Myths & Facts About PR Measurement
Our friends over at Tealium, a web analytics technology and consulting firm, wrote an excellent blog post the other day on the myths and facts surrounding social media measurement. Quite familiar with their technology, I offer this companion piece focused on measuring PR from a marketing perspective.
Myth: Current PR measurement methods are satisfactory
Fact: Current PR measurement is all over the place, and completely unsatisfactory. In fact, PR measurement has been nothing short of a black box. PR professionals, through no fault of their own, have been flummoxed by measurement details, and have traditionally offered up weak statistics — advertising values anyone? — to marketers demanding some type of ROI data. Measurements like tone of coverage definitely have their place, but they don’t speak to true business results.
Driving better results through PR and social media measurement.
Myth: You can’t measure PR in terms of traffic and conversions
Fact: You absolutely can, thanks to new web analytics technology from companies like Tealium. PR (and social media) can now be measured like any other online marketing campaign: in terms of traffic, conversions, leads and sales. You can see exactly which media outlets — blogs, trade press, mainstream press, and social media — deliver the most traffic and results. You can even measure the impact of online stories or blog posts that mention your company’s name, but don’t contain a direct link to your site. That last detail is huge – it’s the missing component for true PR and social media measurement. For the first time, PR and social media can be measured for ROI.
Myth: PR isn’t about measurement and ROI
Fact: It hasn’t been, because no one’s been able to measure it thus far. PR, though not corporate communications, is a marketing channel, and therefore should be scrutinized like any other marketing channel. Why not? Yes, PR is about starting a dialogue, changing opinions, influencing the influencers, etc. But at the end of the day, especially during this economy, when you ask marketing executives what matters most, they’ll tell you: revenue and ROI.
Myth: I can’t compare PR measurement to my other online channels
Fact: Because Tealium technology integrates into your analytics tool, you can get real-time ROI metrics right alongside your other online acquisition channels: search engine marketing, banner ads, newsletter sponsorships, etc.
Myth: You can’t make actionable decisions from PR and social media metrics
Fact: Yes, you can. That’s what makes it so exciting. You can make big decisions, both strategic and tactical. For example:
• Which social media programs should I invest in?
• Should I invest in PR?
• Which media outlets — blogs, trade press, business press, etc. – drive the best awareness and results?
• Which specific sites or blogs generate the best response? Should I consider advertising possibilities on those sites?
• Was it worth it spending $30K to develop that ‘viral’ Facebook application?
• Did our online video initiative produce anything beyond a lot of video views?
The list goes on. With the advent of real technology, best practices around PR and social media measurement will become a growth area (it’s something Engage already specializes in). The best part about PR measurement is that it finally gives PR folks a long-awaited seat at the marketing table. Why? Because for the first time, they can sit down and provide bottom line results for their work.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Hi there, what an interesting post – although I feel I have leap to the defence of the many established companies like Metrica who currently provide PR measurement services. Many of the issues raised in the post may apply to the newer companies in this space, particularly the traditional press clipping agencies who have recently started to offer measurement services as an extension to their services, but not to the major players.
Over the last 15 years, Metrica has been helping many hundreds of clients to understand the true impact of their public relations work. We demonstrate their success with credible ROI measures that, when appropriate, are aligned with other marketing disciplines too. We provide lots of information on these services on our blog, Measurement Matters, which can be found at http://www.metrica.net/measurementmatters
I know we’re not alone either – as well as working at Metrica, I also sit on the board of the industry trade body AMEC, (the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communications – http://www.amecorg.com) which has stringent guidelines for methodology and quality control procedures.
And I also know of a number of PR specialists in the US who have also left the realms of AVE far behind, not least Katie Paine, who blogs regularly on the subject at http://www.kdpaine.blogs.com
Best wishes, Richard
January 27th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Wow! Thank you!
I always wanted to write in my blog something like that. Can I take part of your post to my site?
Of course, I will add backlink?
Sincerely, Timur I. Alhimenkov