them with arguments against opponents.

The criteria of a dream case is a positive answer to 5 questions. However, in the real world, such cases do not even need selling – they fly by themselves. So it’s a matter of approaching the ideal as much as possible:

  1. is the case logical, and consistent with facts and experience?
  2. does it favourably address the interests of people who have to decide?
  3. does it eliminate or neutralise competing alternatives?
  4. does it recognise and deal with politics?
  5. is it endorsed by objective, authoritative 3rd parties?

[1] Harvard Business Essentials, Power, Influence and Persuasion, HBS Publishing 2005

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Marketing Measurement Webcast series

February 18th, 2008 · No Comments · evaluation, impact, tools

Better Management has an excellent series of 6 webcasts so far on Marketing Measurement:
Marketing Measurement Today – BetterManagement.com

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Sense of scoring

February 6th, 2008 · 2 Comments · evaluation, tools

When does scoring make sense. Suppose you’re an account manager for a geographical region, and have 100 prospects to develop into customers. What you’re likely to do is to define a number of criteria relevant for you to prioritize these accounts. Factors under consideration might be:

  • do you do business with this client in other regions?
  • growth potential
  • size
  • interesting account (business may be low, but the client helps you to push the boundary)
  • …

You’ll do a first ‘quick & dirty’ ranking, that you revisit in the beginning frequently to go through a number of iterations, to come up with a system that sounds like a plan. In the beginning, nonsensical results are likely to come up, which you’ll quickly spot and fine tune. In the self-contained universe of an account manager or small team, this approach makes a lot of sense.

Now suppose that you want to centralise this approach accross account managers, to allocate resources efficiently. Immediately, it gets very political. Every account manager will want criteria in there on which his accounts score well, and you’ll end up with an amalgamate of criteria. Next, gaming will enter into the scoring. If you’re team of account managers scores, you may see ‘reciprocal scoring’. And nonsensical results are not sorted out quickly anymore – they are convenient for anybody who wants to bypass the system, which is only a matter of time.

So lead scoring, campaign scoring, project scoring, which makes a lot of sense for individual portfolio’s, loose their value when used at a too aggregate level.

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