How to Measure PR
Jul 08, 2021
PR principles before we start.
1.
Public relations is a strategic marketing discipline that must be planned and measured against business goals.
2.
PR is the discipline designed to change behaviour, perception, or both.
3.
Procurement teams and CFOs look for evidence-based returns on investment in PR and the outcomes should inform how a team can adapt, optimise and improve knowledge and strategy.
4. PR is not free of charge media coverage. It’s about making money. All businesses are focused on making money. If your PR consultant cannot measure and demonstrate the effect on the bottom line, they cannot advise on its continual growth and improvement.
5.
Measurement parameters must be put in place at the outset of a campaign in order to prove the value of the work on completion.
6. PR cannot be measured in activities and outputs. How PRs deliver the desired outcomes is our craft, but not what the business will focus on. What is the value of the time spent on writing a press release if it doesn’t return a response?
This last point is tricky for many PRs to get their heads around, given PR consultants and agencies work on a time-based revenue model. The activities (eg. a press release) and outputs, (eg. the views a piece of media coverage received or the number of attendees to an event) must be aligned to the desired business outcomes – the perception and behaviour change it seeks to make. It is the outcomes that should be the focus of the PR’s analysis.
How to Measure PR
AMEC – The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication is the global trade body and professional institute for agencies and practitioners who provide media measurement, evaluation and communication research - works tirelessly to educate the PR industry and professionalise measurement processes.
Vista is committed to exceptional professional practice and follows its framework.
7 steps to professional PR measurement
Planning:
1. Business goals clarify what the business needs, then align communications objectives to these goals
2. Inputs Identify what’s needed to deliver the objectives. Fact find and research into your stakeholders / target audience, data and resources available and required, you may need to undertake research at this point to ascertain existing perception, or prove a target audience will be receptive to your messaging. All these insights are key to delivering killer creative. Key message alignment. Plot activities to be undertaken, budget and measurement criteria.
During campaign:
We focus on ‘Perception and Behaviour’ change when measuring success. On the Perception side we scrutinise all the noise elements the advocacy from third parties (media / business partners / influencers) gave us. Within the AMEC framework this constitutes:
3. Activities
the specific activities carried out to achieve the objectives
4. Outputs The more traditional side to PR measurement, we provide an ongoing analysis looking at the noise generated. This includes potential reach, specific coverage views, (not monthly reach as that is vanity and nonsense, when did anyone look at every page of a website, read every page of a Sunday newspaper?) key message penetration, tone of media coverage, the quality of the Domain Authority, the relevance of the media to the target audience, the backlinks provided in the media coverage.
If you stop here, which many agencies do, you have nothing to prove to senior management that investment in PR was valid. Unless of course the sole communications objective is to drive awareness. In which case, I would advise a business to consider advertising. PR is more meaningful and must be designed to create a change in the audience you aim to reach.
Post campaign -
set up the structures by which you will capture these insights at the planning stage:
So to ‘Behaviour’ ie. did a person feel compelled to act in a positive way because of the PR activity we delivered. This is the more sophisticated end and where it gets interesting:
5. Out-takes
Did the activity drive action? Engagement? Was your audience receptive, attentive, comment positively, did it uplift in website traffic or drive sales, did anyone click the link to buy, can you provide evidence that your activity drove the last click?
6. Outcomes The final stage and really the whole point. What was the effect of the programme on the audience attitude? Have you improved trust, preference, intention, advocacy? Have you effected what you set out to do? We carry out quant and qual research again if necessary at this stage.
7.
Final step, close the loop back to the Business goal
and the CFO you need to persuade to reinvest. What was the impact? Can you evidence an improvement on reputation? Did you establish relationships? Increase sales?
With so much emphasis from our industry bodies to improve PR measurement, it isn’t acceptable that a PR firm does not provide this level of scrutiny to their delivery. Please read this blog
to understand the unethical way many PR agencies still report to their clients. If your PR is not attempting to prove their impact on the bottom line, and if they support their coverage report with AVE's then I urge you to reconsider your investment in them.
A recent study by CORQ, the digital trend forecasters, has highlighted the significant impact of creator partnerships on audience engagement, providing valuable insights for brands and PR professionals. At Vista Public Relations, we are dedicated to staying ahead of industry trends and insights to better serve our clients, so here we dive into the key findings of the study and their implications for the evolving landscape of brand communications and consumer engagement.
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