AMEC Measurement month is back in September 2016 full of events and digital activities across the globe. Part of AMEC’s Global Education Programme, Measurement Month puts a spotlight on measurement with a series of free events internationally from conferences to tweet chats to breakfast talks.
It’s never been easier to get involved, attend or host an event to get your organisation known for being connected with the industry on the hottest topic in PR – evaluation!
This year the AMEC summit saw the launch of the new AMEC Interactive Framework. This brings to live the Barcelona Principles 2.0 in a practical way where by users enter their communications objectives, metrics and context and the platform provides a printable and saveable evaluation plan. This new Framework is going to feature across many of the Measurement Month events so get involved now.
At the AMEC Summit in London in June this year, a session was dedicated to Measurement Month where an expert panel shared insightful tips about the best, simple and most effective ways to run an event. The session can be viewed here and the panel consisted of:
Nicole Moreo, Director of Research & Insights, Peppercomm
Maria Laura García, President, GlobalNews Group – South America
Evgeniy Larionov, CEO, Ex Libris – Russia/Baltics
Khali Sakkas, Executive Director, Insights & Research, Isentia – Australia/Asia
Jeroen Scholten, Founder and Managing Director, Publistat – The Netherlands
Francois van Dyk, Operations Manager, Ornico – South Africa
In summary, the key points that emerged from the session were:

  • Use the launch of the new AMEC Interactive Framework as a hook for your event.
  • Take this opportunity to address some of the needs of your market – are there particular issues that evaluation could contribute to solving?
  • Be ambitious in the speakers you approach – be bold and try to get the most interesting speakers secured for your line up.
  • Remember to involve local groups, trade press and organisations. The key is think global, act local!
  • Join up with partners – or even competitors – as sharing best practice increases standards and benefits the industry as a whole.
  • Media measurement differs from media evaluation so be clear on what it is your event is focusing on and how it relates to communications measurement.
  • Don’t just think that Measurement Month is about running events. Think webinars, tweet chats, or even shorter lunchtime or breakfast sessions.
  • Spread your messages and coverage further by Periscoping your event and/or sharing it on line after the event. This will help with time zone issues too.
  • Think about your clients and how you can both educate them and offer a cutting edge approach to proving communications value.
  • Know your audience! Cities may differ from rural areas and one approach won’t suit everyone. A more advanced audience in measurement will expect a higher level, whereas those new or early on their evaluation journey may need more basics.
  • Look at what else is going on in your area, are there other events or initiatives that would make for a strong partnership or join up?
  • Recognise that many organisations are facing financial cut backs so focus your content on what appeals to them, such as Return on Investment (ROI) and demonstrating the value of communications; sometimes it’s a long term investment.
  • Some AMEC members reported that targeting a youth audience was very effective in getting communicators interested and excited about what measurement can do for an organisation.

To make it easy for you, AMEC has produced a range of tools, available here along with a calendar of events.
We look forward to seeing you at an event and/or following your events on social media.