In today‘s business environment it‘s essential for investments to deliver meaningful business results. Chief executives and senior marketers are concerned about ROI and public relations efforts have not escaped their scrutiny. But does PR really play an important role in realizing bottom line objectives? And if it does, how do you measure its impact? 

First, it’s important to understand that PR involves much more than just media relations. While positive publicity is an important part of what we do as public relations practitioners, it‘s certainly not the only tool available to us. PR is a broad field that includes community relations, investor relations, government affairs, speaking tours and more.

All of these activities have a significant ability to help an organization achieve its business goals. PR is all about relationships and reputation management. In many ways positive relationships and a favorable corporate reputation are two of the most essential ingredients in an organization‘s survival and its success.

At times, a direct link between positive business results and public relations programs can be established. We‘re currently working with a marketing services company to raise their profile with Canadian and US marketing decision-makers. Our PR effort is generating positive media coverage but what our client really wants is new business leads. The connection between coverage and new business was recently established when our client was invited to meet with a company who read about their work in a trade journal.

At other times, tangible results from PR programs can be more difficult to measure. Tracking programs that measure attitudes and awareness are typically more costly to conduct than the PR efforts themselves. And consumers often don‘t differentiate between a newspaper ad and a newspaper article so the results are muddied.

So, how do you measure the impact of public relations programs?  Here‘s an easy four-step process:

1. Understand and articulate your objectives. Make them measurable and relevant. Establish a firm link between your PR objectives and the business objectives of your organization.
2. Determine the benchmarks you‘ll use to establish success. Try improving on last year‘s effort. Look for metrics within your industry sector.
3. Select a measurement tool. If you‘re evaluating media coverage, you‘ll need to look at the clippings you generate. But go beyond just counting clips. Consider other criteria such as tone, key message delivery, audience reach and the cost to reach this audience. If you want your media coverage to include your 1-800 number, then ask callers where they saw your number. 
4. Analyze your program results. Look for ways to improve then take action and measure again.

Tags: public relations
Posted in Public relations |