Documenting The Business Outcomes

Public Relations Society of America Measurement Working Group
September, 2009
Documenting the Business Outcomes of Public Relations David Rockland, Ketchum (Chair) Pauline Draper-Watts, IPR Measurement Commission Chair Katie Paine, KD Paine & Partners Mark Weiner, Prime Research Don Wright, Boston University

Purpose
To advance public relations measurement by recommending metrics and approaches for evaluating public relations’ influence on four main business outcomes:
Financial
Reputation / Brand Equity
Employees and other Internal Publics
Public Policy
Note that there are four types of business outcomes, one often connected with another. While not covering every conceivable business outcome, the authors feel that the vast majority of results are included here.

This document:
Recommends a lexicon and approaches for measuring the effects of public relations on business outcomes. It answers the question, “What do you make when you make public relations?”
Reflects the authors’ initial work, with contributions by PRSA staff and extensive commentary and ideas from a wide range of PRSA members. The authors are all members of the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) Commission on Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation and have sought to bring IPR’s perspective to this work.
Is not intended as a recommendation or endorsement of any particular research or measurement provider or company.
A Caveat

Whom are you seeking to affect?
What about them are you seeking to affect?
How much must they be affected to be successful?
By when does this effect need to occur?
Answer Four Questions Before Measuring Note that public relations goals should be relevant , realistic , specific , measureable and timely .

Your Role / Responsibility
Put public relations program goals into business terms.
Document a clear set of measurable objectives.
Ensure adequate budget for measurement.
Use measurement prescriptively to change and improve the public relations program.
If your experience in measurement and research is not extensive, be prepared to include a measurement specialist in your plan.
Shift the conversation away from volume of clips, social media activity, advertising value equivalency, etc., to outcome measures that show how public relations drives business performance.

PR’s Impact on Financial Performance
Generates Revenue, Sales, Profit
Marketing public relations drives sales.
Investor public relations drives investment, valuation.
Public relations drives donations and membership for relevant organizations.
Enhances Efficiency
Better audience targeting.
Delivering a credible message to more people for less money.
Avoids Catastrophic Cost
Effective counsel helps mitigate impact of crises.

Measuring Financial Outcomes
Revenue Generation
Consumer response: Field consumer survey; determine purchase levels and exposure to public relations results; isolate causal effects through statistical analysis.
Market Mix Modeling / Econometric Modeling: Gather public relations output / outcome data in conjunction with other marketing activity by market, by marketing function, by region and by time period; factor by revenue-generation by market, by region and over time. Apply regression analysis.

Measuring Financial Outcomes
Efficiency
Determine comparative cost of different communication approaches; calculate percent of target reached; determine change in purchase cycle resulting from public relations activity.
Catastrophic Cost Avoidance
Assess competitors and peers who may have faced similar crises. Track emergence of their crisis and impact on sales, stock price and relevant business measures to evaluate the potential impact that was avoided.

PR’s Impact on Reputation / Brand Equity
Increases likelihood to purchase / consider your brand(s).
Minimizes the effects of a crisis and rebuilds trust.
Reinforces communication of organizational values.
Establishes credibility of new products / companies; eases market entry.

PR’s Impact on Reputation / Brand Equity
Commands higher prices, lowers costs, generates premium on stock price.
Enhances recommendations / word-of-mouth, accelerating adoption.
Increases customer loyalty / renewals / satisfaction.
Improves talent acquisition and retention.
Lowers legal costs.

Measuring Reputational Outcomes
Benchmark reputation / relationship metrics via survey prior to a campaign; repeat every three to six months.
Correlate attitudinal studies with customer purchase attitudes and behavior.
Map conversations (and tone) in traditional and social media to Web analytic data, e.g., registrations, requests for information, sales leads, etc.
Map conversations / reputation to financial analyst opinions and stock price volatility.
Correlate share of thought leadership visibility to adoption of policy positions.

PR’s Impact on Employees
Increases employee satisfaction and engagement, leading to greater efficiency, increased retention, reduced turnover, lower recruiting costs and higher productivity.
Lowers legal costs.
Changes employee behavior, such as increasing focus on key areas such as safety, quality, call response times.
Provides greater transparency.
Increases commitment to and from employees.
Creates a platform to communicate bad news, if necessary.
Note that items here also can refer to other internal publics, such as trade association members.

Measuring Employee Outcomes
Compare control groups to employee populations exposed to public relations activities.
Focus on performance outcomes, not attitudes or awareness.
Match / correlate messaging data to:
Employee satisfaction and engagement findings.
Employee turnover statistics and other recruitment data.
Call response times.
Customer experience surveys.
Consider other research tools and data — focus groups, exit interview data, sick days, etc.

Creates public awareness, understanding and support for legislation, regulation and political candidates.
Affects voter behavior.
Helps pass legislation, regulation and initiatives.
Affects specific companies and industries through appropriations, taxes and regulatory changes that can affect any and all aspects of a business.
Instigates and perpetuates grassroots or grass-tops campaigns.
PR’s Impact on Public Policy

Measuring Policy Outcomes
Use available national (e.g., major network polls) or local (e.g., university polling centers) public tracking services to track changes in awareness, understanding, support and voter intent. Where possible, link to level of public relations activity.
Conduct tracking survey of key politicians or regulators. Can often use influentials’ awareness as a proxy for elected officials, as well as to measure the “edge” of a trend.
Post-election surveys can isolate specific effects of public relations by determining actual voting behavior, as well as levels of exposure to different communication mediums.
Actual public or legislator voting behavior.

Setting Effective Benchmarks
Acceptable: Your own performance over time.
Make sure time frames match Web analytics, marketing data.
Factor in milestones, new staff, new products, new leadership .
Better: Peer organizations — think three:
An underdog who is nipping at your heels.
Your closest rival.
A stret ch goal.
Best: The competition — whoever / whatever keeps your C-Suite up at night.

Measurement costs should average 3 – 7 percent of a total public relations budget, based on research by USC Annenberg.
Ask client to use existing survey and tracking resources often available through consumer insights or market analytics department.
Budget Considerations

Some ballpark costs:
Survey (based on 20-question survey of 1,000 individuals): $15,000 to $35,000, depending on target audience.
Focus group: $5,000 to $8,000 each.
Three-question omnibus survey: $3,000.
Zoomerang / Survey Monkey or in-house survey: $2,500 to $5,000.
Media analysis — 100 articles: $1,000 to $5,000.
Budget Considerations Note that each cost can vary greatly depending on project parameters.

Institute for Public Relations.
PRSA Measurement Toolkit.
“ Primer of Public Relations Research,” by Don W. Stacks (Gilford).
“ Evaluating Public Relations: A Best Practice Guide to Public Relations Planning, Research and Evaluation,” Second Edition by Tom Watson and Paul Noble (Kogan Page).
“ Unleashing the Power of PR: A Contrarian’s Guide to Marketing and Communication,” by Mark Weiner (Jossey Bass).
“ Measuring Public Relationships: The Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Success,” by Katie Delahaye Paine (KD Paine & Partners).
Resources to Get Started

Our mission is to make public relations a critical part of an organization’s business. To do so, we must talk about what public relations can accomplish in business terms, and have the confidence that we can measure our contribution to the bottom line.
We welcome your feedback, comments and questions.
Thank you.
In Conclusion

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Documenting The Business Outcomes

by Public Relations Society of America on Sep 14, 2009

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