Comms Reporting & Insights Toolkit

When to use this toolkit

Use the Comms Reporting & Insights Toolkit when you need to:

• Prove value – Demonstrate communications impact to leadership
• Establish rhythm – Create consistent monitoring and reporting cadence
• Make data-driven decisions – Turn observations into strategic adjustments
• Track issues – Monitor emerging risks before they become crises
• Report up – Brief stakeholders on what’s working and what’s not

This toolkit connects measurement to action, with every step linked to a decision or a stakeholder need.

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How the workflow fits together

Setup: Measurement Framework

Before you report, know what matters. The Objectives & Measurement Framework defines:

• What success looks like (objectives)
• How you’ll know you’ve achieved it (KPIs)
• Where the data comes from (sources)
• How often you’ll check (cadence)

Without this, you’re just collecting numbers without meaning.

Weekly Operations

The Weekly Monitoring Brief is your operational heartbeat. Every week, capture:

• Media mentions and sentiment
• Social conversation and engagement
• Emerging issues and risks
• Competitor activity

This takes 1-2 hours and keeps you connected to the conversation.

Use the Issue Log Tracker alongside weekly monitoring to flag and track emerging issues. Categorise by severity and assign ownership.

Daily/Weekly Reference

The Simple Comms Dashboard gives you and your team a quick view of what matters. One page, updated weekly:

• Key metrics vs targets
• Traffic light status
• Trend indicators
• Notable wins and risks

This is what you check in your Monday morning stand-up.

Monthly Analysis

Monthly is when you step back. The Insights to Actions Template forces you to:

1. State the insight (what the data shows)
2. Explain the implication (what it means)
3. Recommend the action (what to do about it)

This prevents reporting that stops at “awareness increased 5%“–so what?

The Monthly Stakeholder Update packages everything for leadership. Board members and executives don’t want data dumps – they want:

• What we did
• What happened
• What it means
• What’s next

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Tips for success

1. Start with questions – What does leadership actually want to know? Build reporting to answer those questions.
2. Less is more – Five meaningful metrics beat twenty vanity metrics
3. Show trends, not snapshots – This month’s number means nothing without context
4. Connect to business outcomes – Awareness is a comms metric; revenue is a business metric. Show the link.
5. Automate what you can – Manual data gathering is time you could spend on analysis

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What’s not included

This toolkit focuses on reporting and analysis. For acting on insights, you may also need:

• Campaign Brief to plan responses to what you learn
• Crisis Content Pre-Approval Pack if issues are escalating
• Content Calendar templates to adjust your content based on insights

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Estimated time

Phase	Time
Measurement framework setup	2-3 hours
Dashboard design	1-2 hours
Template customisation	1-2 hours
Total setup	4-7 hours

Once established:

• Weekly monitoring: 1-2 hours
• Monthly reporting: 2-3 hours