Key takeaways
• Measurement, attribution, and business value each answer a different question.
• Communications creates value through more than the content and campaigns it produces.
• Some of its most important contributions are found in better understanding, stronger relationships, sharper positioning, and useful market intelligence.
• The strongest business case combines quantitative measures with qualitative evidence and connects communications activity to the organisational priorities it supports.
• We can’t attribute every contribution communication makes, so the focus should be on showing the wider value and why that matters.
Communications as a listening and sense-making function
The trap we can all fall into is thinking purely about content when that is only part of what a communications function does. Consider a product launch. A communications team might interview customers, dealers, engineers, and product specialists to develop the campaign. The obvious output is the content and trade media coverage, but those conversations might also reveal that customers care far less about a certain feature than the product team had initially assumed. Or that dealers are encountering the same objection frequently. Or that competitors are beginning to position the product category differently.
Those observations can change the messaging, the campaign, and the sales conversations surrounding the launch. There is no attribution model that can reliably put a monetary value on the insight, but the organisation has learnt something it didn’t know before and may have changed what it does as a result. That is the intelligence hiding inside the work.
And what if a communications team advises against a particular strategy, topic, or message? There is no content output (so no coverage or engagement to measure) and no tangible outcome (so no leads to attribute), so it is difficult to prove that that action or inaction protected reputation or maintained a customer relationship, even if that’s what it effectively achieved.
The value of communications is cumulative
So what should a B2B communications leader actually show?
A good report might answer five questions.
1. What did we produce?
Coverage, content, campaigns, events, and stakeholder activity demonstrate delivery and efficiency.
2. What happened?
Engagement, enquiries, awareness, reputation, relationships, pipeline contribution, or other relevant outcomes show what changed as a result.
3. What did we learn?
What did customers tell us? What were journalists interested in? What were competitors doing? What concerns were emerging? What assumptions turned out to be wrong? This shows the intelligence generated through communications activity.
4. What changed because we knew it?
Did the insight alter a message, campaign, customer conversation, or strategic decision? This demonstrates influence.
5. What should happen next?
What should we continue, change, stop, or invest in? This turns reporting into something useful to the wider business.
The quantitative evidence shows what happened, while the qualitative evidence provides context and helps explain why it matters. Rather than simply stating “We produced 20 pieces of content”, we can show “These were the priorities we supported, this is what happened, this is what we learnt, this is what changed, and this is where we think communications can create the most value next.”
Yes, we can see what the function created or what it can directly attribute. But part of the case for continued investment in communications is what the organisation learnt, understood, changed, and enabled because communications was doing its job.
Hannah Kitchener
Associate Director
About the author
Hannah is an associate director in the UK, leading strategic campaigns for industrial clients across the EMEA region. A professionally qualified journalist (NCTJ), she combines specialist sectoral knowledge in construction, energy, and materials handling with a strong network of trade media contacts to secure valuable coverage. Her expertise in inter-cultural communication, honed by degrees in modern languages and translation, is key to executing campaigns that succeed across diverse European markets.
