Can you measure if your PR is working? Can you work out your ROI? Both common questions, especially when you are investing time and money in a communication plan. The answer is yes, it is. You can see if your campaign was successful, effective and where you can improve.
The process of measuring the effects of PR is simple. Compare the goals you set before beginning the campaign with the goals the campaign attained. If your PR goals are aligned with measurable business results, analysing the value of your campaign is easier. Here are a few ways that you can quantify results so that you can improve your communication strategy and determine your ROI:
If your campaign uses social media you can measure your engagement. Measurable factors include likes, views, shares, comments etc. This way you can see what content keeps your audience engaged and where they are not responding.
You can track leads and referrals who have shown an interest or have looked you up by using trackable links. You can use these to see what routes audiences are taking, if they are clicking on your link (click-through rate) and how many of them are completing an action after visiting (conversion rate).
You can also track press clippings that mention your company, products or services. The publications should be consumed by your current and prospective clients. This way you can determine media impressionsby calculating the circulation of the publication.
From these clippings you can determine the AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) of a particular editorial piece. The AVE indicates how much the space would have cost had the content been an advertisement. Please note this measure is taken with a huge pinch of salt, but it does act as an effective benchmark to see whether a campaign has been effective or not.
Measurable factors can be both quantitative and qualitative. By conducting a content analysis you can monitor the content and see if it matches your brand’s key message.
After a PR campaign you can measure your website traffic. This way you can determine the amount before and after your communications plan.
All these factors allow you to evaluate your ROI by taking the total returns of the campaign and dividing it by the total expenditure.
If you’d like to see some real-life examples of PR reports and results we’ve achieved please let us know here.