Big Numbers

I’m thinking about *big numbers* today.
How big? Very big my friend, very big.
Big, but not helpful. Not really. And in fact, I don’t want to be thinking about big numbers at all.

Let me back up a second.

It’s campaign evaluation time here.
Of course, every good project evaluates and adjusts as it goes through its lifecycle, and we certainly do that too, but we’re at the end of a long campaign and I’m putting together the final report.

Our previous reports relied on growth from former campaigns, or tracked comparable content performance, or set against metrics observed from competitors.
And all three can casually guide you to towards quoting… you guessed it… big numbers.

You know what I’m talking about.
I’m talking social reach. I’m talking media impressions. I’m talking big numbers.

Our managers like them because they seem to neatly summarise a year’s worth of work.
Our colleagues like them because they’re easy to pick out from our lengthy report.
And we like them. If we’re honest. Because they’re BIG.

At least, we think we do.
But I don’t think we should.
Because much like those Pringles we hide in the cupboard and pretend we haven’t bought, I’m not convinced big numbers are very good for us in the long term.

Take my campaign. Our objectives focussed on engaging key stakeholders, including policymakers, funders and alumni.
We did a huge amount to generate broad build-up of coverage across media + social, but the focus was on direct conversations and creating content for specific communities.
The big numbers tell me about the former, but the former was almost entirely designed to help build the ground for the latter.
And big numbers tell me nothing about the latter.

In this scenario, it might make me feel good to say social reach improved 37% to Xmillion.
Or media impressions were Ybillion.
But it doesn’t actually tell me how our target audience engaged with what we did.

For that, I need the smaller numbers.
Like the audience retention of videos we made just for that one community.
Or the CTR on our unique links by stakeholder group.
And also, I need to talk to them. Hear their feedback directly. Which luckily, I did.

And then I need to be brave, and put that feedback up top.
Put those small numbers front and centre.
Maybe not even include the big numbers at all.

Because it’s that feedback, and those small numbers, that demonstrate how effectively we actually engaged our audience, and how they acted on our content.
It’s that which enables us to learn and grow and build a much better platform for the next campaign.

Rather than always trying to get a bigger impressions number than before.
Despite how fun it is to claim that you’ve reached the entire population of Wales every day for a year.
Because what does that tell you. Honestly.

Other than you’ve developed an unhealthy love for big numbers.
And let me be the one to tell you… they don’t love you back.
Not really.