" ACCOUNTABLE, MEASURABLE MARKETING TO HELP BUSINESSES ACHIEVE PROFITABLE GROWTH AND SUPERIOR RETURNS OUT OF THEIR MARKETING INVESTMENTS. "


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Measuring Success of PR Campaigns

PR campaigns are usually those that affect in the long run. Measuring the effects of PR campaigns - both online and offline - is an issue for all PR and Marketing professionals. While you can measure tactical benchmarks (i.e. number of articles, analyst briefings, etc.), and even more strategic issues - such as share of voice -, the truth is that the PR ROI is inherently fuzzy.

First and foremost, it is very important to determine what is the expected "success" of the PR campaign from a measurable perspective. The success of PR campaigns can be measured by looking at:

  • the amount of traffic increase on the website (e.g. has it increased by 10% within the 2 weeks after the article was printed/ syndicated.)
  • the number of mentions in the media (online) of your company/ product/ service since you launched the PR campaign. Back links and news clipping services (e.g. like Google, Yahoo or even fee-based services) can help with this.
  • web rankings - rankings are critical (when in conjunction with the bigger picture) to see if the search engines are flagging for traffic spikes, or higher interest in the pages that have been produced, or more recent searches for a key phrase, etc. (SEO in PR is easily obtainable with resources like PRWire providing such services)
  • web traffic reports for referral links. (when possible use custom links to track back to the referring source)
  • acquisitions/ conversions, when possible (e.g. if the website includes a shopping cart or ecommerce solution).
To gain a broader perspective, it is also advisable to look at:
  • brand evaluation (before / after measurement)
  • customer response to products / services through surveys - what they perceive
  • blogs/ comments/ editorials in media
  • product/ services sales - before and after the campaigns (measureable using analytics techniques)
  • searches/ clicks/ responses in the online, offline media
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