You have surely carried out all the actions for a successful public relations strategy. So what comes next? It is time to reap what you have sown and measure whether your public relations campaign was a success.
Quantity, quality… or both?
Until not long ago, the success of a public relations campaign was closely tied to the number of times the client’s brand was mentioned in the media. You gathered all the published clippings and checked a rate card to see how much the client had saved compared with paying for ads.
That old method produced a figure for the campaign’s return, but it ignored the quality of the mentions. With the digital era, new measurement variables have emerged, and it is essential to assess the tone of each story, the outlet where it ran and whether it reaches the client’s target audience.
Each outlet’s credibility, mentions by influencers or opinion leaders, and whether they mentioned the brand on their personal social media are variables that can make a big difference. Pay attention to the context in which your brand or client is mentioned: dozens of good mentions in major outlets can fade with one bad review in an outlet aimed at your target audience.
Measurement in the digital era
Some will still prefer to see return calculated the old way. Today, however, measuring a public relations campaign should cover traditional coverage together with an analysis of digital media.
First of all, be clear about the client’s business objectives, that is, what benefits the public relations effort will bring. Next, decide which metrics (KPIs) will be used to measure the digital effort. Finally, set a benchmark among competitors to compare your results against.
How to evaluate mentions
As we said, besides measuring the number of brand mentions, you need to assess their quality by sorting them into three main types:
- When the brand is mentioned directly, we measure brand mentions.
- When mentions appear in media aimed at the client’s specific audience, we measure them as target audience mentions.
- It is important to measure the context of each mention of our client, which can be positive, negative or neutral.
Social media
To measure impact on social media, we look at variables such as reach, the number of people who visit our account or accounts. We also measure the number of users and their profile (gender, age, preferences) to see whether they are the audience we want to reach. Finally, we measure the relevance of the published content and its level of interaction, or engagement (conversations).
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As you can see, there are new variables to consider when measuring the success of a public relations campaign. If quality or quantity is your dilemma, keep it simple and use both metrics to your advantage. Some outlets are so large that quantity will certainly make a difference when those efforts turn into conversions. Other outlets are small but so specialized in your target audience that just a few mentions will hit the mark.
Interested in this content or need more information? Contact us.
Originally published in Spanish in October 2020: Cómo medir una campaña de relaciones públicas exitosa.
