Measurement & Evaluation

PR 313

Success of Failure? How will you determine if your strategic plan

and campaign was a success?

“The Final Step” The final step in your planning is to determine

how you will measure and define “success” This will be the metric used to determine if your

campaign was a success or failure At the end of your campaign, you should

evaluate based on the metric that was agreed upon at the beginning

Why Evaluate? To document success To encourage future work To justify your expenses To improve your future campaigns To build credibility To determine a basis for the next campaign To promote the value of PR in your organization

Things to Consider Was the campaign well planned? Did the recipients understand the message? What improvements can be made? Did you achieve your stated goals? Was the budget adequate? What is replicable for future campaigns?

Measuring Success There is a tendency for many PR

practitioners to measure their output, rather than the achievement of their goals For example, collecting press clippings is not

enough

Measurement In order to measure success, you must first

define it As part of your research and strategic

planning phase, you and your client need to agree on realistic goals for accomplishment

This ensures that your work will be recognized and disagreements will be minimized

Examples A defined increase in sales A specific number of mentions in the press A measured increase in public awareness of

a brand or service A pre-determined increase in customer direct

inquiries about a product or service

Clients from Hell The worst case scenario is ambiguous, ill-

defined goals This invites the client to challenge your work

and effectiveness

Clip Counting A physical counting of press placements will

measure productivity This may not truly represent success There is a temptation to send out excessive

releases to manipulate the perception of productivity (and add to the client’s bill)

How to Get Clips Do not ask a journalist

to send you a clip There are several

services you can use: Cision Burrelle’s/Luce Press

Clippings These services are now

offered online

Online Tracking Cision’s MediaSource CisionPoint

Message Impressions These services track “media impressions”

(a.k.a. “gross impressions”) to detail how many people were exposed to the message This factors in the circulation and/or reach of the

media outlets that carried your message

Example A campaign for a new soda is mentioned in

several newspapers and magazines Add up the circulation of these publications to

get the estimated “media impressions”

Media Impressions Useful to track the penetration of a message However, the number can be misleading This number does not reflect how many

people actually saw the message – only how many were exposed to it

Advertising Value Equivalency Since story placements are “free,” there is an

equivalent dollar value for the exposure What would it have cost your client to get the

same sort of exposure via paid placement advertising?

The AVE calculates the estimated value of the exposure (in ad dollars)

AVE AVE helps to justify the expense of your PR

campaign costs However, it is not without controversy

Not all media coverage is positive The value of the story space requires some

subjective judgment and is prone to exaggeration

Systematic Content Analysis Many of these software programs track the

intricacies of the media coverage Positive vs. negative coverage Relationship of the coverage vs. your competitors Contextualization of your coverage compared to

the overall placement opportunities in the media outlet

Other Forms of Evaluation Monitor the Internet

This includes “gripe groups” (anti-client blogs) Toll-free numbers

How proactive are your customers?

Cost per Person It can be difficult to compare the value of

impressions across various forms of media The CPM (cost per thousand) index helps

you assign a dollar value to the expense of reaching 1,000 people in a particular media genre

Calculating CPM Divide the total number of media impressions

by the cost of your campaign

Example: A $10 million campaign that reaches 100 million people would have a CPM of $10. (It costs $10 to reach 1,000 people).

Monitoring Online Chatter PR Newswire recently launched eWatch, a

service that allows you to track what people are saying about your client online

Measurement of Audience Awareness How many people know about your message

or campaign? You can conduct surveys to determine the

“audience awareness”

“Audience Attitudes” How does the public feel about your

company, brand, product or service? You can measure “audience attitudes” using

benchmark studies that test attitudes both before and after exposure to the message

Audience Action What action does the audience take as a

result of the exposure to your message? Do they buy your product? Do they talk about you? Did they request more information? Did they enter your contest?

Web Site Analytics Leaders in this space include:

Google Analytics Omniture WebTrends Hitwise