The year is coming to an end, which means many organizations and communications professionals are in the throes of planning for what’s next by setting new goals, coming up with new ideas, or drafting new campaigns. Planning is great, but first, take a moment and pause.
In order to build your new 2026 plan, you need to understand two things: what actually worked in 2025, and what didn’t.
Communication success isn’t a clean metric. While it’s good to know the number of media placements, posts, impressions, or engagements, strategic success is measured by the clarity, alignment, and credibility that moved your business forward. As importantly, it should be coupled with identifying the “noise” that didn’t.
As strategic communication advisors, we guide clients through this process every day. From the national brand to the start up, our work begins with reflection: analyzing performance, understanding patterns, and connecting communications activity to measurable business outcomes. We call this a Discovery & Benchmark Analysis, which is also the first phase of our Brand Positioning Program. The goal is to reveal where your communications stand today, so we can identify where they need to go next.
When you know what truly mattered and where you stand, then your next plan becomes more intentional, effective, and aligned with growth.
Why Measurement Matters Now
Many organizations measure activity, but few measure impact.
They track how many emails were sent, how many impressions a post earned, or how many mentions appeared in the media. However, those metrics rarely tell whether communications actually built trust, drove alignment, or influenced business outcomes, only that work has been done.
Communication success is how well your message resonated and how clearly it connected to your goals.
We help clients bridge the gap between the work and the goal.
Our team translates performance data into insight, combining analytics with strategic interpretation to show not just what happened but why it mattered. We connect public relations outcomes to brand positioning, internal alignment to employee trust, and content performance to real-world reputation.
That’s where communications audit becomes essential, especially at year end. It’s the first step toward clarity and direction because the process that reveals which efforts strengthened your brand, which diluted your message, and how to refine your strategy before you move into 2026.
What to Measure from 2025
To evaluate your communications performance, we shift our focus from volume to value. Here are the key areas our team analyzes in a Discovery & Benchmark Analysis phase before developing a new strategy for our clients:
1. Message Clarity: Was your message consistent across every touchpoint? Did employees, media, and stakeholders describe your organization in the same way?
We conduct message audits and stakeholder interviews to uncover where your story is clear, where it’s fragmented, and how to strengthen it. Clarity is the foundation of trust, and misalignment is often the biggest source of confusion.
2. Reputation and Trust Signals: Look beyond sentiment analysis. Evaluate how audiences responded to what you said. Did your transparency build confidence? Did your thought leadership strengthen authority?
In addition to interviewing stakeholders, our team reviews earned coverage, leadership presence, and tone to uncover your brand’s credibility baseline, which is critical for reputation strategy.
3. Leadership Visibility: Your executives are the human face of your brand. Were they visible in ways that reinforced credibility and accountability?
We help leaders define their public voice, connect it to brand values, and build visibility plans that turn presence into trust.
4. Channel Consistency: Do your website, social channels, and earned media reflect the same narrative and tone? Disconnected messaging fragments credibility. Cohesion strengthens it.
Through our integrated communications planning process, Ascent ensures every channel tells one unified story.
5. Audience Engagement Quality: Don’t just measure likes or clicks. Ask: who engaged and why?
Our digital strategists assess engagement quality, mapping data to goals and ensuring your communications efforts are connecting with the right people in meaningful ways.
6. Internal Alignment: When employees hear one message and customers hear another, trust erodes.
We facilitate discovery sessions with internal teams to align messaging and ensure the story being told inside your organization matches what’s said externally.
Turning Insights into Strategy for 2026
Once you’ve measured what mattered, the next step is translating those insights into a 2026 plan that’s stronger and smarter.
Ascent turns discovery into direction through:
- Strategic Communications Planning: We design tailored roadmaps that align every communications effort with your business goals.
- Brand Positioning & Messaging: We refine your narrative, establish clear messaging pillars, and ensure every word aligns to what your brand stands for.
- Integrated Communications Execution: Using frameworks like the PESO Model, we connect public relations, digital marketing, and brand strategy so every channel reinforces the same message.
- Measurement That Matters: We set metrics that measure clarity, trust, and alignment, not just output volume, so that you can track real progress.
The result is a communications strategy built on insight, not assumption, and it performs because it’s grounded in truth.
Clarity Leads Growth
The past year proved that clarity always outperforms chaos. From our perspective, the brands that broke through the noise had the clearest story, the most consistent voice, and the confidence to stay aligned with what mattered most.
Before you start mapping your 2026 plan, take a step back. Measure what mattered. Find the story behind your results.
Then move forward with both intention and a partner who knows how to turn insight into impact.
If your team is ready to start 2026 with clarity and confidence, we’ll show you where to begin.
Let’s talk about what worked in 2025 (and what didn’t).
FAQS
How do you measure communications success beyond basic metrics like impressions or media hits?
We measure success by evaluating clarity, alignment, and trust. This is collectively an assessment of how well your message resonated, whether it supported your goals, and how it strengthened your brand’s credibility. Traditional volume metrics are helpful, but true success is impact, not output.
What should a communications audit include at year-end?
A year-end communications audit should assess message consistency, reputation signals, leadership visibility, channel alignment, audience quality, and internal cohesion. The goal is to understand what strengthened your story, and what diluted it.
How does a communications audit improve my communications strategy?
A thorough audit creates a baseline of where your communications stand today, revealing gaps, strengths, and opportunities. These insights shape a more intentional strategy that aligns with business goals and eliminates noise.
When should organizations start planning their 2026 communications strategy?
Ideally after assessing what truly worked in 2025. Planning is most effective when it begins with reflection. By measuring impact first, your 2026 strategy becomes clearer, smarter, and aligned with growth from day one.