The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication: A Guide to Internal Communication, Public Relations, Marketing, and Leadership

Challenges of Marketing Communications Measurement

Your individual communication efforts do not exist within a vacuum. Sometimes there is a direct correlation between your communication efforts and identified results; sometimes there is not. For example, sales growth may seem like a good indicator of whether marketing communication has been effective. But, keep in mind that there are several external factors that can affect sales growth that should also be considered. For instance:

• The activities of your competitors. If competitors are running specials during the same time period that your ads are running, their efforts could cause your results to be lower than they might have been otherwise.
• Economic climate. For instance, a plant closing that ...