Communication Research and Insights

Discover and Validate

Our communication research and insights work helps organizations get an honest picture of where they stand, so future decisions are grounded in real, validated data. That might mean a structured look at how your communications are performing, going directly to your audiences to understand how they think and what drives their decisions, or both. Whatever the engagement looks like, you’ll come away with clear, candid and ready-to-execute findings.

For every project, our team will work through our four-step process where we assess your needs, align expectations, analyze our findings and activate our work into actionable recommendations.

Hodges offers six different assessments that help organizations establish benchmarks, validate gut feelings and memorialize insights that can ground strategic communications work. These assessments are typically standalone projects that take between eight and 12 weeks.

Communications & Media Assessment

We take a close look at how your organization is showing up across your owned content, earned media and other channels, and give you a straight read on whether it’s working. This is a good fit for organizations preparing for a strategic shift, navigating a competitive landscape or simply haven’t taken stock of their communications in a while. We inventory what exists, identify gaps and deliver prioritized, practical and appropriately scaled recommendations.

Audience Insight & Stakeholder Research

You can’t build the right message if you’re guessing at your audience. We design and conduct primary research, including structured interviews, focus groups and quantitative surveys, to find out how your stakeholders think, what they care about and what shapes their decisions. It’s the kind of work that pays off before a major campaign, a rebrand or any moment when getting your audience wrong would be costly.

Organizational Culture & Internal Communications Review

A lot of the culture challenges organizations face are, deep down, communication challenges. We look at how your organization communicates internally, the channels, formats and habits that shape whether your people feel informed and aligned and help you understand where things are breaking down. This goes beyond a staff survey. We dig into the systems and materials that are either supporting your culture or quietly working against it.

Thought Leadership Research & Benchmarking

Some organizations want to go beyond understanding their landscape. They want to shape the conversation around it. We work with clients to design, field and analyze original research studies to leverage them as public-facing reports, annual benchmarks or thought-leadership assets. The research serves as a resource for your industry and stakeholders, positioning your organization as the authoritative voice on meaningful topics.

Strategic Planning Research

Sometimes you need a clear read on the landscape before the planning can begin. We conduct targeted research to support strategic planning processes, including competitive environment analysis, stakeholder mapping and sector-specific landscape reviews. The output is built to plug directly into planning work, and we often conduct this research as a first step before facilitation engagements.

Messaging & Positioning Validation

Before you roll out new messaging, it’s worth knowing whether it will land. We test positioning concepts and messaging frameworks with your target audiences to determine what resonates, what falls flat and what builds credibility. Depending on the task at hand, that can mean qualitative conversations, quantitative concept testing or a combination of the two.

Prioritizing the Communications Research With The Biggest Impact

Many organizations often find more than one of these solutions making sense for their situation. We regularly work with clients to develop a coordinated approach, sequencing the work so the most important questions get answered first, and the insights from early phases inform everything that follows.

If you’re not sure where to start, we’d love to help you figure out the best path forward for your organization. for a reset or reinvigoration of communications plans. If you think we could help your organization, we welcome the chance to meet with you to learn more.