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The Starch
Test module on CommToolbox.com is an
online tool to help you identify exactly what your publication’s readers
read in each issue of your publication. We have created this tool based on
the concept behind an advertising research technique developed by market
researcher Daniel Starch several decades ago.
You
input the article titles from your latest issue to generate an online
worksheet (which can be printed out in hard copy for readers without
online access). Your readers identify which articles they skimmed, skipped
or read thoroughly, and why.
Here's
how it works:
- After each issue of your
publication, you type in the title and page number of each
article, which will automatically create a survey for your readers to
use, either online or as a printed form. You also quickly go through a
checklist to identify which content and formatting techniques you used
with each article, such as color, subheads and photos.
- Then your
readers tell you which articles they read, skimmed or skipped,
either by logging on to CommToolbox or using a paper survey you send
them. They also provide reasons for why they either skipped an article
entirely or why they read it thoroughly.
Reports
you can run:
- You can see which articles were most heavily
read.
- You can see the most common reasons that your
audience is choosing to read or not read articles.
- You can see which content and formatting techniques
are drawing the most readers.
What this tool does for
you:
- Shows you exactly which stories are being read, not
just general categories of stories as a readership survey might
identify.
- Provides supporting data to convince
executives about changes you recommend making to the content and
format of your publication, and the budget required to accomplish
those changes.
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The Content Analysis module on
CommToolbox.com is an online tool to help you track how well your employee
publication (printed or online) is aligned with your organization's goals.
It will quantify for you exactly how much space has been devoted to each
of your key messages per edition and for the full year to-date.
Here's how it works:
- The first
time you use it, you will identify which topics should
be covered during the course of a year: your organization's mission,
each of your goals, various departments or business units, topics like
quality, diversity, safety, etc. The module already lists quite a few
potential topic areas that are common to many publications. You can
either choose them for your own master list or not. You also can input
topic areas of your own that are not in the starting list of
topics.
- After each
issue of your publication, you type in the title and length of
each article. Then you quickly go through a checklist to identify which
key messages were covered in each article.
Reports you can run:
- You can see exactly what percentage of each edition
had articles that covered each of the key messages you identified
upfront. You can also see how much coverage there has been on each topic
year-to-date and compare one year's editions against another.
- Once the database has more data, you will also be
able to see how the content of your publication compares with that of
other similar publications.
What this tool does for
you:
- Helps you plan future editions to include coverage
of under-reported topics.
- Makes it easy to report to management how well
aligned your communication channels are with the organization’s
goals.
- Helps you show business units that
perpetually demand more coverage how much coverage they already
have been receiving versus other
groups.
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