We often see business professionals enthusiastic about concepting and starting a public relations campaign but then lose that same energy when it comes to analyzing how well it’s actually going and its effectiveness. If you’re not measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of your public relations efforts, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to make adjustments to things that are not working well and it will hurt your ability to productively plan future strategies. All this can ultimately lead to misinterpretations or assumptions on how well your campaign is doing in achieving your goals.
Reviewing a report of media clips that have mentioned you is important, but it’s not enough. You need to make sure you’re gathering the metrics that will help guide you to your success. What has been your reach and where are you gaining traction? These details are valuable insights and they’re knocking at your front door. All you have to do is put the right tools in place. Having a platform in place means that you can capture your efforts in a consistent manner and share robust and professional reports with your leadership team month after month, analyzing long-term trends.
So what should you be tracking to measure the effectiveness of public relations? It all depends on what your goals are.
- If you are simply trying to increase coverage, then tracking the number of media mentions is a good first step to measuring effectiveness.
- Sentiment scores track whether the stories that are written about you have a positive, negative or neutral sentiment.
- Publicity value is an approximation of the monetary value of the story. The number is based on audience size, source rank and word count.
- Reach is measured using a combination of technology, algorithms and human research to determine how many people your PR efforts are shown to.
- Social media mentions track conversations about your brand, customer feedback and your share of voice.
- It’s also important to track the quality of the media mention – did the media outlet capture the company’s key message? Did they portray the company positively or negatively?
The Red Shoes team is ready to help you with all stages of your public relations campaign from concepting and execution to measurement and evaluation. Don’t miss out on the key details that let you know you’re going in the right direction. Let us help you identify and reach your goals. Call us today at (920) 574-3253.
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