How to Measure Public Relations Results

Often, PR outputs are used to assess campaign performance rather than trying to determine whether or not the campaign actually touched and moved the targets in the ways we intended. The continued industry reliance on the use of advertising value equivalents (AVEs) is perhaps the most common misuse because AVE does not measure what the PR result actually accomplished – did we reach the intended targets; did they engage with the content; did we cause them to rethink existing perceptions; did we change their attitudes; did we increase the likelihood they would consider the brand? The most common PR metric today is Impressions. While it is a somewhat dubious metric for traditional media, it really loses meaning in social media where engagement not eyeballs is what we seek. Impressions also (greatly) overstate actual relevant audience. Generally only a fraction of any particular magazine or newspaper’s circulation meets your target audience demographics. And impressions merely represent an opportunity to see, they do not attempt to estimate the (small) percentage of the potential audience that actually saw your content. To compound the problems, many PR practitioners use a multiplier on impression numbers to account for pass-along readership or a mythical credibility advantage PR has over other communication tools. The simple fact is there is no factual basis (e.g. research proof) that multipliers should be used in any case. The need to put PR results in a business context has never been greater. We need to be able to address the question – what are we doing to help drive the business? If you are focused on output metrics like impressions or message delivery, you will always have a hard time explaining business impact. Instead, we need to focus on outcomes and answer the question – what happened as a result of our program or coverage? Understanding outputs has primary benefit as a diagnostic tool rather than a ‘scorecard’. PR is a tool for reaching outcomes that make a difference on the bottom line: Exposure – to what degree have we created exposure to content and message? Engagement – who, how and where are people interacting/engaging with our content? Influence – the degree to which exposure and engagement have influenced perceptions and attitudes. Action – as a result of the PR/social media effort, what actions if any has the target taken? ROI is a form of value/impact, but not all value takes form of ROI. ROI is a financial metric – percentage of dollars returned for a given investment/cost. The dollars may be revenue generated, dollars saved or spending avoided. ROI is transactional. ROI lives on the income statement in business terms. Value is created when people become aware of us, engage with our content or brand ambassadors are influenced by this engagement, and take some action like recommending to a friend or buying our product. Value creation occurs over time, not at a point in time. Value creation is process-oriented. Value lives on the balance sheet. Your investments in public relations remains an investment, creating additional value if done correctly, until which time they can be linked to a business outcome transaction that results in ROI.