When Tracey Eiler, VP of corporate communications, arrived at Business Objects in 1995, the company had no formal measurement of the results PR produced. "There was no ongoing
measurement to track how we were increasing awareness in the IT community or anything like that," Eiler says.
For a company whose mission was to provide software for business intelligence, the lack of business intelligence in the PR department was ironic. Eiler immediately hired a
media tracking firm to conduct an ongoing review of what articles were being written, who was being quoted and how the media landscape was changing in her industry.
Seven years later, she has built an historical foundation upon which to base her PR programs, giving her the big-picture view of the software landscape. This perspective helps
her to shape campaigns and develop a better understanding of the influence Business Objects wields within the business intelligence software industry.
PRN: What are some of the key metrics you track on an ongoing basis?
T.E.: Every communications professional has key messages, and we track what messages are sticking in reporters' minds. We've been able to tune and modify our messages because
we see what's effective.
We also track who's being quoted in stories - industry analysts and gurus. We often discover new people [whom we need to target with our messages]. Or, we know the people. For
example, there's one analyst at Aberdeen who is quoted all the time. We pay special attention to him because we know he picks up his phone when the journalists call.
PRN: How has the media landscape changed - and caused changes in your PR strategy - since you began measuring it consistently?
T.E.: In 1996, we were only looking at IT print media since our primary buyers were IT buyers. At the time there wasn't such a thing as online publications. Over time, we've
added online pubs, and we've learned the difference between print and online. We found that online publications often ran shorter pieces that were not very controversial. We put
more efforts into those pubs where we could get shorter, quicker hits with less effort from the PR team.
Then during the dotcom boom, our coverage - and that of our competition - dropped. We really had to adjust what we were pitching to break through the noise.
Then, two years ago, we started measuring the business media as our buyers started to become business people, not just IT people. We're starting to see more category stories on
our software. How many times in one year will Forbes write about Business Objects? Maybe once. But if it's a category story, maybe more often.
We also look very carefully at product reviews. They are so resource-intensive for PR people. Plus, the lab is not the real world. We tend not to do very many of them.
PRN: How do you set your goals for measuring a campaign?
T.E.: We have baseline measurement we do every quarter no matter what. But for big product launches, for example, we'll factor in measurement, and we'll set goals like x number
of feature stories in these pubs and x number of product reviews, and we'll have our agency do a weekly report.
PRN: How much do you budget for measurement?
T.E.: I spend about 5 percent or 6 percent of my overall PR budget. I think that's about the right number. If you get up [too high] you can be spending too much money you could
be spending on PR efforts.
PRN: What's your best measurement advice?
T.E.: When numbers go down, we need to say so. For example, over the last year, we re-deployed dollars to b-to-b [efforts] vs. IT. We knew the awareness within the IT community
would dip eventually, and it stayed flat until just recently it dipped slightly. Now we know how long we are able to sustain awareness without being visible [in that sector].
Isolated measurements don't help. It is really important not to make critical decisions based on one or two pieces of data.
And don't rely on a vendor or a colleague to interpret the data. I'm not a technical person - I was a sociology major! As a group, PR pros are afraid of math and interpreting
research and numbers. We need to understand the data.
Company
Business Objects
Headquarters:
Levallois-Perret, France,
+33 1 41 25 21 21
URL: http://www.businessobjects.com
Measurement Vendors: Delahaye Medialink, Techtel
Measuring Across Department Lines
Eiler doesn't just keep tabs on PR. In order to have the most complete understanding of what's going on in her industry and at her company, she also measures items like:
- Purchasing behavior among potential customers, through a survey of a panel of IT leaders conducted by Techtel in Emeryville, Calif.
- The Business Objects sales pipeline, including awareness, consideration and trials. "We're able to see where there might be holes in the pipeline. Our awareness and
consideration were high and our trials were suffering, so we were able to dig into our channel for getting trials of the software, and once we did, we saw those scores go
up."
(Contact: Eiler, 408/ 953-6000)