Turning News Into Knowledge

Public relations often gets a bad rep as the department that makes ‘warm fuzzies’ since it’s hard to put the value of managing relationships into dollars and cents. (Sometimes PR can be to blame as many in the industry are ‘math-a-phobic’, as Dave Fleet points out)

Although there’s no doubt—at least in the PR practitioners mind–that getting an article in the New York times is good for business, it’s certainly a challenge to communicate that within your organization.

Fortunately PR practitioners can use measurement tools (like MediaMiser Enterprise) to measure and analyze news coverage. Technology now allows you to measure impact and your efforts by tracking the tonality, prominence and issues in your media coverage. You can also break down metrics including top authors and/or publications talking about you, the frequency of mentions over time, demographics of readership… All these metrics help PR manage relationships and essentially do its job better. This is definitely something that should be communicated throughout the organization, but what if you took it a step further?

PR professionals can demonstrate the value of their news coverage, by doing some simple calculations to put their success in terms executives understand… $$$!

• Calculate ROI/Sales increase – Though it’s more difficult than say, marketing and sales, publicity efforts can be given a ROI dollar amount. One example—if you track conversions on your web site, you can tie an increase in traffic (possibly directly, if it’s an online article with a link) to an increase in conversion. Similarly if you have an inbound sales team, asking “How did you hear about us?” could be part of the process and tracked
• Establish benchmarks – How can you establish how well you are doing now if you’ve got nothing in the past to compare it to? Be sure to tie your benchmarks into company goals and your specific audiences, even if it seems obvious you want to demonstrate to others that you know what you’re doing. Although this does not necessarily give you a dollar value, most executives understand more=better. Alongside your ROI measurements, these work beautifully.
• Ad value equivalencies (AVE) – AVE involve calculating the ad value of a piece of publicity. For example, if you get a full page article in a national magazine, you would compare that to the cost of buying a full page ad in that publication. There’s a lot of controversy in the industry around AVE as a useful metric–after all–can you really compare ads to articles? Any PR pro knows that’s apples to oranges, but the reality is outside the PR department that distinction is not always obvious. While it may not be the best indicator for your own evaluation, it can help persuade the value of PR to those outside of the department. In these days of tightening budgets and shrinking workforces, I wouldn’t totally discount the value of AVEs.

Now, of course, once that’s all in order, don’t forget to communicate it back to co-workers and most importantly, the C-level. Consider a monthly (or quarterly, whatever makes sense) report or internal newsletter that describes and celebrates your efforts. And—if things aren’t going as well as you would have hoped—don’t ignore it, do an analysis of what might have gone wrong, and particularly what you are going to do to improve.

Demonstrating and sharing the value of your PR efforts is what will help make you and your job role an invaluable resource in your organization. While it’s certainly front-of-mind during a recession, it’s always important.