Measurement & Evaluation

Measurement & Evaluation PR 313

Success of Failure?
How will you determine if your strategic plan and campaign was a success?

“ The Final Step”
The final step in your planning is to determine how you will measure and define “success”
This will be the metric used to determine if your campaign was a success or failure
At the end of your campaign, you should evaluate based on the metric that was agreed upon at the beginning

Why Evaluate?
To document success
To encourage future work
To justify your expenses
To improve your future campaigns
To build credibility
To determine a basis for the next campaign
To promote the value of PR in your organization

Things to Consider
Was the campaign well planned?
Did the recipients understand the message?
What improvements can be made?
Did you achieve your stated goals?
Was the budget adequate?
What is replicable for future campaigns?

Measuring Success
There is a tendency for many PR practitioners to measure their output, rather than the achievement of their goals
For example, collecting press clippings is not enough

Measurement
In order to measure success, you must first define it
As part of your research and strategic planning phase, you and your client need to agree on realistic goals for accomplishment
This ensures that your work will be recognized and disagreements will be minimized

Examples
A defined increase in sales
A specific number of mentions in the press
A measured increase in public awareness of a brand or service
A pre-determined increase in customer direct inquiries about a product or service

Clients from Hell
The worst case scenario is ambiguous, ill-defined goals
This invites the client to challenge your work and effectiveness

Clip Counting
A physical counting of press placements will measure productivity
This may not truly represent success
There is a temptation to send out excessive releases to manipulate the perception of productivity (and add to the client’s bill)

How to Get Clips
Do not ask a journalist to send you a clip
There are several services you can use:
Cision
Burrelle’s/Luce Press Clippings
These services are now offered online

Online Tracking
Cision’s MediaSource
CisionPoint

Message Impressions
These services track “media impressions” (a.k.a. “gross impressions”) to detail how many people were exposed to the message
This factors in the circulation and/or reach of the media outlets that carried your message

Example
A campaign for a new soda is mentioned in several newspapers and magazines
Add up the circulation of these publications to get the estimated “media impressions”

Media Impressions
Useful to track the penetration of a message
However, the number can be misleading
This number does not reflect how many people actually saw the message – only how many were exposed to it

Advertising Value Equivalency
Since story placements are “free,” there is an equivalent dollar value for the exposure
What would it have cost your client to get the same sort of exposure via paid placement advertising?
The AVE calculates the estimated value of the exposure (in ad dollars)

AVE
AVE helps to justify the expense of your PR campaign costs
However, it is not without controversy
Not all media coverage is positive
The value of the story space requires some subjective judgment and is prone to exaggeration

Systematic Content Analysis
Many of these software programs track the intricacies of the media coverage
Positive vs. negative coverage
Relationship of the coverage vs. your competitors
Contextualization of your coverage compared to the overall placement opportunities in the media outlet

Other Forms of Evaluation
Monitor the Internet
This includes “gripe groups” (anti-client blogs)
Toll-free numbers
How proactive are your customers?

Cost per Person
It can be difficult to compare the value of impressions across various forms of media
The CPM (cost per thousand) index helps you assign a dollar value to the expense of reaching 1,000 people in a particular media genre

Calculating CPM
Divide the total number of media impressions by the cost of your campaign
Example: A $10 million campaign that reaches 100 million people would have a CPM of $10. (It costs $10 to reach 1,000 people).

Monitoring Online Chatter
PR Newswire recently launched eWatch , a service that allows you to track what people are saying about your client online

Measurement of Audience Awareness
How many people know about your message or campaign?
You can conduct surveys to determine the “audience awareness”

“ Audience Attitudes”
How does the public feel about your company, brand, product or service?
You can measure “audience attitudes” using benchmark studies that test attitudes both before and after exposure to the message

Audience Action
What action does the audience take as a result of the exposure to your message?
Do they buy your product?
Do they talk about you?
Did they request more information?
Did they enter your contest?

Web Site Analytics
Leaders in this space include:
Google Analytics
Omniture
WebTrends
Hitwise

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Measurement & Evaluation

by Brett Atwood on Nov 03, 2007

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