Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Not a huge believer in PR campaigns if they are just for the sake of selling. However, they do a good job of galvanizing your employees and, like press releases< they give your sales people something else to talk about.

However, if a company is firmly behind an organization (Boy Scouts, Symphony Orchestra, Home for Battered Women) then I think it comes across in the campaign and you can gain a measure of business for people who are COMMITTED to those organizations also....not the masses tho.

Michael

No offense to PR firms, but this is the black hole that many of them find themselves in at times. I say this after conversations where a number of my clients expressed their frustration with PR firms efforts. They couldn't see the return on investment or tangible results.

In theory a good PR firm will generate considerable press for a company and or its products. They will get the company noticed. The measureable result would be press in these magazines rather it's a quick blurb, an in depth profile piece, or an interview with leading people at the company.

Other results would be customers who contact the firm and mention I saw the article about you in X magazine and I'm interested, let's talk.

If you can work one on one with the PR firm and see who they're contacting and follow up and see how they're progressing then you might be somewhere on the way to getting good press or at least being able to see where your money is going. Not all PR firms are willing to provide status checks like this.

I think status checks are essential. PR is not a guarantee and in many ways is a crap shoot. If you can see the efforts of you PR firm and the editors interest in the form of write ups in various magazines then you have something to present to the bean counters.

Hi,

I do not believe there is a one-best way to measure the impact of a PR-event; you can either use a case-specific (tailored) approach or a general approach.

The former involves you clearly defining your objective (eg raising corporate name awareness by 5%, getting 1000 prospects inquiring about your product) and then measuring your progress towards this objective.

The general approach involves 'borrowing' metrics from consultancy or leading firms, which may work better with the bean counters. For inspiration, when Shell wanted to evaluate their Ferrari Formula 1 Sponsorship, they used 5 very different metrics:
1) Attitudes of consumers aware of the event (a model translates these into ultimate sales and profits)
2) Similar, but change in purchase behavior
3) Brand valuation expert assessment: branding, sales, price premium effects
4) Compare Shell results in nations that used the sponsorship in their communication versus did not
5) Delphi technique: ask Shell manager opinions on whether the event has been worthwhile for the company

I've had lots of experience with PR ... first as a military public information officer, then introducing a new consumer product with a heavy PR component, then influencing governmental agencies around the world, and then helping to position a new NGO with a skeptical professional audience.

The key to measuring performance is articulating your objectives up-front. If you know what it is you want to accomplish, you can establish metrics around it. Usually PR isn't the only marketing tool you'll use. You have product performance, pricing, advertising, distribution, etc. -- in a addition to PR.

What you need to do is measure the effectiveness of the total plan, not each component. Trying to isolate the independent variables is an exercise in futility, not only because they interact with each other, but because the measurement tools are just not that refined.

PR is effective when the objectives are clear and it's coordinated with other elements of the marketing mix. Don't get hung up on measuring every twitch in the marketplace and trying to figure out what caused it. You'll make yourself crazy.

I'm a believer in and supporter of PR for certain things, but I would hate to have to justify it in isolation based on objective metrics in the short term.