9. And once you have communicated ?

9.1 A continuous process

There is never an end to communication, especially if the ship is already sailing at full speed. You will then observe with pleasure that it is sometimes the journalists themselves who get in touch with you, that your partners themselves suggest joining them for new communication actions.

But most of all, you will have acquired the reflex of integrating a communication stage in all your actions.

9.2 Keep some traces

Press articles, radio or television reports must be collected along with your actions and assembled in a book which will be the record of your communication actions.

You will be able to use these results to communicate towards other targets : your sponsors, your members, public authorities, etc.

The press articles can be reproduced in you newsletters, distributed during meetings, sent to the members who will be pleased to learn that the action of their association is widely reported in the media.

Television programmes will serve as introduction for an internal meeting, a debate, a conference but also to convince sponsors, brief new recruits in your association, to introduce yourself with other associations, etc.

It is also a source of inspiration to create other promotion tools/documents about your action. The journalists sometimes write things you had never thought about and which appear to you well seen and can inspire you to explain your work. More concretely, you can copy-stick a paragraph or an interesting testimony (please mention the reference) in a more important press file you are preparing for a new action.

The book will also serve to write the chapter "communication" of your eventual annual report.

9.3 Take stock of the situation

It is wise from time to time to take stock of the situation, to stand still for a moment and look at the past and draw the lessons from it.

And same of as for the state of affairs (see page ?) go about it in two stages :

- internal evaluation by the team

- external evaluation by the targets.

It is the opportunity, but use moderation, to contact anew the media you have previously been in contact with and to ask their opinion on your way of communicating with them :

- What do they think of your tools: did they read your press releases, your press files …?

- What image do they have of your association, your action, the youngsters …? Has it changed further to the communication efforts of your association?

- Have they been well informed about your actions ? Did they get enough useful information?

- Did they cover one or the other event (in principle you should already been aware of it)

- if yes, how did it draw their attention ?

- if not, why ?

- What do they suggest to be better informed ?

You can question them during a telephone appointment or a meeting. By phone it is quicker but direct contact is friendlier.

Also a quantitative assessment

By enquiring as to the number of articles published and cutting them out (even those coming from Internet), by making a list and obtain a copy of radio and television broadcasts you will be able to quantify the results of your action.

This is the least you can do.

It will be more difficult to quantify the number of persons who will effectively have been reached by these media. Here you can have recourse to samples by establishing a list of the representative persons of your targets (public authorities, neighbourhood, teachers, youngsters, etc.) and contact them to find out if they have read, heard or seen something of your actions and what they have remembered. This is no doubt a heavy and demanding task but it is useful, from time to time, to check if the work put into communication has been worthwhile. To appear in the media, let’s keep it in mind, is only a tool to reach one’s public, not an end in itself.

Last but not least, it is also useful to assess the final impact of your media communication, has your relationship with the public authorities improved, is it easier to obtain financings, have you enlarged your network of contacts, is the street reality better understood by the neighbourhood, by the public in general, etc. It is not easy to quantify but to identify trends theme by theme can be useful.