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How do you measure the effectiveness of a Public Relation (PR) campaign? In this post we explain some of the key PR metrics used by leading brands to demonstrate PR ROI.

Measuring the success of Public Relations has typically been a difficult task for Communications professionals.

This is because relying on traditional metrics such as reach and impressions in isolation often doesn’t result in a clear, concise understanding of the performance of a PR activity.

So how do you define success in PR? Here are the three key pillars of any PR measurement program.

Pillar 1: Defining your objectives

As a PR professional, it’s important to have a strategic plan that encompasses what your organisation is trying to achieve and how PR will support those goals. 

Strategic planning is a critical first step. This is particularly important when measuring the performance of PR because ROI cannot be measured solely based on traditional metrics alone. 

Are you looking to increase your CEO’s profile among potential stakeholders? Your PR objective could be to arrange speaking opportunities at industry events for your CEO to become known among key audiences.

Is your brand targeting new sectors? Your PR objective could be to pave the way for lead generation with a PR campaign. You could then use other marketing tactics to target your prospects.

Is organisational reputation under threat? Your PR objective could be to improve brand reputation over a set period of time.

Is your organisation launching a new product? Your PR objective could be to focus on awareness and support the marketing organisation in the delivery of a product strategy.

Having a clear and defined strategy can yield a robust and effective PR action plan that will support your business goals.

Pillar 2: Defining PR metrics

In today’s hyperconnected world, the abundance of metrics available to comms and marketing teams can make reporting overwhelming.

On the other hand, choosing your key metrics wisely and getting alignment between these and the set business objectives can lead to measurable PR.

So what are some of the key measures of the effectiveness of a PR campaign?

Mentions

Depending on your objectives, tracking media mentions can be a realistic representation of the performance of your PR campaign. 

With the right tools you can track mentions as they relate to brands, topics, spokespeople and more. Let’s take brand mentions as an example.

Brand mentions, though not directly tied to sales, are essential to understanding the impact of your PR campaign. Here are only some of the key metrics that you can use to examine brand mentions:

Brand mentions by media type

Brand mentions over time

Total cumulative volume of brand mentions

Sentiment related to those brand mentions

Brand mentions by spokespeople 

As an example, in the below chart we have analysed a data set of brand mentions over the space of two weeks. PR teams can leverage such a metric to track the performance of a PR campaign as it relates to message penetration and volumes over key dates.

Your chosen metrics should help you determine if your PR campaign is performing according to plans or if there is an opportunity to pivot your channels, message or other aspects of your activity.

Key outlets

Monitoring your target outlets can be a great way to understand whether your PR message is landing in the right hands and how this is like to resonate with your audience. Not surprisingly, most PR campaigns rely heavily on the successful execution of two key elements:

1. Consistency of the message
2. Share of Voice across target channels

Here is how outlet analysis can help you visualise message penetration, without employing manual processes.

The same data can give you insights into the potential reach of those channels, adding more context and measurable output to your reporting.

Share of Voice 

Employing Share of Voice as part of your PR reporting toolkit can shed some light on the performance of a particular message or topic over another. Whether you are tracking brands, industries, or other topics, Share of Voice can help you identify:

Volume of mentions for one topic over another (and over time)

Volume of mentions of one topic over another as it relates to sentiment

Volume of mentions by media type / channel (Example below)

Other key metrics that can help you contextualise your media coverage

Geography

Understanding the geographical extent of your PR effort is vital in order to assess the effectiveness of your campaign. In fact, whatever the objectives of your overall strategy are, most organisations have a very specific geographical reach or target.

Location charts can help you identify where your message is landing and the geographical impact of your PR campaign. Your location report should include major metropolitan as well as regional outlets. 

Pillar 3: Tracking and Reporting

After you have identified the objectives and key metrics of your PR plan, define your tracking and reporting methodology.

Too often, reporting is seen as a tedious task to be carried out upon campaign conclusion. Tracking and reporting, if done correctly, can be an effective way to identify areas of improvement and opportunities to give your campaign the best chances of success. When defining the methodology of your PR tracking and reporting framework, consider:

• Responsibilities: Who will be in charge of tracking and reporting on the various metrics?
• System: Define what tools your team is going to use to measure PR and share the results with the various stakeholders. These can be as basic as shared spreadsheets or more comprehensive PR monitoring tools.
• Cadence: Define the intervals of your tracking and reporting. When is the team going to look at and report on the various metrics?
• Audience: Who will be the audience of your reports? Will this be shared externally (Perhaps with clients) or internally (Executive / leadership teams)?
• Adjustment: What will be the process for analysing the results and adjusting your strategy throughout the campaign.

Conclusion

In this article we discovered the three pillars of a PR measurement plan and discussed how measuring PR doesn’t only come down solely to analysing data. 

Defining your goals, setting your metrics and having a tracking and reporting system in place are the essential components that any PR and Communication team should take into account.

Isentia is APAC’s leading media intelligence provider, empowering PR and communications teams with the tools they need to make great decisions. For more information or to see our platform in action, schedule a demo today!

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With a new year brings new organisational goals and strategies. To help you achieve success in 2020, we have chosen the top 7 events for PR and Communications professionals to attend across Australia and New Zealand.

1. Mumbrella CommsCon

Event details: 2 April 2020. Sydney, Australia

Learn about: Brand building, behavioural science, cultural trends.

For: 

A must attend event for public relations, social media and communications professionals. Mumbrella’s CommsCon explores the major issues affecting the PR and communications business and helps industry professionals navigate the ever-changing landscape. The event features the industry’s most senior leaders discussing the biggest topics in PR and communications to better understand meaningful brand building, behavioural science, cultural trends, pitching and more.

Attending the Mumbrella CommsCon event will enable you to distinguish a clear plan for how you’re going to drive business value and gain trust and confidence with your audience.

Emergency Media & Public Affairs (EMPA) Conferences

2. Australia: Communicating and Engaging Communities in Emergencies

Event details: 3 - 5 June 2020. Sydney, Australia

3. New Zealand: Emergency Communications Conference

Event details: 12 - 14 August 2020. Wellington, New Zealand

Learn about: Disaster communications, public affairs responses, crisis communication best practice.

For:

• Communications professionals
• Emergency services professionals
• Response and recovery agencies
• Public information managers
• Public relations practitioners
• Researchers
• Social media specialists
• Community engagement

With recent catastrophic events occurring across Australia and New Zealand, the importance of strong crisis communications is more prevalent than ever. The Emergency Media & Public Affairs (EMPA) is the only representative organisation of emergency service and disaster communications practitioners in the world. Their conferences held in Australia and New Zealand assist with empowering communications professionals to deliver the right message to their audience during and after an emergency or crisis.

As a comms professional, communicating with employees, stakeholders, and lifeline organisations is critical to the resilience and safety of communities. During times of crisis, there is a highlighted need for communications that can influence individuals and organisations to make necessary decisions, quickly and comprehensively.

The rationale behind this event is to benchmark the best media liaison and public affairs responses to disaster across Australasia for comms professionals in emergency services, response and recovery agencies, public relations and similar.

4. 5th Corporate Comms for Leaders

Event details: 31 March - 2 April 2020. Melbourne Australia

Learn about: Stakeholder management, strengthening leadership skills, measuring value of external communications.

As a comms professional, it's important to understand how to effectively build and execute corporate communications and social media strategies. It’s also essential to keep brand loyalty during disruptions in the market and throughout organisational change.

Establishing trust and transparency in brands through social media and corporate communications is equally important and this event will ensure you are equipped with all the tools required to execute effectively.

The most innovative strategies are explored to strengthen leadership skills in communication and address real-world challenges and opportunities.

Targeted to corporate leaders in today’s digitally connected world, the key drivers of this forum are:

• Maximising stakeholder engagement through storytelling and humanising the narrative being told
• Building agile communications teams
• Measuring value and effectiveness of external communications.

5. Corporate Affairs summit

Event details: 20 - 21 May 2020. Sydney, Australia

Learn about: Storytelling the in Corporate communication, crisis communication, reputation and social media

For: 

• Corporate Communications
• Internal Communications
• External Communications
• Corporate affairs
• Investor relations
• Government relations
• PR and public policy

This event focuses on insights to influence, and discusses the forces affecting the corporate affairs and communication landscape. From discussing ideologies and the divergence of civil discourse, to artificial intelligence solutions and the frameworks of communication.

The practice of corporate affairs holds the main responsibility for everything related to internal and external communications, government relations, PR and public policy. Corporate affairs now includes an added challenge of relaying those messages in various channels to accommodate business’ inevitable leap into digital.

Although corporate affairs continues to evolve and differs across various sectors, the goal is the same: to effectively communicate a message to the right audience.

Attendees are screened for seniority, so you can be assured you’re networking with similar minds shaping business today. Whether they’re users, consultants, channel partners or dealers, the Corporate Affairs Summit generates countless opportunities to learn, network, explore and to keep up to date with all that is taking place in the field.

6. Social media for Government NZ

Event details: 24-26 March 2020. Wellington, New Zealand

Learn about: Social media content, social storytelling, social media strategy

For: 

• Social Media Manager
• Social Media Specialist
• Communications Advisor
• Digital Communications Manager

Optimising social media is a critical tool for the New Zealand government sector. 

By attending this event, you will gain an understanding on how to find your target audience and learn what resonates with them using social media analytics - (to ensure your messaging cuts through the noise.)

Discussions will include the significant challenges being faced today across social media and how they’re being addressed. Appropriate strategies and technology options are uncovered to demonstrate where the impact and value of social media efforts can be improved. 

As building and maintaining a two-way dialogue on social media is imperative to improving service delivery and citizen satisfaction. This event will provide insight into the most innovative strategies to maximise social media success, how to create a personalised approach and connect experience whilst driving trust and confidence in government.

7. World Public Relations Forum

Event details: 12-15 October 2020. Auckland, New Zealand

Learn about: Building authentic relationships, communicating across cultures, Public Relations strategy.

For: 

• Public Relations
• Communications Manager
• Internal Communications
• External Communications
• PR and public policy

The World Public Relations Forum will explore the theme ‘connecting with courage’ through the four lenses of conscience, culture, capability and courage. It will reflect on key topics and trends that matter to the global communications community while also drawing on New Zealand’s ingenuity, creativity, and diversity to generate inspiring conversations.

Media today

As a PR or media communications professional, you’re the first to know when something important happens. You get the critical head start needed to course correct, alert the right people to target their efforts more effectively.

With the transition to a digital news environment, challenges to contemporary journalism have emerged due to a 24/7 news cycle. The new model of assertion means news is disseminated as fast as possible instead of an overarching concern surrounding the value of accuracy.

Attending any of the above events would be beneficial for a PR or communications professional as various strategies and operational phenomena are uncovered. These strategies will assist with effective communication and help with the leadership of media enterprises.

If you would like to understand more about real time analytics and what it can do for your organisation, get in touch with us today.

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I crowd-sourced some opinions on ‘how PR has evolved’ via Facebook before this article was penned, and ‘chaotically’, ‘always-on’, ‘unpredictably’ and ‘intense’ were among some of the top keywords surfaced. Exactly how fast is the news-making cycle today? I’ve experienced it first-hand a couple of weeks ago.

9am, on my way to work, I posted on my Facebook page about a new flat fare option launched by local taxi company ComfortDelGro. 

By 11 am on the same day, three interview requests had arrived via Facebook Messenger from three different publications. By 2 pm, all interviews were completed on WhatsApp and my name appeared in the papers on the very next day. The whole event took place in less than 24 hours.

This is a glimpse of how news is made in this day and age. Journalists today are online and on social media; they are following key opinion leaders (KOLs) to get opinions. Gone are the days when they relied solely on press releases and spokesperson soundbites to write news and when public opinion was easier to gauge as people were only accessing a handful of mediums to receive information.

The convergence of digital, social and mobile has added layers of complexity in PR and clearly disrupted the practice, as news today becomes 24×7 and travels across the globe at the speed of the internet. The infamous United Airline incident for example, although happened in Chicago, created an uproar and boycott in China and trended in the top news on Weibo, all because of the power of social media.

The rise of digital and social certainly has benefited PR by creating the direct relationships with people, rather than requiring a media filter. To fully unleash its benefits, the best PR talents should strike the balance between creating content that people actually want to read, listen to or watch, and providing what traditional journalism would consider “news.”

With a good piece of content and story at the core, PR professionals are required to have the ability to navigate an increasingly complex media environment and to embrace the beauty of digital and social to enhance storytelling.

Instead of issuing a formal corporate announcement, why not consider tapping on Facebook Live for product launches and public activations? OCBC Bank recently launched its Stay True campaign via Facebook Live, where the bank’s Head of Consumer Financial Services was put through a lie detector test. The video garnered over 200,000 view to date.

Another example of leveraging digital to innovate traditional PR approach is a revamp of online corporate newsrooms. Dynamic Newsroom is a mash-up of PR, content and digital, which is designed to drive engagement, not simply overload information. It takes the best of everything we know about media relations and hosting content online, to more effectively connect brands with journalists.

Having talked about the benefits and opportunities, I also would like to caution that this trend of digital and social convergence also poses certain threats.

As social media increasingly becomes a main source of news and information and due to the fact that most social media content is user-generated, in order to boost visibility and garner likes and shares, brands and citizen journalists have been noticed to use unethical techniques to make their content exciting or ‘viral’. Such fake news and clickbait headlines are detrimental to brand reputation and consumer trust.

With great power comes great responsibility. The ability to earn credibility becomes even more important in an era of round-the-clock marketing messages. PR is becoming even more important and relevant than ever as the most reliable voice.

Originally published on Digital Marketing Asia 

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