Bridging research and communications to increase impact
By Lauren Cook, Founder + Lead Strategist
I spent three years on the research team of a major Texas family foundation. It was an interesting place to land since I had spent the previous three years on the marketing team, and the three before that on the policy team. I am not a researcher by training, but I enjoyed “bridging” the research findings to the policy and marketing teams, and the result had everything to do with impact.
The most memorable thing I learned from my research colleagues was this: The most devastating idea in research is that the study, report, or brief will sit on the shelf and not have an impact.
This happens far too often, not because the research — whether it be original research, a scan of the literature, or something in between — is not high quality. It happens because of a lack of connection.
Sometimes there is a divide between the research and other departments, such as policy, programs, or communications. The researchers hand off their technical findings and hope for the best when it comes to how that data is further explained, packaged, and most importantly, utilized as a catalyst for change.
What is commonly missing in this approach, and what I found myself doing time and time again as part of the research team in my last position, was unpacking and boiling down the research prior to its public launch. Could this be the missing link for your organization’s success with research communications?
Both internally and externally, we found it was imperative to make the research approachable and clear, and most importantly, tell why it matters and what impact it could have on the individuals and groups we were all working to serve.
Our team at Connecting Our Stories is skilled at serving as the bridge between research and policy or programs, and between communications and research. (Insider tip: the bridge to policy is best paved via the communications road. The policy team benefits greatly from the “translated” version of the research before they start developing proposals.)
And, there are a variety of methods and outcomes for this process. Perhaps this would be most helpful as an internal process. As referenced above, maybe your policy team would appreciate a presentation about the research broken down into themes, with graphics and examples (to widen accessibility among individuals who process information differently).
Or maybe your communications team needs a workshop to gain a better understanding of the research, even though it came to them with an executive summary. There is an important process of not only understanding what the research says, but, from an internal perspective, understanding why the research was conducted, how it aligns with an organization’s mission and goals, and how those should be woven into any external expressions of the research (that the comms or marketing team is often tasked with).
And, what about those external expressions? Everyone knows understanding your target audience is essential to getting results from your communications strategy. But, are you tailoring your research-derived content to your audiences and their needs? Is the data coming across as all “head,” or does it have some “heart” too? When your audience consumes your research products, could they easily identify at least one main point you were hoping to get across?
It may be surprising to learn how many people inside and outside your organization couldn’t identify a major takeaway of a research project that may have been very costly and very important to the organization, simply because it wasn’t shared with them in a strategic or accessible way.
We know organizations thrive when all staff, from the brand new graphic designer to the CEO, are co-learning. Organizations thrive when they know why and how major projects are contributing to the organization’s mission. Audiences thrive when they are inspired and even changed by the information they receive from your organization — when your story connects with theirs.