Is your PR campaign actually working? Do you even know the

answer? Have you or your PR agency been tracking the

results?

PR measurement is essential to grading the performance of

your campaign. Unfortunately, not all PR professionals

measure their campaigns, and of those that do, there's not

really a standard way to measure results. The problem with

this is that PR firms can skew the results to make it look

like they're doing a better job with your campaign than they

really are.

Most PR firms will point to:

-- The amount of publicity they've generated (not

necessarily the quality of said publicity)

-- The number of mentions your company earned vs. the

competition

-- Money saved by getting coverage in publications rather

than paying for ad placement (advertising value equivalency)

And while all of these benchmarks are certainly important to

look at, the truth is there's more to the story of your PR

campaign than that. So, what else should you be measuring to

accurately grade your PR campaign?

-- Effectiveness at reaching target audience: It's not

enough to simply get coverage in magazines, newspapers, and

blogs. You need to make sure the publications you're

appearing in are publications your target audience reads.

Otherwise, these mentions are essentially useless (i.e. If a

tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really

happen?).

-- Target audience's opinion: Ideally, your PR campaign

should improve the way your target audience perceives your

company. The best ways to measure your target audience's

opinion is through surveys and focus groups. Unfortunately,

doing these properly can get fairly expensive, exceeding the

budget of many small to medium-sized businesses.

-- Lead generation: An effective PR campaign can be focused

on building leads through increasing word of mouth, driving

traffic to your website, and more.

-- Comparisons against past results: Of course, the key to

measuring any results from your PR campaign is to have

something to measure it against. To get the clearest

picture, you need to have past results to measure against

(e.g. past number of leads generated per month vs. current

number of leads generated per month). You can also compare

your results to those of your competitors. The point is to

have something to compare against otherwise the numbers

don't really tell you anything.

This list could go on and on, and some of these may not

apply to you. That's why the most effective way to measure

your PR campaign is to clearly identify goals and measurable

objectives before launching the campaign. For instance,

common measurable PR goals could be:

-- Generate revenue

-- Improve customer loyalty

-- Get more leads

-- Improve efficiency (deliver your message for less money)

-- Increase word of mouth mentions on social media

-- Improve customer's attitude toward your brand

Of course, the problem with all of this is that measuring

results takes money, and with companies looking to cut costs

in this economy, it can be hard for them to cobble together

the budget necessary for proper measuring. According to

research by USC Annenberg, measurement costs should average

3 to 7 percent of a total PR budget. In many cases, this

isn't always practical.

What are your thoughts on PR measurement? Do you think it's

important? How do you measure the effectiveness of your

campaigns?

Ciao,

Mickie Kennedy
Founder, eReleases.com
CEO, eReleases.com & Press-Release-Writing.com

http://www.ereleases.com
http://www.press-release-writing.com