Why Measurement Matters in the Evolving Field of PR
Posted by CommsAdmin on Nov. 17, 2014 / PRSA Mid America, Events / Subscribe 0
Ashlyn Brewer with Standing Partnership presents on the future of PR measurement at the PRSA St. Louis Digital Communications Summit.
We need measurement to assess the effectiveness of our campaigns and compare activities against our overall business goals.
Ashlyn Brewer and Nick Sargent, both managers for Standing Partnership, shed light on the future of public relations measurement recently at the PRSA St. Louis Digital Communications Summit.
Any public relations practitioner knows that at the end of any project, we must be able to verify its success and prove return-on-investment (ROI) to the executives of the company or the clients we work for.
Besides demonstrating a campaign’s success, measurement allows us to adjust strategies and tactics on a developing situation with a changing audience. It also allows public relations professionals to suggest recommendations to improve future campaigns and advise other departments in the company.
According to Brewer, measurement helps us get rid of subjectivity and helps to make decisions based on what works best and not on who earns the most. Sargent added that measurement helps the communications or marketing departments bring results to other departments to demonstrate the value and ROI of the efforts done, proving the importance of communications when making business decisions and justifying budget expenses.
“Knowing what’s important and what’s noise is difficult to know sometimes,” Brewer said. “You need to set a measurement framework before your project or initiative and not after.”
By using a model of a three-tiered funnel, Brewer and Sargent demonstrated how each measurement level is tied to the business goals, which are the end-products of the funnel.
The funnel can be adjusted to each organization but they all have three similar levels. These include awareness, engagement and conversion or sales, and each level can be divided into measurements affecting sales and freedom to operate or reputation of the company.
Awareness Metrics
“Awareness metrics often get a bad reputation, but we need to have awareness to be able to do anything else,” Brewer said.
Awareness metrics include data about how many people are being reached broadly. Examples include media impressions, social media reach, website page views and subscribers.
Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics focus on how your target audience is interacting with your company and produced content.
“Engagement metrics looks at when people are interacting with you in the way that you hope and in the behavior that you want,” Brewer said.
Metrics for engagement includes traffic to landing pages, email click-through-rate, social media interactions and downloads of key content.
“It’s not always necessarily about getting a placement in a certain publication but about the impact that it’s making,” Sargent said.
Conversion and Sales Metrics
The end of the funnel covers people taking action that are specifically tied to your goals.
These metrics could include marketing qualified leads, proposals or sales opportunities, signatures on a petition, public comments submitted, or votes on a specific issue.
Tracking Results
The end-products of the funnel are what your organization is trying to achieve. These could be actual sales, ROI, drug or permit approvals, or passed legislation helping the company’s freedom to operate.
Being able to track results throughout the funnel allows communications teams to receive credit for driving results that meet the company’s objectives and as a result, obtain bigger budgets and more staff to accomplish your goals.
How are you measuring your business goals and campaign objectives? Share your tips and experiences below!
To learn about tools you can use to measure your campaigns, events and goals, click here to view Brewer and Sargent’s presentation.
This post is courtesy of Andrea Gils, current PRSA St. Louis Chapter Newsletter Editor and social media co-contributor and former PRSSA National Diversity and Ethics Subcommittee member and PRSSA Southeast Chapter Firm Director. She is a public relations and journalism senior at Southeast Missouri State University, and you can find her on Twitter @andreagils.
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