Public relations teams constantly seek ways to show their value to business objectives. One effective approach is to highlight the behind-the-scenes PR efforts driving certain campaigns or business functions.

At a recent Ragan virtual conference, Elizabeth Winter emphasized the benefits of using “flash reports” – concise overviews of PR activities. The goal is to gather on-the-ground observations and conduct sentiment analysis of social media highlights and earned media as activities unfold.

They can come in the form of a presentation or even an email.

“We really need to PR the PR,” Winter, senior manager of public policy communications at General Motors, said during the “Proving the Value of PR to the C-suite” webinar. “All that data is crucial, but sometimes leaders just want to know what’s happening.”

During her presentation, Winter outlined a five-step approach for crafting a flash report.

1. Pre-write against business objectives

Before going into any campaign or big event, it’s important to do a little prep work ahead of time to make sure the C-suite understands how a particular PR strategy ties into the broader business objectives. That will help set establish a baseline of expectations for leadership.

2. Lean on your team

Winter stressed the importance of tapping into the support system – whether in-house or agency help – to track initial reactions, both online and on the ground. For example, at live events, Winter’s team records quotes from journalists and analysts while documenting major moments, like a “gasp” during a car reveal at an auto show, to show leaders “what was in the room.” They also watch media mentions and social media engagements in real time so they can send out reports and respond to questions promptly before company leaders have seen the headlines.

3. Call out cross-functional work

Winter believes in showcasing successful examples of collaboration with business partners. Use the flash report to highlight what those partners did or how the PR team worked with them to emphasize integrated approaches, demonstrating that PR doesn’t operate in a silo, Winter said.

“We all know that reports get forwarded, so it’s good to be a good partner,” she added.

4. Be clear when a deeper dive is coming

Think of these reports as a table setter for the more data-driven presentation at the end of the campaign. As part of the flash report, make sure to set a date for when leadership can expect that detailed report. Setting that date is important because it serves as a reminder that the flash report is only initial reactions and that something more robust is on the way.

5. Cut down and then cut down more

Keep reports concise, visually engaging and clear, as the C-suite is busy and PR is just one of the many things they’ll be surveying that day. At General Motors, Winter’s team relies on “simplistic writing” and strives to create executive documents for “scanability.”

These flash reports shouldn’t comprehensive, Winter said. The main goal is to position the PR role as a strategic counsel for the leadership team.

To that end, it’s essential for communicators to stay ahead of the curve and consider what’s next and how to build on successes. Beyond updating the C-suite, these flash reports offer the PR team regular chances to review their work, identify areas for improvement and learn from their experiences.

“By the time you get to that presentation where you’ve dug into the metrics and the analysis, they’re already on to the next thing,” Winter said. “Coming to those… discussions with how you’re going to apply (what you’ve learned) to that next thing is, really, what’s going to prove your value.”

Watch the full video below.

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The lines between marketing, advertising and public relations have become increasingly blurred. As a result, PR professionals can’t rely solely on metrics like media impressions to prove their value – the C-suite wants hard numbers that directly impact the bottom line.

Greg Swan, senior partner and Midwest digital lead for FINN Partners, believes it’s time for PR professionals to think with a marketing mindset. Swan suggests finding ways to own the customer journey from “awareness to action” to help quantify the impact of PR activities.

“If you can own the journey of how your customer hears about something, how they learn about it, and then how they get to the website or social, and then where the website or social will take them, you own the results,” said Swan. “If you own the journey, you own the results.”

Getting customers to self-volunteer data

PR often gets a bad rap for reporting results based on digital impressions, news clippings or qualitative impact, which don’t hold as much weight as conversions or sales lift, Swan said. But those social media shares, likes, website views, do matter – if they’re packaged with customer data.

During his 20-year career, Swan has found success harvesting information about would-be customers using clear calls-to-action to a specific link, typically to the brand’s website or social channels, in all PR efforts. These direct, actionable requests can come in the form of a custom URL, a QR code or a news story mentioning a specific website.

These allow a potential customer to self-identify their interest in the message or product while allowing the company to “cookie them” and gain valuable first-party data, Swan said.

Approaches could include creating a landing page with a lead capture form for consumers who see a brand featured on the morning news or ensuring a viral social media post directs viewers to a product page.

Swan recalled creating a PR campaign at a previous company that aimed to generate web traffic and increase email signups for a travel industry company. A focal point of the approach was a shareable contest widget that required an email address. Swan’s team matched the collected emails with new and current customers, expanding the audience databases.

To capture traffic from consumers who saw the earned media hit on TV news or a print outlet, the team adapted their search engine marketing terms to direct to the company’s website when they searched for more information on Google.

“We had now quantified earned media coverage,” Swan said.

Finding ways to integrate

Earned media isn’t always going to produce easily trackable data. Swan has worked on many campaigns where news stories in publications and on broadcast didn’t have custom links. Yet, even without embedded URLs, his teams managed to calculate their sales successes because they tethered their data to marketing figures.

For instance, PR pros can look at the timing of when a story ran on TV or online and compare it to search results and look for spikes in traffic on their website. Teams pitching a story or launching a campaign should tailor their search engine marketing keywords to match, Swan said. This way, when someone reads about it in a trade publication, sees it on TV, or hears about it from a friend and searches online, they’ll end up in a targeted search pool. Swan also suggests social listening tools should always be running and up to date.

After securing that data, cross-reference it against the marketing figures. Sales numbers are pretty straightforward. But there’s also “consideration and engagement phase” data – signing up for a loyalty program or visiting a website’s store locator – that can show a customer’s purchase intent. From a B2B perspective, that could be signing up to learn more or downloading a white paper.

Combined, that information offers a numerical snapshot of PR’s role in the sales process.

Swan gave the example of one of his campaigns that got featured on ABC News and was later syndicated to markets across the United States.

“You don’t have a link for it, but you have your social marketing and search engine marketing programs on,” Swan said. “When (the audience) saw it on the news, they picked up their phone and searched for your brand name or the promotion they just heard of, and then, bam, you’ve got them. Now we’re going to send social ads all around wherever they are, try to get their email address and maybe later they’ll find their way to your social pages.”

In these situations, marketing will target the same audience at the same time with similar messages to see if those people will engage with that content or share it.

“Sometimes, because there are lots of things that are measurable, it seems like the things that aren’t measurable in a similar way are broken or less than,” Swan said. “What I’d say is, those mediums haven’t changed, but how we measure does need to change.”

Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.

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When explaining the value of a public relations campaign to a company’s C-suite, it’s essential to use metrics that are reasonable, meaningful and easy to measure.

“Data is the language of business, and that’s what will enable your internal clients to understand what you do and a little bit more about how you do it and how precious it is,” the late Mark Weiner, an author and longtime communications analytics consultant, said during a PR Daily Media Relations Conference. Tragically, Weiner, 68, passed away in December.

Weiner, who co-presented with David Cantor of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said that a common myth in PR is that its impact is impossible to measure because it’s seen as “an art, not a science.”

“Well, I can tell you that Sotheby’s evaluates art every day and they sell it for big money, so somebody’s paying for that art,” he said. “It’s because they recognize the value.”

From a public relations perspective, “value” comes from aligning measurement objectives with the business’s broader priorities, according to Wiener. By tailoring measurements, PR pros can better illustrate their contributions to the company and its bottom line.

One challenge facing the PR industry is the language it uses differs from much of the rest of the business world, Weiner said. As a result, he believes the field ends up using a lot of vague metrics, such as “generating buzz.”

“The executives don’t know how to ask for it, and the PR people don’t know how to provide it in a language that these executives understand,” Weiner added.

To get around that, Weiner advocated for finding ways to focus on data that’s straightforward and actionable. The presentation referenced a survey of 2,000 CEOs that shows the two most valued PR metrics are “delivering key messages to target media” and “raising awareness.” By comparison, the least valued are “clip volume” and “sales.”

Weiner said the reasons why go back to the “reasonable, meaningful and measurable” mantra. Sales revenue is really meaningful, he said, but it’s not always reasonable to deliver from a PR perspective. When it comes to clip counting, those numbers are relatively easy to get, but they don’t mean anything on their own.

The presentation also introduced a four-element approach to developing and refining PR strategies, which involves measuring, analyzing, evaluating and learning. This aims to empower comms teams to identify where their messaging is weak and make data-informed adjustments. There are worksheet and planning templates as well as a scorecard example for tracking performance embedded in the presentation.

“It’s not just a report card mentality, but a tutor mentality – a tutor tells you how you’re doing, what you can do to improve and then it helps you improve,” Weiner said.

You can watch the full presentation below.

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Trevor Carver is account director at Method Communications.

I put myself through college doing sales — lots of phone calls and thousands of doors knocked. While I didn’t pursue sales as a career after graduation, something I liked about the role was knowing whether or not I was on track to hit my quota because the company had effective key performance indicators. This term is thrown around a lot in business, but I’m not convinced people working in public relations, and especially media relations, are applying KPIs as effectively as sales and marketing teams do. 

It’s time we as an industry have a deeper conversation about what meaningful KPIs for media relations should be, but first, we need a better understanding of what effective KPIs are and the data required to put them in place.

Comparing sales and PR KPIs

KPIs are not goals. They are the milestones along the journey that indicate if you’re on track to meet your goal. If our goal with media relations is positive, quality coverage, true KPIs would be metrics that indicate whether we’re on track to deliver on our coverage goal. 

In sales, the goal was to close the client and get them to buy the product. Our company knew that if sales reps made 500 calls per week, they could expect about 4% of those to turn into consultations. Of those 20 consultations, leaders could expect  about 10 would end up in closed sales. Calls lead to consultations which lead to closes. In sales, KPIs are determined by examining the entire sales process and identifying the key indicators that cascade into closes. While sales and PR are different in some ways, the media relations aspect is similar in the sense that it’s based on a relationship-oriented process, littered with unexpected or uncontrollable hurdles, and the goal is always a close (coverage).

Here is one example of a simplified media relations process:

• Gather content
• Develop a compelling storyline
• Pitch media
• Set up interviews 
• Conduct interviews
• Land coverage 

Of course the processes and timeframes vary by pitch type, industry and more, but, for the sake of simplification, let’s use the example above. Storylines lead to pitches which lead to interviews which lead to coverage. So, if we have a goal of two feature stories this month, how many interviews with a journalist do we need on average before a feature lands? How many pitches do we need to send before we land an interview? And so on.

The caveats and benefits

There are important caveats to KPIs we must understand. It’s not just a numbers game. In sales, if a rep yells at customers for 500 calls straight, it wouldn’t convert to 20 consultations. Similarly, in PR, if our pitches are long and sloppy, the media won’t bite. If our media lists are full of irrelevant targets, our emails could get blocked. If our spokespeople are bad at interviewing, they won’t get quoted.

KPIs show leaders where they need to do a quality check in the process. If we’re not getting responses from journalists, maybe it’s time to train the team on how to improve pitch quality. Do we need to train spokespeople on how to be more compelling so our interviews convert to coverage more frequently? KPIs also help us pinpoint which efforts are driving better than average results. Find those who are performing better than the KPIs and adjust processes to match best practices.

The data problem

KPIs are based on averages. One of the roadblocks to predictive KPIs is gathering enough data on process to generalize the results. This is a big barrier in PR. I don’t see many PR teams gathering data on their processes, partly because it’s too time consuming and manual. It would require daily tracking of the process in a spreadsheet like the amount of emails sent, interactions and responses; dedicated time to regularly cleaning, standardizing and analyzing the data; compiling reports on findings, etc. For PR agencies, that time is money. Sales and marketing teams have access to CRMs and entire software platforms where all interactions are tracked from beginning to end, making it simple to quantify processes, determine average timelines for various deal types and more. While PR has platforms and media databases that quantify some pieces of the media relations process, such as the average open rate of emails, they are not yet comprehensive or user friendly enough to replace the tried and true spreadsheet.

Working on a solution together

As an industry, if we want to get more scientific about our success by weaving KPIs into our media relations process, we need to collaborate more with media database tools to help them improve the user experience or better integrate and track our current processes. Let’s also talk to each other and share what KPIs we’re tracking and what our average conversions are in order to begin getting a sense of what success looks like. At the end of the day, without KPIs, we’re missing out on strategic direction that could help us get more results, faster.

Let’s start a conversation. What is your media relations process? What KPIs do you track? What roadblocks do you see getting in the way of PR becoming more data-driven? Take this quick survey and we’ll start to compile best practices for the industry and report back.

The post How PR can begin to implement true KPIs appeared first on PR Daily.

Earned media is a great way to build brand awareness, credibility and trust with both prospective and existing customers.

But simply tailoring a pitch to the biggest publication or looking at baseline social data like page views and social media impressions often fails to capture the true value of these third-party placements.

Rather than just focusing on vanity metrics, firms should look to understand “the meat of the story, and did it resonate with those audiences,” according to Noel Christopher, SVP of product development at Edelman.

“It’s all about determining how you’re reaching those key stakeholders – whether it’s an institutional investor, the general public or even an employee who might work for the brand,” Christopher said. “That’s where the real value lies.”

Evaluating trust

The rules about EMV have changed in recent years, according to Joseph Abreu, the 2024 chair of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). At one time a mention in the New York Times or another top-tier outlet was the “holy grail” of PR. They’re still very valuable, Abreu said. But today a feature in a top trade publication or a tweet from a celebrity praising a product can sometimes do better for your business.

“We all know what happens when Taylor Swift promotes something on her Instagram,” he said.

A huge part of the value is in the credibility that it builds for your brand. There isn’t necessarily a specific dollar value associated with it. But, when assessing value, it’s important to measure outcomes. Did it raise awareness of the company or its products? Did it build a targeted audience or strengthen market sentiment?

“When you think about earned media, it’s a part of the storytelling process,” Abreu said. “The real value comes when the story that you’re telling and the media that you earned is able to convince the consumer.”

Noel Christopher

To that end, Edelman created a proprietary analytics platform, Trust Stream. It combines various data sources, from legacy survey research to real-time media monitoring. It gauges perceptions of, well, trustworthiness.

The agency uses it to see how a pitch helps drive the conversation about the brand, company or individual, Christopher said. It examines factors to score the trustworthiness of content.

During a CEO change, for example, the Edelman team will use Trust Stream to assess the positive or negative effects of media coverage. They analyze factors like stability, continuity and investor trust or sentiment. This allows them to give the client a clear, data-driven view of the unfolding narrative. It also shows where to focus subsequent efforts to reduce reputational damage, Christopher said.

“We’re not just looking at the number of articles or the size of the audience,” Christopher said. “We want to know: did this coverage build credibility, inspire action, or shift perceptions of the brand?”

Not every PR firm or company will have the tools of a large agency like Edelman. But they can still identify data sets and metrics that are most reliable to them to map the coverage to specific business objectives for each client, whether that’s brand awareness, lead generation, sales or reputation. She mentioned setting up Google Alerts and Talkwater Alerts, a free tool that lets brands track mentions of their brand, competitors or specific keywords across the web, including social media platforms like X.

“Reach and engagement are important, but we really want to understand the true impact stories are having on trust,” Christopher said.

Adding earned media to overall strategy

Abreu said plenty of companies have succeeded with paid ads and influencers. But independent endorsements or news stories usually do a better job of boosting a brand’s reputation because of how they resonate with an audience.

Determining the right metrics to track is just one piece of the puzzle. Brands must have a strong process for finding valuable earned media opportunities. They must craft narratives that will resonate with target audiences.

That’s where the good, old-fashioned PR work comes into play.

Joseph Abreu

Edelman has a “One E(delman)” team approach. It unites stakeholders from across the firm – strategy, creative, media relations and influencer marketing – to help navigate these waters on a brand-by-brand basis.

Each client has different goals for their placements. A tailored strategy checks if the client is in an offensive or defensive position, launching a new product or targeting new demographics.

For example, Christopher said that to reach Boomers or Gen X, a traditional media approach, like landing a segment on the “Today Show,” may work. For younger millennials and Gen Z, the focus should be on influencer partnerships and sponsored content.

“The key is to match the tactics with the audience,” Christopher said.

Once the pitch lands, Christopher suggests an immediate analysis. Then, you’ll want to perform mid- and long-term evaluations, depending on the situation. In some instances, long-term evaluations should involve doing deeper landscape analyses to understand how the story has evolved over time.

“That gives you an annual pulse on how that has changed year over year, and how dramatic that impact has been to the business overall,” Christopher said.

The value happens before you even make the pitch 

Proper evaluation should start even before a pitch goes to a magazine, podcast or influencer. The Edelman team digs deep into audience data and the broader media landscape to inform their approach. Using advanced their trust-based large language model, ArchieAI, they’ll create a plan to target specific demographics, interests and behaviors. They believe it will resonate with consumers. This approach helps them find the best journalists and outlets to target for each media opportunity.

By aligning those metrics to business outcomes, firms can show clients the true impact of their earned media efforts. This can help clients make better decisions on where to allocate their resources.

“It’s about crafting narratives that capture the media’s attention,” Christopher said. “They should inspire influencers and let others engage with and amplify your message.”

This level of nuance is critical, especially when presenting earned media results to the C-suite. Christopher said data has become a key differentiator in justifying the firm’s value to clients.

By focusing on metrics that link to business outcomes, brands can prove the impact of their earned media. They can then make better decisions on where to use their resources.

“The numbers are the numbers, and you always want data at the table to help tell your story,” Christopher said.

Metrics that matter for EMV 

• Target message to desired audience: Make sure the outlet or influencer selected is the best fit for delivering that message.
• Sentiment analysis: Assess the tone of coverage – whether it’s positive, neutral or negative and how consumers are reacting to the message through social outlets and online comments.  
• Message pull-through: Check if key messages or quotes from messaging get included in coverage. 
• Perform pre-, post- and long-term analysis: The data will help inform the success of the approach and determine the need for followup messaging.  

Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.

The post Tips for determining the true value of earned media appeared first on PR Daily.

PR professionals today have more data at their fingertips than ever before. But the most important numbers are often the ones that matter to the bosses. 

Earning a media placement is great, however, the outlet and the nature of the story need to make business sense for your company or client. 

When planning your next pitch or social media campaign, take time to talk with your CFO and executive leadership team to make sure the PR approach best aligns with the company’s business priorities. 

“The most important thing you can do is before you begin your campaign, and before you define your tactics for the campaign are, is to define (the company goal),” said Lowell Goodman, senior director of communications at SCAN Group. “That will allow you to figure out which metrics are going to matter on the back end (and help you) determine whether you’ve achieved that goal.”

Goodman shared these insights during a recent PR Daily/Ragan Communications digital panel on data-driven storytelling. Joining him were Rachel Reh, director of social media and audience strategy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Alison Zurcher, director of internal communications at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

During the conversation, Reh said that by aligning data-driven insights with leadership goals, she and her team can effectively communicate the impact of their work, supported by specific examples like user growth trends on X or the type of stories that make the most sense for Instagram.

“You should just know what your leadership cares about – and if you’re not sure, you can always ask,” Reh said.

Reh admitted that she doesn’t care much for impression figures. Those huge reach numbers may seem impressive on the surface, she said. But the lack of clarity about what they represent – and really, how accurate they are – makes them less valuable for planning. In contrast, engagement metrics, such as shares, comments and likes, typically offer more actionable insights.

Having straightforward data is crucial when sharing strategies with leadership, Reh said. Many company leaders lack a deep understanding of the media landscape. While they may have favorite news outlets and social media platforms, they often won’t fully grasp the complexities of the data without context.

Reh recommends using easy-to-understand charts to highlight key data points, such as follower growth on social media. She praised Sprout Social’s data visualizations and mentioned the U.S. Chamber also uses Cision and SnapStream.

All the speakers stressed that data should enhance the narrative, not overshadow it.

It’s sometimes easy to get caught up in impressive numbers. A media monitoring tool indicating a media placement is worth $20,000 in ad spend is nice, Goodman said. But in most instances that piece of information doesn’t provide the kind of metrics that convey the whole story to leadership. He described those stats as being “mostly actually for public relations agencies that have to justify their monthly bills.”

Instead, Goodman and his team focus on a broader perspective, analyzing industry conversations, social media engagement and online interactions to assess a campaign’s impact on the company.

“Pay attention to that stuff, and it’s probably going to tell you a lot more than a number that Meltwater gives you,” Goodman said.

Watch the video below.

Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.

The post How to select the right data to impress leadership appeared first on PR Daily.

Internal communicators hoping to remain competitive in today’s data-driven world must replace guesswork with statistics. Alongside gut instinct, they need concrete information to both establish and maintain a robust internal communications strategy.

This is why possessing a solid grasp of data analytics has become so crucial for the profession. In addition to improved messaging, which boosts employee engagement, knowing how to interpret facts and figures can enhance credibility, identify weaknesses and contribute to more informed decision-making. Indeed, 8 in 10 business leaders now say data is critical to making decisions at their organization, according to a Salesforce survey of nearly 10,000 executives around the globe.

Internal alignment with corporate strategy is crucial to ensure that employees’ decisions are ultimately guided by the right purpose and shaped by the company’s current vision. When employees lose sight of the company’s deeper purpose and long-term goals, they can easily fall into a mundane routine without a greater vision to drive them forward to new developments and innovative procedures. As an IC professional, you’re well-positioned to communicate the ROI of internal comms to leadership. Ask leaders which business outcomes are most valuable to them and map your communications results to those. Your work has a measurable impact on engagement, culture and turnover.

Before internal communicators can even think about using data analytics to their advantage, however, they must have a system in place to collect data in a consistent manner. Without it, there’s nothing to examine or compare. As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Services such as PoliteMail — a platform more than 20% of S&P 100 companies rely on for assessing their internal communications — keep tabs on multiple metrics, from email open rates to how much time employees spend reading a message.

Other means of gathering information include tracking pageviews with services such as Google Analytics or surveying employees to keep a pulse on workforce morale. In some cases, observing what people are saying about your company across social media platforms with listening tools can also be beneficial.

Once a method for capturing statistics is in place, internal communicators can get to work. They can test subject lines to see which wording is most effective. More importantly, they can examine the content of messages and figure out ways to attract more eyeballs. This can mean testing out various aesthetics, call-to-action placements and images. They can monitor new initiatives to see if, and when, tweaks are necessary.

Benchmarking is another benefit of data analytics. The ability to compare your organization’s performance — whether between departments, against competitors or with firms in other sectors — is a great way to identify strengths and weaknesses of your business.

Your company’s email click-through rate, for example, might be increasing from quarter to quarter, but it’s difficult to know if it’s above or below industry standards without a reliable reference point. Understanding where you stand can help determine which aspects of your overall strategy may require a fresh approach. PoliteMail’s free annual benchmark report provides data analysis from 10 industry sectors across seven distribution group sizes is a great data set to begin with.

As more business leaders learn to harness the power of data, there’s less patience for staff members who can’t quantify the value they bring to the company. This is another way data analytics can serve internal communicators; rather than hoping your manager just takes your word for it, hard figures can do the talking for you.

Metrics showing, for instance, that more employees are reading corporate messages and doing what’s being asked of them are impossible to deny or explain away as someone’s biased opinion. Statistics detailing how your efforts are an asset to the company can enhance credibility, defend against budget cuts and advance your position within the organization.

Not everyone, of course, is comfortable with the thought of crunching numbers to unlock insights. Spreadsheets containing column after column of statistics can be intimidating, especially if you’ve spent your career in a creative field that doesn’t tend to involve math.

This is why 73% of companies plan to either continue or increase their investment in data training and development for their employees, according to figures from Salesforce. This is also why artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini, which can scan raw datasets for patterns or anomalies in seconds, are so attractive to white-collar workers everywhere.

But getting started doesn’t have to be a daunting endeavor. For internal communicators looking to better understand how data analytics can assist them in their jobs, PoliteMail’s Employee Communication Academy now offers a course dedicated to the topic. The thorough yet accessible program provides instruction on everything from sourcing data to selecting the right KPIs (key performance indicators) to building a persuasive presentation for senior leadership. Registration is free.

No longer a secret tool for digital startups on the cutting edge, data analytics has become a cornerstone of modern business. The process reveals, in no uncertain terms, what’s working and what’s not, allowing companies to adjust and innovate accordingly. By embracing the basics today, internal communicators will be better equipped to deploy winning strategies that will drive their company forward tomorrow.

The post Getting a seat at the leadership table: The power of data analysis appeared first on PR Daily.

Brands and PR agencies spend a great deal of time, effort and, let’s be honest, money to make a splash in the media space. Being able to effectively quantify the impact of those efforts can reveal successes, identify new storytelling opportunities and even help a team gain more budget for the next campaign.

However, it isn’t always obvious to the C-suite what a feature in a local newspaper or a viral video on TikTok means in terms of brand value. And even with basic tools like media monitoring, Google Analytics and social engagement data widely available, it can still be difficult to convey the true impact of paid, earned, shared and owned placements, also known as the PESO Model©, created by Spin Sucks.

So, it’s essential for PR pros to develop a method to quantify the impact in a way that shows the bigger picture to leadership.

“It’s important to tell the data story in a clear, simple way that resonates. What’s a good engagement rate? How does this compare to previous performance? Where is there opportunity for growth?” Rachel Reh, the chamber’s director of social media and audience strategy, said during a panel discussion at PR Daily’s recent Media Relations Conference.

Reh’s advice is to keep it simple. She pays attention to all the data at her disposal, especially engagement rates per impression, and prefers to stick to percentages when contextualizing data to leadership.

A key component of the 40-minute discussion centered around the idea that data alone won’t tell the whole story. Facts and figures should be accompanied by a compelling vision of the communication plan to ensure leadership can see the bigger picture.

Amanda Coffee, director of global media relations for Under Armour, said that it’s particularly important to explain new audience acquisition plays to leadership.

“What we try to do for the executive team is pull out some storytelling and the new ways that we’re reaching new audiences,” Coffee said. “(A) lot of times (it’s about) taking a step back and really describing it, because it might not be as intuitive to them.”

For instance, footwear fans known as sneakerheads are well-known for their brand loyalty, she said, so the Baltimore-based apparel company has made a recent push to land placements in niche but trusted shoe blogs.

Those publications won’t provide as much earned media value (EMV) on paper as a story in Sports Illustrated. However, Coffee said a mention by one of them is “worth a ton,” especially after the blog shares the piece across social media.

Remember most company leaders aren’t communications professionals by trade. Helping them visualize both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of your PESO strategy is key to ensuring buy-in, and understanding, at the top.

Watch the full panel discussion below.

Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.

The post Helping the C-suite see the value of your integrated PR efforts appeared first on PR Daily.

Measurement is one of the most feared yet most important aspects of PR. But without it, everyone in an organization is flying blind. You can’t see whether your time, effort and money are well spent  — and neither can your organizational leadership.

“As a communicator, we don’t always pause to think through, what’s the business model of our client or organization? What keeps the lights on? How do they make money?” mused Liz McGee, communications director at the Institute of International Finance, during her presentation at PR Daily’s Media Relations Preconference Wednesday.

According to McGee, measurement programs should enhance media relations results and decision-making as well as demonstrate the value of media relations.

During her presentation, she walked attendees through the four major types of media relations measurements and how they should fit into any campaign.

Here’s what to do.

Get the big picture

Before we begin measuring, we first have to determine what matters.

“The bottom line KPIs — key performance indicators — are what your CEO, your C-suite and key stakeholders care about,” McGee said. “Because that’s where the money is.”

Depending on your organization, these can vary. But some safe bets for big-picture KPIs include stock price, net revenue, sales or donations, sponsorships and so on.

“If your C-suite lives and dies by the stock price, you want to be able to connect your PR to the stock price,” McGee said.

You may already know these KPIs, or you may need to dig through annual reports, board minutes or internal interviews to get this data. McGee even suggested running an annual financial report through a generative AI tool and prompting it to return a breakdown of where the money comes from.

That will help you identify the stakeholders, activities and results that your leadership will value most.

Now that you know these KPIs, every other measurement should seek to ladder back to them.

4 types of measurement

McGee explained that there are four major buckets of measurement that should be included in most PR campaigns: Output, volume, quality and impact.

“I cannot tell you what exact metrics are going to be most useful to you,” McGee said. “But I can tell you that if you are not measuring all four of these categories, you are not getting a complete picture.”

Each of these categories increases in both difficulty of measurement and importance, but all should play some role in your measurement mix.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Output: Measuring your effort

Output is a blunt instrument for identifying how much your team is doing. Common types of output metrics include:

• Number of media interviews.
• Number of pitches sent/pitch open rate.
• Number of journalist interactions.
• Press releases sent/viewed.
• Content created.
• Reporter attendance at events.
• Media inquiries responded to.

The benefit of this metric is that it’s easy to track. You just need to be able to count. It’s also helpful in showing exactly how much your team does in a day — which can enable you to build a case for more budget — and as a way for benchmarking success within your own team.

But an A for effort will only take you so far. It’s time to go deeper.

Volume: Measuring the scale

Volume is the classic metric for media relations measurement: how many people saw the media you helped get placed in? Measurements include:

• Impressions
• Number of media metrics.
• Geographical mentions.
• SOV
• Circulation
• Number of social media shares on an article.
• Engagement

Volume tends to have a big “wow!” factor. Getting major placements can let you put lots of zeroes at the end of an impressions number and look great in a results deck.

But McGee shared an old adage: “If you want impressions, blow up a building.” You’ll get eyeballs, but it won’t tell you the whole story.

You need context.

Quality: Measuring how good it is

Getting a piece placed is often the myopic focus of a media relations campaign. But if the placement is negative, fleeting or in a publication that isn’t relevant to your KPIs, it’s only worth so much. To measure quality, you’ll want to look at each placement’s:

• Message resonance
• Tone/sentiment
• Prominence
• Priority readership/audience
• Impact: outcomes

The first gives a placement a score ranging from a -6 to a +12 based on prominence, reach and sentiment.

This is helpful either for ranking each individual story or for getting an aggregate look at an entire month, quarter or year’s press. For instance, if you had 100 press hits, divide your total by 1,200 to see your overall grade.

For a simpler measurement equation, McGee recommends simply dividing positive, top-tier media mentions by all media mentions. This helps you understand how many of the hits were exactly on target, and which could have been improved.

And remember: “If your client comes out looking good, it’s a positive, even if the story is negative.”

Impact: Measuring achievement

Impact is the most difficult to measure, yet most important of all the metrics. It’s tying everything back to those KPIs to see how your efforts helped reach the goals we identified earlier.

Means of measuring impact include:

• Conversions
• Brand awareness
• Public opinion
• Lead generation
• Mentions to leadership

Sometimes, you might not have all those metrics available. You might not have the data available of you to draw all of these conclusions.

In that case, you’ll want to consider a proxy metric, or one that can reasonably substitute  for the ideal metric.

If you can’t track conversions outright, look at traffic driven to an event website. If you don’t have the money to do a public opinion survey to track opinion, look at social media mentions.

Remember: None of these metrics can stand alone. They all serve a particular purpose, and combined, they’ll give the richest view of your overall media relations success.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

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The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has long been a staple of the advertising industry, but it’s increasingly become a key moment in the year for many PR professionals. The Lions now boasts 33 PR-specific awards across five categories. Hundreds of activations, from massive sports beaches to intimate get-togethers, will seek to grab the attention of festival delegates as well as the headlines of news outlets around the world.

Read more: Why Stagwell is going all-in on sports in Cannes

Tiffany Guarnaccia, Cannes veteran and CEO and founder of Kite Hill PR, says PR’s influence at the festival is only expected to increase, thanks to an industry-wide shift toward viewing PR as part of an integrated marketing strategy

“We are seeing just more demand and PR agencies evolving to meet the needs of the market when it comes to not just thinking of PR as just checking the earned media box,” Guarnaccia said. “But really thinking about the holistic campaign and the impact that we can have there.”

Guarnaccia shared some of the biggest themes she expects to emerge along Cannes beaches this year – as well as her tips for first-timers.

1. An emphasis on the measurable impact of campaigns

As Guarnaccia points out, a firm understanding of actionable metrics has always been the “Holy Grail” of PR. And Cannes is increasingly celebrating campaigns that deliver not just stunning creative and big ideas, but real results that drive the bottom line. This is driven in part by the growing number of tools and technology that can bring together data points and weave them into a larger picture of impact on business objectives, Guarnaccia said.

“It’s going beyond earned media,” she explained. “There’s ways that we can think about how we’re tracking against other channels, and how that showcases the value of PR.”

Thirty percent of the overall score of entries in PR categories is based on results and impact, showing just how key the organization thinks measurement is to the equation.

2. DE&I

Even as DE&I faces fatigue and rebrands in the United States, a focus on inclusion remains a growing part of the Cannes program.

“They’re looking at what’s important to upholding the standards of the conference and continuing to highlight things that are important to the industry,” Guarnaccia explained.

Diversity and inclusion are part of what the jury evaluates when judging the Cannes Lions, but Guarnaccia also says it’s reflected in the conversations and connections one is likely to find at the show.

3. Brand storytelling around ESG and purpose

As climate change continues to wreak havoc around the world, brands are having more and deeper conversations about their commitment to ESG and purpose. For instance, ACT Responsible Hall is dedicated to fostering “a collaborative environment and inspire action towards a more sustainable future” and Ad Net Zero will issue a challenge for greater creativity and sustainability.

But Guarnaccia warns that just paying lip service to ESG won’t be enough.

“The piece of caution that plays … is just really making sure that it’s overlaid with authenticity,” Guarnaccia said. “Looking at sustainability communications with any level of greenwashing, we’re layering it back to the tangible business movements that a company is making.”

4. AI

This is likely the least surprising theme you can expect to emerge. AI is a major conversation starter in any room these days, and Cannes is no exception.

Last year, Guarnaccia said that the dialogue was mostly around the experimental phase as communicators tried to wrap their heads around how they could use AI. But since then, AI has progressed rapidly and is powering real solutions.

Indeed, for the first time, entries to the Cannes Lions were required to disclose whether or not AI was used in their creation.

“The time and the results that we’re producing are more high value, highly creative, highly strategic … the other flip side is just keeping an eye on the regulations that are also still being developed right now,” Guarnaccia said.

5. Women’s sports

Women’s sports are enjoying an unprecedented moment in the spotlight right now, smashing attendance and viewership records. Some of that is driven by the emergence of WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark, who set the world on fire with her college performance.

“I think it’s a bigger movement, but (Clark)’s certainly a part of it,” Guarnaccia said. “And as we look at how brands are evolving their strategy, it comes back to aligning with their target audience, connecting with them in a more authentic way, and then just realizing the power and the impact of women on sports. And I think that also aligns to women’s purchasing power in different ways.”

You’ll see this trend play out with the Women’s Sports House, sponsored by Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment and Axios, which will host conversations with athletes and league leaders from sports ranging from basketball to soccer to autosports.

Cannes tips

If this is your first time heading to the south of France, this is the time to make the most of the opportunity by learning and networking. Here are some of Guarnaccia’s tips for forging connections – and keeping them up after you’ve returned from Cannes:

• Not all events require a conference badge. If you’re on a budget and can’t afford to spring for the pass, look for other events that might allow you to rub shoulders with the big wigs without shelling out big bucks.
• Once you’re in the right rooms and you’ve made connections, think of how you’ll extend that beyond the conference itself. “Think about a smart follow up strategy, high volume, lots of great conversations. How do you roll it into just like you would for a PR program as an individual?” Guarnaccia mused.
• If you’re working on an activation, think about alignment and timing. Everyone will be making announcements during the festival – how will you stand out with your pre- and post-show rollout so you can maintain momentum?

If you’ll be visiting Cannes, connect with Ragan Communications. Register today for our exclusive roundtable and interviews. 

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

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Measuring PR impact is one of the most difficult yet most important parts of the practice. Communicators must be able to show how their work impacted broader business goals, but because PR works in subtle, sometimes mysterious ways, it can be difficult to draw straight lines. But measure we must, and as technology improves, there are more ways than ever to measure PR.  

I asked a simple question on LinkedIn: “Nerds only: What is your favorite way of measuring PR impact?” 

Obviously, there is no one right way. It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. But the question yielded dozens of responses from PR pros from a variety of disciplines, many approaching it in very different ways. 

Here’s a sampling of some of their answers. I’d love to hear yours in the comments. 

Responses have been lightly edited for style, clarity and brevity. 

Lynnea Olivarez, founder and community manager, Ticket to Biotech 

While quantitative metrics are critical, qualitative analysis is underrated and also imperative to tell the whole story.

A few philosophical examples: 

• Should a NYT A1 mention be weighted the same as a trade publication feature? 
• What about a CEO who comments that more employees are saying hi to her in the hallway and just “seem happier”? Yes, we hope we could back that up (or in some cases, disprove it!) with an engagement survey, but I’d argue that there’s tremendous validation in your CEO’s belief that your comms or corp affairs function had something to do with that. 
• Or in my industry (biopharma), patient community relationships are incredibly important. If the leading organization in one’s target area publicly gushes about your company, that’s uber valuable but how do you put a numeric value on it? 

Mike Nachshen, president and owner, Fortis Communications 
In the B2G space, where the sales cycle can take months, if not years, measurement nirvana is when you learn that a customer read an article you placed or saw content you created, and then asked the sales team questions based on the work you did. 

Gabriel De La Rosa Cols, principal, Intelligent Relations

Publication reach + spikes in website traffic.

I’ve had bad experiences in the past trying to tie PR results to spikes in sales or lead generation, as sales teams will most of the time claim those for themselves (as is their right).

Most of my clients measure the impact of PR by comparing earned media ROI versus what it would have cost them to pay for sponsored articles in those publications.

I would argue that for a company to measure the true impact of PR, it would need to gather data on all of the above. 

Lindsay Lapchuk, fractional PR and communications consultant 

There are so many vanity metrics in PR.

One approach I’m big on is “penetration” or “drumbeat” lists.

Do your research and create two lists (to start):

1.The most influential journalists in your space.
2. The most important media outlets for reaching your audience.

Then track your outreach and progress to understand what it takes to move journalists along the spectrum from “never heard of you” to “trusted relationship.”

• How many pitches does it take it get your first email opened? 
• Which angles earned you the engagement?  
• What type of engagement did you get?  
• Did you land an informational interview? Was your exec sourced in a story?  
• Was your company featured?  
• Has the journalist written about your company more than once?  
• What percentage of journalists or outlets can you move along the spectrum in a one-year period? Two-year period?  

Using a tracker like this, you can not only visualize the impact you’re having similar to a sales funnel, but you can also showcase the value of the long game to your C-suite. 

Anya Nelson, SVP and public relations practice lead, Scratch Marketing + Media 

As an agency PR pro, it depends on a client and their business objectives. But in general, I always encourage each client to come up with a PR quality index of some sorts. It should include several metrics or criteria but not too many so that reporting/measurement doesn’t become this giant exercise of its own.  

Metrics we typically measure by: core messages inclusion in the article; SME quotes; publication tier or domain authority; real estate (e.g., headline/first paragraph placement); prominence (full feature vs. paragraph vs. mention); links; branded image or logo; whether it’s covered by a reporter or publication on a “bullseye” list; etc.  

Then each category converts to a point system – e.g., 3 points for a feature, 2 points for a paragraph and 1 point for a mention. Then data science does its magic and boom, we have math that carries us throughout the year and lets us benchmark our progress. Outside of the quality index, we look at things like SOV and pure coverage volume (number of articles secured), but SOV is my least favorite metric because it’s the one you’re least in control of. The one I love the most, even though it’s anecdotal, is HDYHAU (how did you hear about us?) — always, ask your client’s customers this question! 

Melissa Musiker, interim head of communications, UPSIDE Foods 

I always start with the question “what does success look like?” and build a program laser focused on those goals. KPI’s are built at the beginning of a planning process with a focus on quality versus quantity and outcomes, NEVER vanity metrics like reach or impressions alone. Vanity metrics focused on quantity must always be qualified with outcomes that assess quality. What did we want the audience to think, feel and do? How did our work support key business goals?  

For example, if the goal was to attract investor interest, did the PR program lead to qualified investor outreach? If the goal was to attract talent, did we place stories in the outlets that our talent trusts and did that lead to a better applicant pool and correlate with a higher acceptance of top choice talent? Did our key messages pull through into stories? Did we get invited to speak at the right events improved the reputation of our leaders or business with the audiences that mattered most? 

Elliott Burr, senior director of corporate, crisis and executive communications, Juniper Networks 

*Part* of our comms function is to provide air cover for sales, so I’ve always loved it when I hear anecdotal feedback from our sales teams around the world that they were able to start or advance a conversation with a prospect who mentioned they read an article we drove. I’m still figuring out a way to quantify “when PR turns cold calls into lukewarm calls,” but it’s certainly an outcome we look to influence. 

Shane Collins, former brand and communications lead, Grammarly, exploring new opportunities 

Pitch conversion. Of planned/opportunistic pitches, which are converted to coverage and which pitches aren’t. This helps 1) calibrate a brand’s POV, 2) fine-tunes storytelling programs, much like social media content testing, and 3) underscores impact over effort. 

Mark Nolan, director of marketing, Modulate 

The best metric: Days since CEO/investor/client asked “why aren’t we in this [insert top-tier media outlet] piece?”  

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I envision Mark Weiner reading this piece from his slice of heaven and then calling to applaud my latest work, to ask what I meant by a certain phrase, and by the way, is there anything he could do to help me out this week?

In the two decades I’ve had the honor of knowing Mark, I could always count on him to give the most honest feedback, the most genuine support and without fail a conversation filled with belly laughs and intellectual wit.

Mark’s passing on December 10 is a terrible loss, a life taken too soon. I know Mark wanted to do more and be a part of more great things.  In my view, years ago he had surpassed so many communicators in his contributions to the trade.

He enriched countless lives, personally and professionally. His professional legacy will be one of formidable contributions around PR measurement, evangelizing for research and outcome-based communication strategies.

Early in my career, Mark took me under his wing, connecting me with communicators and media execs whom to this day I count as friends and advisors.

Mark sponsored me throughout my career, giving me an extra boost of confidence, sometimes sprinkled with unsolicited advice (he was always right). As a member of the PR Daily Advisory board, he redefined what it meant to contribute to a board, going above and beyond the original list of responsibilities.

Mark’s most recent book, “PR Technology Data and Insights: Igniting a Positive Return on Your Communications Investment,” is a tangible leave-behind for students and practitioners who appreciate the science behind the communications practice. He made measurement accessible.

He cared about our profession and throughout his career advocated for the role of communications.

I will greatly miss my chats with Mark, his unique insights and ideas, and, most of all, our friendship.

********************************************

A memorial service for Mark Weiner will be held in January 2024. Read more about his life and legacy here. 

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Sometimes it can feel like you’re working in a vacuum, unsure of how your peers are handling the same communications challenges you’re working through. 

Now, Ragan’s 6th annual Communications Benchmark Survey offers you the chance chance to gain unique insight into the industry at large – and how your communications department compares. 

Please take 10 minutes to complete the 2024 Communications Benchmark Survey from Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council. Your responses will help inform the state of communications and identify needs, challenges and progress among communicators like you. 

Your answers are strictly confidential, and the results will be aggregated and anonymized.  

In return for your participation, you will receive an executive briefing of the survey findings — full of timely,  proprietary insights that will inform your decisions and help you navigate what’s ahead in 2024. 

Thanks for contributing! Please respond before the survey closes on January 5, 2024. . 

Take the survey now.  

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It’s 2023 – you know you need to be measuring your social media success. 

But even more than a decade into the field of social media, that’s still easier said than done. Even experienced, clever social media professionals can sometimes default to the easy path of proving value through engagement and impressions. 

But true social media measurement must go far beyond those metrics. Tina McCorkindale, PhD, APR, and president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations, recently presented on “Social Media Measurement Toolbox: Top Recs for Tracking Reach, Results and ROI.” She also emphasized the importance of avoiding what she calls “success theater.”  

“What happens is you promote the success theater where you’re like, ‘look at all these impressions of what we did and look at all the amazing things that we do,’” McCorkindale said. “But yet, then you don’t deliver it the next month, because if the definition you have for engagement doesn’t actually measure engagement, then it’s problematic. And then all of a sudden, it results in a loss of credibility for the data.” 

Here’s how to avoid sitting through that familiar play. 

Use common sense metrics 

Sometimes people give numbers that seem impossibly massive – and they are. McCorkindale gave the example that 7.8 billion (with a B!) people read about the Washington NFL football team’s training camp in 2014. 

Does it seem wild that more than every person on earth read about this camp? That’s because it is. Make sure your stats pass the sniff test, first and foremost, even if that big number makes you feel good. 

Move beyond outputs and outtakes to outcomes 

It’s easy to measure outputs – it’s the number of things we do to try to get a result. And it’s easy to measure outtakes – what people did with your output, including things like engagement, follows and so on. It’s hardest of all to measure outcomes: how you lifted your overall brand through your social media work. That requires looking at variables like sales, trust, reputation and more. 

Outcomes aren’t something you’re going to typically find on a social media dashboard, McCorkindale advises. You’re going to need to do surveys, interviews, look at stock price and sales, and more. It might be out of your comfort zone as a social media practitioner, but this is a time to make friends with other departments and grow. 

Let goals determine the data you collect 

The outcomes you hope to create determines what data you collect. If you want to impact sales with your social, you need to look at overall sales data tied to specific dates that used specific redemption codes, for example. But if you want to improve brand reputation, you need to get out there and talk to people. 

Let your goals guide you. 

Watch the full presentation below. 

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Lucas Miller is founder of Echelon Copy. 

One of the biggest challenges for any PR professional is to prove the return on investment (ROI) of their work. The link between a traditional media appearance and an increase in sales can usually be inferred, but proving the direct link isn’t always so simple.

With digital PR, on the other hand, you have a better opportunity to show that your efforts are delivering a tangible result for your client. The increased visibility that digital PR brings to your business allows potential customers to easily find you, learn more about your brand, and transition to loyal customers.

This form of digital footprint is harder to track, but there are some unique ways to figure the ROI of digital PR. By incorporating other ways to measure digital PR’s ROI, you can showcase your full worth to your clients.

1. Domain authority

Yes, domain authority also has a lot to do with SEO. But digital PR and SEO are closely intertwined. Domain authority measures a website’s relevance and perceived authority with search engines for a particular topic. The higher the score, the more visibility the site has, and the more traffic it is likely to receive as a result.

While not an official search engine ranking factor, Moz’s Domain Authority can help you better gauge how you stack up against the competition. Notably, much of your domain authority is derived from obtaining high-quality external links (a key focus in digital PR).

By pitching to relevant and authoritative sources, you can grow your domain authority in a manner that delivers meaningful results for your clients.

2. Brand awareness

Like traditional PR, digital PR prioritizes the reputation of your brand and building relationships with your audience.

As Relevance explains, “One of the ways digital PR helps is by providing people with an opportunity to get to know you and your brand. Done right, this opportunity shows up in a low-pressure, low-stakes encounter. If a target customer (a person most likely to want and need your services) does not know your company exists, they cannot even consider that you might be able to solve their problem.”

If target customers are unaware of your brand, new customers will be harder to come by. Digital PR provides a pathway for potential customers to become loyal ones because of the increase in visibility and credibility it brings to your brand. If your brand has become more recognizable to the public, chances are your digital PR efforts are paying off.

3. Branded search lift

As awareness for a brand increases from digital PR efforts, it can actually change customers’ search habits. For example, for an automotive brand, this could be seen in searches shifting from broader category searches like “best hybrid cars” to searches for a specific vehicle brand or even model.

This is a relatively easy metric to track through Google Analytics. Simply track how many search queries include the name of your client each month. As digital PR efforts take effect, you should see the number of branded search queries increase month over month. With increased brand awareness, more people begin searching for the brand itself, because they have come to know and trust it.

Tracking brand search queries can also help you uncover trends and public perception related to your client. For example, if you were to notice an uptick of searches with the phrase “[company name] scam,” this would warrant further investigation and a discussion with your client to determine why this has become a topic of concern.

4. Share of voice

Share of voice (SoV) is another metric that can help you gauge whether your digital PR efforts are helping shape online discussions. Share of voice is a way to measure how much of the online conversation is dominated by your brand, compared to its niche as a whole. While this is most often done with social media mentions, it could also be used with web traffic and other metrics.

As Rebecca Riserbato explains for HubSpot, “To calculate share of voice, divide your brand’s measures by the total market measures. This could be your social mentions, paid advertising clicks, or website traffic. To find these numbers, you’ll need to use some of your marketing tools. You can look at your social media automation tool, for instance, to count how many mentions your brand has. Then, you can calculate how many mentions your competitors have. After you add all those together, you can divide your mentions by the total to find the share of voice percentage.”

Measuring share of voice can give you a channel by channel breakdown of where your clients’ brands have the greatest awareness, and where they can improve. Social listening tools can help you dive even deeper to understand the sentiment behind brand mentions to better gauge PR effectiveness.

Prove your worth

While digital PR campaigns can often contribute to direct sales, any public relations professional worth their salt knows that PR is typically a long-term game. By incorporating these other metrics in your ROI measurements, you can gain a big picture understanding of your campaigns’ effectiveness and prove your true value to your clients.

The post 4 unique (and lesser-known) ways to measure the ROI of digital PR appeared first on PR Daily.

Data can be a treasure trove providing information that unlocks opportunities, sparks new campaigns, piques curiosity and so much more. In the wrong hands, it can create problems instead of solutions.

Mark Weiner, strategic measurement advisor at the University of Florida: Professional in Residence, said at PR Daily’s “PR Measurement Workshop: Dispelling Myths to Prove Value-and Improve PR Performance” in June that, “data is means to an end.”

What do you want data to do for you? That depends on your overall goals.

During the conference, David Cantor, deputy director of measurement and insights at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke about how to wield data for good.

Cantor said that evaluating data can’t be done in a silo and it’s not about simply looking at the numbers and asking for results.

“Building this (communications) continuum allows you to do real evaluation,” Cantor said of using data as opposed to being frustrated that an end result didn’t work based on data alone. Get curious and always ask what you learned, he added.

Too often, Weiner said, people claim that PR is an art form and thus immeasurable. The art begs to differ, Weiner explained.

“Data is the language of business and will enable your internal clients to understand what you do and a little bit more about how you do it.”

But part of our challenge is both listening to and educating those internal clients on what data is valuable.

Think about decision-makers and the next people below them and reach those types of people. Find unique ways to reach those people,” Weiner counseled.

From agency leaders to CEOs and beyond, there is a need to use data to demonstrate ROI in a way that demonstrates value to those overseeing PR departments and allocate funding, Weiner said.

However, the part where communications professionals often draw a blank is understanding which metrics leadership values.

Weiner designed an executive audit, which features interviews with roughly 2,000 executives who shared what measurements they value most. The audit revealed that the most valued forms of measurement are delivering key messages in target media and raising awareness.

Attitude changes is also data valued on the executive list. Trailing behind that are sales and volume of clippings.

“What these all have in common is that they are reasonable, meaningful and measurable,” Weiner said. Some metrics that executives value, like sales or revenue generation, are certainly meaningful. The difference is that they aren’t always reasonable to deliver via PR in a short period of time — and luckily, executives recognize that, Weiner said.

Weiner said that PR pros should have conversations with their executives about what they value most and least.

“And whether it’s reasonable, meaningful and measurable,” he said. “And when it comes to reasonable, that’s your opportunity to negotiate about what’s reasonable because they might not know what’s reasonable, but you do.”

Weiner explained that when interpreting data, insights, technology and subject matter expertise all matter. If you remove any part of that equation, your results could be skewed.

“If you have technology without subject matter expertise, you can have a lot (of data) but it might be all wrong,” he said. “Or if you have subject matter expertise without statistical acumen, it can be inaccurate.

Weiner said that data should be shared within an organization to a consumer insights group, market research team or some group in one’s company who “are eager for data.”

“By introducing your data to them you’ll be helping them out and then in return, they may be able to help you make sense of the data,” Weiner said.

Sherri Kolade is a writer at Ragan Communications. When she is not with her family, she enjoys watching Alfred Hitchcock-style films, reading and building an authentically curated life that includes more than occasionally finding something deliciously fried. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR story idea? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com. 

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Measurement is often one of PR pros’ least favorite tasks.

Mary Elizabeth Germaine, chief data & strategy officer at Ketchum, thinks she knows why that is.

“It’s people coming from a place of fear quite often on the measurement side of things, because they’re just like, ‘well, what if it doesn’t prove that something sold?’” she told PR Daily during a recent interview.

But she pointed out that simply selling things often isn’t the role of PR at all.

Germaine bucks the trend of measurement-averse PR professionals. A self-described nerd, she’s worked at Ketchum for more than 20 years and has seen the data and analytics team grow from six to more than 100 worldwide.

That’s because data is a vital part of Ketchum’s overall strategy. Not just on the backend, in evaluating a campaign, but also to guide strategy from Day 1.

“It’s probably like a 50-50 split between the work that we do in terms of planning, and then how we measure,” Germaine said. “And how we measure is going well beyond just counting clips, and measuring reach and impressions and even beyond message delivery.”

Using data in planning

Germaine describes today’s media landscape as a “surround sound of content and storytelling.” The PR practitioner’s job is to break through that cacophony in a way that’s worth listening to.

At the most basic level, figuring out how and where to tell your story starts with knowing who your audience is and how they spend their time.

“If you’re communicating with a super busy working mom, how you have to tell your story and where you have to tell that story is going to be very different than if you’re communicating to a 23-year-old who’s just out of school and entering the job market,” she explained. “What the things that are occupying their mind space, are two very, are very, very different.”

That’s where the research and data analysis comes in.

Germaine explained that recently, Ketchum worked on a campaign with the National Egg Board. This was a tricky assignment: eggs already have a penetration rate of more than 90% of American households. Those who don’t buy eggs already are unlikely to do so in the future. The goal was to increase egg purchasing by existing customers.

Initially, the client was interested in partnering with a certain celebrity to drive their message. But when Germaine’s team analyzed her audience, they found that her audience had a low proportion of current egg buyers. But they were able to identify another influencer who already had a following of egg lovers and engage with her instead.

The result? A high ROI at a lower cost than the initial celebrity would have demanded. All because they took the time to properly analyze the audience.

Using data in evaluation

Ketchum uses a proprietary tech stack to profile their audiences and determine ROI. But Germaine acknowledges not all PR pros will have access to these bespoke tools.

That doesn’t mean you can’t measure.

“You launch a PR campaign today. You get your client sales data, do you start seeing an uptick in sales or uptick in search as a proxy metric for people responding positively to what you’re doing? So even in the absence of the technology and the data that we have, anybody within the industry can start pulling disparate data sets together and looking to see if things are moving in the same direction at the same time,” Germaine explained.

Indeed, she believes that the biggest myth in the PR industry is that it’s too hard to measure the outcomes of the work we do. And that feeds back into the fear of failure she mentioned earlier.

“I would argue, though, however, that some of your best learning can come from, actually, failure. And understanding what doesn’t work can make you that much more effective and stronger.”

She also stressed that sales are not always the right metric to look at when gauging how well your campaign performed.

“A lot of times, it’s more kind of upper funnel, creating a halo, a positive brand image, getting people to feel really good about a brand so that all the direct marketing efforts, like the advertising and all that precision marketing is more effective, because PRs created this kind of positive environment for the brand,” she said.

Getting clients to ‘take a step to the right’

Germaine said that PR as an industry does not always do the work of sitting down the clients and setting the proper measurement objectives at the beginning of a project. But that doesn’t mean going from “0 to 100,” she said, but rather getting clients to take small step toward more effective analysis.

“So if all they’re measuring volume and reach, what can we introduce today? That builds that out a little bit. And then once we get more of the qualitative, the message delivery, the prominence of those types of engagements, things like that, then what’s the next step to their right, to make it more robust?”

The important thing is to take the time to have conversations with a client’s internal teams to figure out what data they’re already capturing and how it can best be used. They might already have all the data they need — but they need your help and expertise to connect it to their goals and activities.

Looking to the future

Germaine lights up when asked about the future of measurement.

The possibilities of automation — not necessarily AI, she stresses — to help analysts focus on understanding the data more, are exciting to her. As is a new wave of young professionals entering the field with a keen interest in data.

“I can’t believe how many people are now … specializing in the data side of comms over comms just in general at this at this point in time. And I think it’s because it’s more of that critical thinking skill set that’s being brought to bear and understanding really what the data means,” she enthused.

In other words: the future looks bright for those who keep their eyes on the numbers.

Allison Carter is executive editor of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post How Ketchum’s data head approaches measurement appeared first on PR Daily.

Scott Ward is principal at Fifth Estate Communications, a full-service firm specializing in strategy, storytelling and stakeholder outreach, and a co-chair of the PRSA National Capital Chapter Association and Nonprofit Committee.

Untold dollars and hours — not to mention tons of enamel from gnashed teeth — are spent each year trying to answer one of our profession’s questions of the ages: How do you measure return on investment for public relations and strategic communications?

Is it clips? Is it hits? Is it engagement? How do we know they mattered? How do we know if our campaign is moving the needle?

Actually, the answer is a lot simpler than those in the cottage industry of creating complicated metrics to measure success would have you believe. If you’re not sure of your ROI, then you’re not measuring the right thing.

At the most fundamental level, all strategic communications is — or should be — a means to an end. Too often, we get in the habit of treating PR as an end in and of itself. Doing so by its very nature puts us in a defensive position when a boss or a colleague or a board member pointedly asks, “So what?”

Whether you’re working in-house or as a consultant, what we should be benchmarking against is not what’s in the communications plan, but rather what’s in our organization’s broader strategic plan, be it formal or informal; engraved in a tablet or a living document on the Google Drive.

Take our sibling profession, marketing. While we may scowl at the “four Ps” and roll our eyes at the day-long packaging summits, you’ll notice that very rarely is anyone asking about the ROI. That’s because of what they measure.

During my time as marketing and media relations manager for a sports and entertainment arena in Texas (think Disney On Ice, WWE, Harlem Globetrotters and, yes, championship bull riding), from the front office to the ticket counter, only one thing mattered: butts in seats.

So if I ran a great publicity campaign, with a pile of clips to show for the effort, there was still only one thing the promoter cared about at the end of the night: Did you make me money? If the show made the numbers, the campaign was a success. If it didn’t, the promoter would say something like, “Great. I can use those clips to feed my family until I get to work with someone who knows what they’re doing.” (Promoters can be really harsh, if a bit dramatic.)

And while lucre is not the end game for all or even most types of organizations, something is, and that something needs to be spelled out clearly in the organization’s strategic plan (if it’s not, that’s a whole big other mess that you need to solve first). Which makes ROI straightforward: If the organization achieved its something — the clear goal laid out in the strategic plan — then the campaign worked. If the goal wasn’t met, the campaign didn’t come through.

An example of this might be passing a piece of legislation, which has a lot of moving parts and requires that a number of different disciplines work together. Communications tactics might include a district-by-district op-ed campaign. No matter how many we place, at the end of the day, the legislation passes or it doesn’t, and we’re part of the greater whole of succeeding or not.

Of course, saying this and putting it into practice are two very different things. It takes a sometimes seismic shift in organizational culture to get there:

• Start with who’s talking to whom. Is the communications team at the organizational decision-making table from the start? If not, that needs to change. To be accountable to metrics, you have to have a hand in shaping them.
• Next, make the clear and compelling case for your theory of impact. There are numerous ways to do this, but a good place to start is the question “why?” If someone says the goal should be a million likes, ask why. Is that really going to make something happen? Could the resources we spend on trying to achieve that be more effectively directed somewhere else?
• Finally, it’s time for the trust falls. This approach requires that everyone take ownership of the entire organizational pie, not just their own slice. If we didn’t get where we wanted to go, maybe there was a fundamental flaw in execution. Maybe the goal was unrealistic. Either way, we shouldn’t try to hide behind a mountain of social media engagement, and the boss has to come halfway and own the management challenges. The good news for PR people is that we have the ace in the hole. Trust begins with dialogue, and dialogue is our bread and butter.

Bottom line? When communications plans walk in lockstep with overall strategic plans, the results actually do speak for themselves.

The post This is the only PR measurement that actually matters appeared first on PR Daily.

While communicators regularly work with copyrighted material and intellectual property, many in the field still have different understandings of what constitutes fair use, the distinction between copyrights and trademarks and more.

That’s why Ragan partnered with the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) on their inaugural Copyright Benchmarking survey, which will capture how our industry’s understanding of this important but complex topic measures up.

Please fill out this brief survey by Wednesday, May 3. Your input will be reflected in the results, which will be unveiled at AMEC’s Global Summit on Measurement and Evaluation, May 15-17 in Miami, Florida.

The post Take Ragan and AMEC’s Copyright Benchmarking survey appeared first on PR Daily.

According to Ragan’s 2023 Communications Benchmark Report, measurement is one of the most challenging aspects of the industry. Thirty-three percent of respondents said a lack of measurement is one of the things most holding them back from producing better comms.

Even if you’ve started a robust measurement program (good job!) and have data, there can be that niggling doubt.

Are you asking the right questions to measure what you’re trying to understand? Is the data you’re getting showing what you believe it does?

If you’ve struggled with this, you’re wrestling with the question of validity.

As Tina McCorkindale, president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations, explained at Ragan’s 2022 Strategic Communications Conference, “Validity is if you’re measuring what you intend to measure.”

This can come into play in a variety of different areas of measurement. It could be in your own survey questions. It could be in the data you’re looking at. Or it could be measurements you’re being offered by outside parties.

Validating external data

“If you deal with vendors, question how they’re measuring things,” she cautioned.

Many vendors might offer you an all-in-one score that measures a huge, abstract concept like “trust” or “brand awareness.” These scores seek to condense these difficult ideas into one score that seems easy to digest.

But if you don’t know what they actually mean, what’s the point of it all?

It’s up to you to ensure you understand what’s going into that score.

“If they’re like, ‘it’s proprietary, I can’t tell you, ’say ‘bye,’” McCorkindale said. Question their definitions. Don’t let scores that seem simple become a black box that seems to offer clarity but only raises more questions — especially for the executives you answer to.

Because you can be sure they’ll ask what the scores mean. And if you don’t have a good answer they won’t be pleased.

The same logic applies to influencers. If they offer you an easy-to-digest “influencer score” to prove they have a huge reach, ask what precisely that means. In many cases, it might just be based on the number of followers they have.

“There’s a lot of bots that have a lot of followers too, FYI,” McCorkindale noted.

Validating your own data

But you also need to apply that same rigor to ensure your own studies, surveys, focus groups or other measurement activities are also getting the results you most need.

McCorkindale uses the example of trust to show how complex it can be to accurately measure a concept we think we all understand. You shouldn’t simply ask, “Do you trust this organization?” Rather, you need to break the concept of trust down and ask pointed questions to best understand sentiment, as these matrices show.

“A simple concept like trust is complicated. Measures like reputation are complicated. So make sure you know how your organization is defining that,” McCorkindale advised.

And understanding these definitions is vital to ensuring you can take that data and use it to tell a compelling story to guide strategy and secure resources. If your executive leadership is confused about what your terms mean or isn’t convinced of their validity, you’re likely not going to get the buy-in you need to thrive.

That, in turn, can promote what McCorkindale calls “success theater,” where the numbers indicate you’re doing great so you pat yourself on the back — even  if there’s no real reason to.

Don’t just ask if you trust x. Ask multiple questions about multiple factors.

“A simple concept like trust is complicated. Measures like reputation are complicated. So make sure you know how your organization is defining that.”

“If you don’t understand, then you promote success theater.”

Remember: Your measurement strategy is only as good if you’re measuring the right things. Measuring the right things requires a proactive approach to data validation, but embracing this approach  can help you earn a seat at the table and guide more successful comms efforts overall.

And we can all applaud for that.

Allison Carter is executive editor of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post Why you need to consider validity in your measurement strategy appeared first on PR Daily.

The Barcelona Principles sounds like some kind of United Nations agreement. But it’s actually a set of simple, practical guidelines to help all communicators better measure their efforts and communicate their results.

Created by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), the framework is now in its third iteration. Simply put, it’s a way of thinking about measurement to better understand and communicate outcomes in a way that creates real, lasting change.

The framework is “Focused heavily on measuring what matters to drive continuous improvement within an organization rather than solely improving only the value of communication,” according to Johna Burke, global managing director of AMEC.

If you’re thinking this all sounds boring and dry, you’re wrong.

Measurement is what helps us get better at our jobs. It helps us learn  what wild ideas paid off — and what fizzled. It allows us refine our strategies and tactics in ways that truly serve our audiences rather than just our egos. Measuring equips us with powerful stories to tell our leadership and help us guide them in decision-making.

Having a firm framework like the Barcelona Principles helps keep you, and your organization, accountable. So let’s go through the principles, with commentary from Burke, via Ragan Insider.

1. Setting measurable goals is an absolute prerequisite to communication planning, measurement and evaluation

If you don’t buy into this one, nothing that follows here will matter.

“Goals start with the change you want to see and should be founded in research,” Burke said. “Have those good benchmarks.”

2. Measurement and evaluation should identify outputs, outcomes and potential impact

You’ll see a theme emerge throughout the principles: you need multiple kinds of information and goals working in tandem to create a clear picture. In this case, you need to link together what you’re putting in, what you hope to get out and what that can accomplish overall.

“Making sure you’re aligned with your organization’s overarching goals and objectives, how your organization makes and spends money, is really going to be critical in being able to make sure you’re showing the impact that your organization needs and wants to see from you,” Burke reminded us.

3. Outcomes and impact should be identified for stakeholders, society & the organization

Repeat forever: “There is no one right way to measure,” as Burke put it. Determine what is relevant for the impacts you want to measure, beyond sales and services provided, such as employee retention, lead gen or change in attitudes.

4. Communication measurement and evaluation should include both qualitative and quantitative analysis

Again, it’s about seeing the big picture. You need numbers to tell your stories and understand your successes, but you also need to talk to people and get their thoughts, impressions and viewpoints. Otherwise you’re just telling half the story.

5. AVEs are not the value of communication

Advertising value equivalent is a flawed metric … but it’s one many organizations still turn to.

“The better you start with educating [others about] why AVEs are not the value of communication, it can only go to help expand your own reputation and the credibility you have when driving your own efforts,” Burke advised.

Instead of AVEs, try measuring quality of coverage or relevance of the coverage relative to its space.

6. Holistic communication measurement and evaluation includes all relevant online and offline channels

Don’t rely purely on the native metrics from your websites or social media channels to give you measurements. Again, keep your eye on the big picture. As Burke puts it, ignoring offline signals carries dangers:

“It puts you at risk of delivering results that have bias in them, making your organization vulnerable of making decisions that aren’t aligned with what their overall community are looking to do,” she said.

7. Communications measurement and evaluation are rooted in integrity and transparency to drive learning and insights communications

Our data is only as good as we  are. Without an honest, well-intentioned attempt to learn from our past actions, we’ll never improve.

Good words to live by, in measurement and in life.

Allison Carter is executive editor of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post How to take your measurement to the next level in 2023 appeared first on PR Daily.

Over the last 11 years, I’ve put a lot of clients in the press. Most of them have been in the political space; but since starting my business, my team has also worked with businesses, non-profits, and specialized professionals seeking to boost their credibility and recognition.

Our clients have sought all sorts of metrics of success. Some simply want more press; some are targeting specific types of press. Still others have personalized metrics -– one company CEO was pleased that retired generals responded favorably to his op-ed.

But it was only recently that I was asked for reach as a metric of success. This isn’t “potential reach,” a manipulative metric used by far too many PR professionals and PR-tangential companies (I once had an op-ed get a few thousand reads -– but the “potential reach” was in the millions). This is actual reach -– the number of people who read, heard, or watched the client’s press coverage.

Without a media outlet’s internal metrics, it’s impossible to determine total reach. Tools like SEM Rush offer some of that capability. But the more I think about it, that may be an academic question because reach just isn’t a very valuable metric of success for a PR and media campaign.

Reach vs. other metrics

Reach is a better metric of success than potential reach. However, it is very limited because a) again, it’s impossible to track all reach without an outlet’s internal data, and b) “reach” is most valuable when reaching the right people with the right message at the right time.

There are other metrics which, depending upon the circumstances, are more important than reach, especially for clients who understand that the best PR campaigns are long-term investments:

• The SEO value of press. For clients who rely heavily on Google searches for traffic, smaller metrics such as downstream media coverage (like material being republished or repurposed by other outlets) and backlink quality can create not just reach, but the opportunity for exponentially more reach through an effective SEO strategy.
• Press credibility compared to client brand reputation. Putting a little-known client into Newsweek, Insider, or USA Today sends their message into the national space, regardless of “reach.” And it gives them automatic credibility with stakeholders and other press outlets.
• Creating a call to action. Reaching 100,000 people doesn’t matter if none of them are interested in taking the client’s preferred action. Reaching 10,000 people who are likely to take action is 10% of the audience size – but may have 10 times the impact. This is especially true for political or activist campaigns.
• Starting people down the sales funnel. For clients seeking buyers, donors, or investors, putting more of the right people on their website is far, far more important than simply “reaching” them.

Press value is limited without effective marketing

But even the most effective press campaign is limited without the other side of the branding coin: effective marketing that repurposes press placements to reach other audiences with variations on the same message.

“Without effective marketing, you’re leaving a great deal of a media placement’s value on the table,” said Pinkston president Christian Pinkston. “Social media and email marketing, improved SEO, and repurposed website content are all part of turning press into messaging that reaches more people over time.”

“Reaching” people just means they’ve been touched once. The best clients know what PR professionals and salespeople know: that people need to be reached many times with different message variations before they are likely to take the desired action.

Dustin Siggins is a business columnist and founder of the publicity firm Proven Media Solutions.

The post Measuring PR success: How much does reach matter? appeared first on PR Daily.

When you’re working in communications, the main goal is always to get to the heart of the story. To that end, having supporting numbers that help you illustrate the point you’re trying to make will always result in a fuller, more vivid picture.

Michael Kaye, Global Head of Communications at OkCupid, knows that even communicators who mainly work in words can use data strategically to create a fuller story and find new stories within the sea of numbers and responses. Ahead of Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference this November, Kaye shared some of his thoughts on data in storytelling.

“For me, communications is just as much about strategy as it is about execution,” Kaye said. “I like taking a hands-on approach. That includes how I think about data when it comes to telling the OkCupid story.”

Building a relationship with your data team

Kaye relayed an anecdote about when he joined OkCupid in 2019. One of the first things he did upon joining the comms team of the global dating platform was sit down with the data and analytics team and learn how they work.

“After getting into the numbers with our data team, I spent months learning about the data and how it could be analyzed and used,” said Kaye. “Now, I’m the one using that same data every day to support our marketing and communications efforts. In today’s world, there’s no workaround or excuse to not use the data we’re provided. We need to find time for the data.”

Rethinking what you consider data in your storytelling

Michael Kaye, Global Head of Communications, OkCupid

Kaye urges communicators to remember that can come in all forms, not just an unending sea of confounding numbers. OkCupid obtains much of its data comes in the form of worded answers. When someone joins the platform, they answer a series of questions that matches them with potential dates based on the compatibility of the answers. Within these answers, Kaye finds his stories and determines how best to tell them.

“We’re the only dating app in the world that connects people on in-app questions, so to start, that makes the data set I’m working with unique,” he explained. These can range from questions about dating and relationships but also span across cultural, political, and other top-of-mind issues that are important to Gen Z and Millennial users. The responses to these questions are the inspiration behind the stories I pitch and tell.” Kaye said.

When he dives into these answers, Kaye sorts through them by age, demographic, location, sexual orientation, and a number of other factors. In this way, he’s able to determine behavioral patterns, cultural shifts, and other changes to the dating landscape that can be told through a data-based perspective.

This strategy ensured that over 70% of OkCupid’s earned media coverage in the U.S. included data points from in-app questions.

“Data storytelling is how I manage to help OkCupid break through a really crowded marketplace,” said Kaye. I consider us a true case study on how we can use data effectively, no matter how it manifests itself,” Kaye said.

Deploy data to increase the value of your comms

For communicators, data can also be a valuable asset to shaping, honing and speaking about how our strategies drive and highlight measurable, positive business results.

“During the height of the pandemic, I used an outside source to show how I managed to grow our power and share of voice through data storytelling,” said Kaye. “We then cross-referenced our significant press moments to see if there was a correlation with new downloads of the app. Yes, data is what we’re using to inspire our communications and content, but we’re also using data to prove how impactful our strategies are on the health of the business to our senior leadership.”

While data can come in all different forms, Kaye’s incorporation of data across all aspects of his communications strategy is a reminder that there’s always a story within the data, whether external or internal. It’s our job as communications professionals to tell it.

Catch Michael Kaye speaking about the future of data and analysis during his panel at Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference on 11/2 in New York City. Register today!

The post Making data part of your comms strategy, from OKCupid’s Michael Kaye appeared first on PR Daily.

You know it isn’t enough to just keep a running tally of how many media hits you get and use that as a sign of success. But you also aren’t sure how to present actual, nuanced data that signifies real success (or room for improvement) in a way your leadership will understand.

Katie Delahaye Paine, founder and CEO of Paine Publishing, has a better way. She presented her scorecard at PR Daily’s Media & Measurement Conference, and it’s worth taking for your own measurement purposes.

The card is self-explanatory: Rather than simply measuring whether or not you got ink, measure it based on how positive it is toward your overall goals. The more positive, the more points. Likewise, subtract points for things that might harm your brand.

This idea serves as a solid foundation for endless customization. You could add fields for different topics, including:

• How relevant an outlet is to your audience
• Overall reader/viewership
• Whether your leadership is quoted
• Whether there are links to your social media or website
• Follow-up metrics, including new purchases after publication, new followers or website visits

The list goes on. Whatever metrics matter to you — positive and negative — can be added to this framework to build a completely customized scorecard that’s easy for those up the ladder to understand at a glance.

What would you add to your scorecard?

The post Steal this scorecard: A better way of measuring media coverage appeared first on PR Daily.