A new PR metric could help gain PR greater influence and stature. Kelly Byrd, a senior PR engineer at AirPR, makes the case for return on PR spend, a metric she says provides a cost-benefit analysis of a PR campaign.
The metric could be PR’s answer to advertising’s return on advertising spend (ROAS) that measures gross revenue generated from each dollar spent on advertising. In short, ROAS compares revenue generated from an advertising campaign to the total cost of the ad campaign.
Return on PR spend (ROPRS) would measure revenue generated for every dollar spent on a PR specific campaign and compare revenue from a PR campaign to the campaign’s total spending or cost.
The PR-Advertising Disparity
“Continuing to have a disparity between how advertising and PR teams report results in relation to business objectives and revenue will only propagate the illusion that PR can’t ‘move the needle’ as much as advertising, when really, it can,” Byrd writes.
Advanced attribution, measurement, and reporting have begun to move the PR industry toward more business-focused metrics, such as website traffic and website interactions driven by PR content, she adds.
PR pros agree they need metrics to prove their value and gain “a seat at the table.” They have long complained that PR receives less respect and influence due to its inability to quantify its contribution to the corporate bottom line. ROPRS may answer that challenge. However, determining how much revenue should be attributed to PR remains problematic, especially when PR pursues top-of-the-funnel metrics such as brand awareness and sentiment. Developing PR campaigns that directly impact sales and growth with measurable results can overcome those long-standing issues.
How to Gain Respect & Influence in the Corporate Boardroom
These are some other ways PR can gain more influence with upper management and the larger budgets that result.
Determine what business leaders want before starting a PR campaign. Meet with stakeholders to establish clear PR goals, the metrics to use, and a timetable for reaching goals. Getting the CEO and other decision-makers to agree on what constitutes success is one of the first steps to creating a healthy relationship with upper management. “There’s nothing worse than blindly tracking for an extended period of time just to find out the results you are reporting are not what your client or C-suite are looking for,” writes Kevin Volz. Here’s a simple question to ask the CEO: What do you need me to accomplish?
Communicate with C-suite executives to explain PR strategy, its role and capabilities. A survey by Wakefield Research reveals that more than half of executives (59%) said they do not fully understand the role and capabilities of PR. Three-fourths say they spend a half hour or less each week discussing their PR strategy.
Avoid vanity metrics. Social media followers, impressions and likes are easy to track. Yet they have little or no direct relationship to business objectives. Metrics that impact sales and ROI, such as how many conversions a social media channel drives, are not nearly as easy to determine, but far more persuasive on the value of PR.
Avoid jargon. Although jargon can provide communications short-cuts, many marketers over-use buzzwords like advertainment, clickbait, disruptor, ‘#growthhacking’ (always with a #), millennials and programmatic, says Marketing Week columnist Thomas Barta. When they do, they lose the attention and respect of colleagues and executive superiors. Buzzwords and acronyms make it hard for people to understand your contribution to bottom-line matters.
Emphasize numbers. Numbers matter to CEOs and CFOs. They like data. Regularly provide hard numbers, rather than anecdotal reports. In addition, illustrate data with charts, graphs or other types of data visualizations for quick comprehension.
Work relationships with top executives. Any good relationship must be carefully tended to over time. Be respectfully direct but also listen to — and hear — the CEO. Hearing well between the words is often what really wins respect.
Bottom Line: PR pros continue to seek metrics that can prove their worth and gain respect from corporate leaders. Some say the metric, return on PR spend, can accurately quantify PR’s value by comparing its benefits to costs. In theory, the metric could provide an overall measure of PR’s worth.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
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