Let’s shatter the myth that publicity cannot be measured.
Companies can buy a full year’s national public relations program for the cost of a single, 30-second, prime-time TV spot. These same economies hold true for local campaigns. But can it be measured?
When developing publicity campaigns, many executives want to be sure that whatever expenses are involved in a project or campaign will be financially beneficial to the company. Not only do executives want a return on the investment (ROI) for publicity but they also want to see that the investment improves profitability and builds toward business goals and objectives.
Many public relations professionals claim that you can’t measure the ROI of PR. That’s bunk. I put the question to Michelle Stansbury, an award-winning public relations professional who runs Little Penguin PR. I think she is one of the best at understanding how PR can demonstrate quantifiable impact to your business.
Just as there are multiple ways to run a PR campaign, there are multiple methods to measure results of a campaign. Stansbury says, "The top five ways PR agencies typically measure results: Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE), Circulation, Impressions, Referral Tracking, Conversion Tracking."
This advertising equivalency approach is used commonly (I used it when I was president of an advertising and PR agency), but Stansbury says it's not an effective approach for measuring results.
According to Stansbury, "As an example, if a PR pro gets you a one-page feature in US Weekly, they would look up what the cost of a one-page advertisement in US Weekly would cost - that’s the advertising value. Then, they usually put an arbitrary multiplier on it, since the PR feature carries more credibility and impact than an ad would."
The advertising equivalency approach is not specific enough to address variations in different industries or types of businesses. "AVE, circulation, and impressions are all based on a generic value of a PR placement. If your target customer is B2B engineering directors, then getting on the cover of Food & Wine won't be doing much to help you reach your goals," says Stansbury. From this perspective, the ROI estimations may not be accurate enough to use in making decisions about PR campaigns and how to move forward for meeting business goals.
Instead, Stansbury prefers to use referral tracking and conversion tracking to measure ROI and determine the value of PR investments for the company. Specifically, Stansbury recommends the tools available in Google Analytics to track results and measure ROI for companies.
However, different types of business, with different goals, will track different performance indicators.
"For an ecommerce brand, referral and conversion tracking is easy - you can track someone right from a PR placement to a sale, showing how many revenue dollars a PR campaign brought in,” says Stansbury. “For service-based businesses, B2B, and companies with longer sales cycles, it is not quite so simple. But, you can still track engagement and conversions if you know the lifetime value of acquiring a new customer and the average number of touch points from prospect to customer. Using this data, you can find the ROI of a PR campaign."
Knowing the ROI for a publicity campaign will help your company and executives decide the best way to spend marketing budget in order to achieve the business's goals and objectives. It is important to remember that while you can track the results of a PR campaign, there are additional benefits, like brand recognition, that will continue to help your business grow long after the campaign is done.
Advertising evaporates immediately, but publicity tends to live on with searchable placements on the Internet.
As a marketing director I once worked with would always say: “Publicity is the gift that keeps on giving.
