Last week, our Lead Consultant and Head of Public Affairs, Johnny Luk, was invited to participate in a webinar as a guest speaker with Stephen Waddington, who recently wrote a report about measuring the impact and value of public affairs, hosted by Dehavilland.
Johnny had contributed to Stephen’s research on the report and drew from his and his colleagues’ experience at Cast from Clay, as well as from the civil service, industry, and politics. The conversations extended to wider practical takeaways on how best to support clients, including:
- Measuring progress realistically – Clients tend to focus – rightly – on outcomes. The nature of public affairs is that outcomes can be hard to control. Many external factors can impact outcomes, such as those for legislative programmes. PA consultancies should be clear on what they can control – mainly the inputs – and show how that relates to outputs and how outputs increase the odds of improving outcomes. This should be done transparently and early to give clients a realistic picture of the possibilities. This is a key part of gaining client trust.
- Not all outputs are equal – Many traditional measurements can be useful, for example, the number of attendees at a launch event, the frequency of citations in Hansard, or key meetings held. However, this alone may not tell the full story, and success should be gauged by the quality and impact of the engagement, not just the numbers. The consultancy’s role is to help explain this and focus efforts on activities that give the most impact, rather than just ticking lots of boxes.
- Collaboratively establish what is true internally and externally – You can’t measure progress without knowing how the client’s brand and activities are perceived from the start of an engagement. This involves speaking with key stakeholders involved with the client, as well as conducting internal questionnaires. Is there clear alignment within the organisation on what they do? This process helps get everyone on the same page, including those outside of the direct PA function and builds more support internally for a campaign.
- Investing in credibility to drive longer-term influence – Any public affairs work should be an investment in the longer-term credibility of the company, rather than limited to just one campaign or outreach. That means building a network of advocates and strengthening their evidence base, tied together coherently so it can be applied to other parts of their comms activities. By investing in the client’s reputation, it will have more impact on future campaigns beyond this one.
- Upskill your clients – true success is when they don’t need you. A good PA consultancy will seek to support the client’s internal capacity. This would include providing tools and frameworks so that the client’s own team can continue to make a campaigning impact beyond the relationship with the consultancy.
- Crafting a story enhances the work already done – Strong campaigns tell a story and bind the many strands of engagement into broader advocacy goals, drawing in teams from wider comms to the researchers to really find the brand’s DNA. A good story maximises the hard graft already done by the client, such as their research reports. This means also ensuring your message lands with a broader audience, which is particularly important for clients working in more technical fields.
At Cast from Clay, we are always looking to push the boundaries of policy communications. We would love to hear your insights too on how to better improve policy comms, and please come to us if we can be of help or if you need further insights.
Image credit: Austin Chan on {UNSPLASH}.
