Justification
It is not the name of a new bar that Manchester needs so badly.
But the perennial PR problem: justifying spend. It all comes from PR being so hard to quantify. How do you measure raised profile, greater understanding of what your client does, reputation being enhanced?
You can’t unless you have a big research budget, so anything but blue chip clients will be unable to gage the benefits accurately.
There are leads, which is where many businesses judge their PR. It is wrong to base any judgement solely on this premise. I have had clients that have more than covered their PR spend with new clients derived from PR. You also have new clients where PR has played a par, but this has not been identified or noted.
The solution?
Answers on a postcard or in the comments please.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am
In my experience clients measure PR in two ways.
Those that take the value of PR for granted want to make sure that you are progressively improving their public profile. This is easily measured by benchmarking coverage volume and quality, interviews secured, articles placed etc - the basic metrics of a PR campaign.
Those that have to be convinced of the value of PR want to measure it in more business-related terms. i.e. leads or sales.
How the client measures the value impacts what tactics you take. For example, for the latter type of client you would be best focusing on getting one great piece of coverage and turning it in to a DM campaign. This will have direct results that you can measure in terms the client understands.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Tom,
I appreciate your comments, I need a re-think
Rob