PRWeek recently published an article about the importance of measuring the return on investment (ROI) of PR initiatives. According to Seth Duncan, a research manager at Context Analytics, “in a challenging economy, it is likely many PR pros will see increasing pressure to show their value to their organizations’ bottom line.”Measuring the financial value of our PR efforts is a crucial element in providing Communiqué PR clients with a clear picture of how we are adding value to their company. It also helps illustrate why they should continue to invest in our services.
In the past, PR professionals relied heavily on the measurement of media impressions and public sentiment to calculate the ROI of PR investments. According to PRWeek, today clients are seeking more in-depth reviews of the effects of PR on sales, revenue, stock valuation, Web site traffic, and insight on how a company’s messaging is affecting consumers and target audiences.
There is no all-encompassing technique to measure and evaluate PR effectiveness or show how PR campaigns are improving a company’s bottom line. Some companies want to count impressions, and this can be helpful, but we also believe it is important to identify and examine what constitutes value for our clients.
What one company values may be completely unimportant to another, depending on business objectives, the preferences of executives and the philosophy of the management team. Therefore, when working to determine the ROI of a campaign, it is first necessary to identify a value system.
Given this, to fully demonstrate the impact and value of PR programs we follow these best practices:
- Set specific measurable PR goals and objectives – Specify the target audience and key messages that need to be communicated before beginning any PR program. Set attainable expectations around outreach with clients and outline measurable goals around coverage results.
- Measure PR impressions – Measure the amount of media coverage garnered by an event or an announcement. We also recognize the importance of monitoring online conversations and blogger reactions to the news. Setting up Google Alerts is a great way to easily and cost-effectively monitor online coverage. We find that our clients appreciate it when we provide them with coverage recaps because this allows them to see the results of our hard work.
- Measure the impact on target audiences – Analyze changes in public opinion and public sentiment toward our clients and their company values by distributing a survey to target audiences. This survey asks a portion of the target audience how or if their decisions about buying a particular product were linked to specific PR efforts.
- Measure business and/or organizational outcomes – This involves measuring the return on media impact by tracking the change in sales, revenue and stock value after a PR campaign.
It is important to consider your budget expectations before analyzing PR’s ROI. Completing a full analysis of the effectiveness of a PR program can be time consuming task and require organizational commitment. Depending on an organization’s goals and budget, a full analysis might only be required monthly or quarterly.
Setting expectations with our clients and providing clear, measurable data to demonstrate the effectiveness of a campaign is a great way to prove what we’ve known all along – PR is a key part of any successful business.