Demonstrating Communication Success: Output vs. Outcome—The Daimler Truck Model

Highlighting the Value Contribution of Communication

Lena Wouters and Matthias Mezele of Körber explain why data literacy, AI, and demonstrating impact are more important today than traditional reach KPIs.

Dorothee Krabler

Clicks, reach, and impressions are easy to report—but do they really convince management? How can you determine whether the right target audiences are being reached, whether the core messages are getting through, and whether communication efforts are actually contributing to the company’s goals? In the webinar “Effectively Demonstrating Communication Success—Using Daimler Truck as an Example,” Dorothee Krabler shows how communication management can be aligned more consistently and why the crucial step lies not in more data, but in the right metrics. Click here to watch the webinar recording.

AG CommTech: Dorothee, communications departments today have more data than ever before. Why is it still challenging to demonstrate their contribution to the company’s success and to measure communications consistently?

Dorothee Krabler: Because much of this data merely shows what we’ve done, but not what impact we’ve achieved. We measure impressions, reach, clicks, or downloads, and can say very precisely how our channels are performing. But what these numbers often fail to answer is the crucial question: Did our communication actually support our strategic goals? Did we embed our core messages? Has the perception of our company changed? That’s exactly where the difference between output and outcome—and ultimately, actual impact—begins.

AG CommTech: You talk about a “KPI trap.” What do you mean by that?

Dorothee Krabler: Many communications departments – ours included – have long focused on readily available metrics. This initially provides a sense of security because everything can be measured. But reach alone doesn’t equate to impact. A successful LinkedIn post initially only tells us that many people saw it. It says nothing about its contribution, whether trust was built and our reputation strengthened, or whether we supported our corporate strategy. The crucial question today is no longer: How much communication did we do? But rather: Did we place the relevant topics on the right channels, and what difference did we make for the company?

AG CommTech: Why is this topic becoming so important right now?

Dorothee Krabler: Because we’re using a wide variety of channels today, and at the same time, there’s growing pressure to provide transparent evidence of the value that communication adds. Communication is quickly perceived as a cost factor, especially when companies are under economic pressure. That’s why we need to be much better at demonstrating that communication makes a measurable contribution to the company’s success. It’s no longer enough to show that campaigns were visible. We need to be able to show what value they created and how they contribute to strategic corporate goals.

AG CommTech: How have you integrated these requirements into your communications work?

Dorothee Krabler: Today, we look at communication metrics on multiple levels. Traditional channel performance remains important. Of course, we want to know how individual platforms are performing or what reach we’re achieving. But that’s just the foundation.

The second level focuses on our topics. We analyze which content actually captures attention and whether it supports our strategic priorities. In doing so, we also compare ourselves to the competition. For example, we’re interested in what share Daimler Truck has of a relevant topic—I like to refer to this as “our piece of the pie.”

The third level is reputation. Here, we examine trust, brand perception, and employer attractiveness, and track how these metrics evolve. The fourth level focuses on the actual contribution to the company’s success—for example, in recruiting, customer preference, or the trust of relevant stakeholders. This is precisely where the greatest added value is created, but at the same time, this level is also the most challenging.

AG CommTech: Were there any insights that you found particularly revealing?

Dorothee Krabler: Absolutely. What we found particularly interesting was comparing our content mix with the actual media response. We found that some topics, which we give a lot of attention to internally, generate comparatively little response externally. At the same time, there are topics that, despite making up a very small portion of our content mix, have had a significantly greater impact and thus offer potential.

It is precisely this transparency that is changing the conversation within our team. Suddenly, we’re no longer talking about how many posts we’ve produced, but rather about which topics are truly making an impact. This helps us make our content planning much more targeted and allocate resources where they generate the greatest strategic value. The key insight is this: It’s not the volume of content that determines success, but the relevance of the topics.

AG CommTech: What implications does this have for the way we work?

Dorothee Krabler: First of all, it’s important to formulate your own goals precisely. That sounds obvious, but in practice it often isn’t. A communication goal shouldn’t simply be: “We want more reach on Instagram.” That is not a strategic goal. Instead, we need to define which perception we want to change. An example would be: We want to position Daimler Truck more strongly as a technology leader in the field of e-mobility. Only once this goal has been clearly defined can we derive appropriate measures and the right metrics.

Integrated content planning is just as important. Communication should no longer be approached on a channel-by-channel basis; instead, it must be consistently aligned with strategic themes. Only then does the question arise as to which channels can make the greatest contribution.

AG CommTech: That sounds like a fundamental shift in perspective.

Dorothee Krabler: That’s exactly what it is. Many organizations often manage their communications solely through individual channels. It’s more sustainable and impact-oriented to manage communications based on strategic themes. Then it’s no longer a matter of whether LinkedIn or traditional media works better, but rather which channel best supports the respective strategic goal.

At the same time, we must make consistent use of the data. A dashboard alone doesn’t change anything. If reports are presented but no decisions result from them, measuring impact remains nothing more than an exercise in documentation. The real added value only emerges when we use these insights to derive concrete actions for planning initiatives, setting priorities, and allocating resources.

AG CommTech: What are the biggest challenges today?

Dorothee Krabler: Clearly, the biggest challenge lies in linking communications and business data. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other departments. To do this, communications must be integrated much more deeply into the company-wide data landscape.

AG CommTech: You’ve already looked ahead at the end of our conversation. Where is communication controlling headed?

Dorothee Krabler: I believe we’re currently at a turning point. We’re coming from a world of media intelligence, where we primarily analyzed what had already happened. Today, we’re moving toward reputation intelligence and gaining an ever-better understanding of which factors actually influence our reputation and how we’re perceived.

The next step is Predictive Communication Intelligence. In the future, we will not only be able to evaluate communication retrospectively, but also plan its impact proactively. Artificial intelligence opens up enormous possibilities in this area. It can analyze large amounts of data nearly in real time, identify trends early on, provide warning signals, and simulate scenarios. This will help communications departments make decisions more quickly, with greater insight, and in a more proactive manner.

At the same time, we must break down data silos and establish communication analytics as an integral part of our processes so that communication decisions can be made on a stronger data-driven basis.

In my view, that is precisely where the future lies: Communication is not measured by what it publishes, but by the contribution it makes to reputation, trust, and corporate success. The better we can demonstrate this contribution, the more communication will be perceived as a strategic partner within the company.