(This article was written by Ed Moed and Ted Birkhahn, who are, respectively, managing partner and managing director at the New York agency Peppercom.)
We're always hearing a great deal about change within the public relations industry and how we must embrace and leverage this change to survive another day. We talk about
change, we write about it and, of course, we're always reading about it.
Lately, the talk of change has been centered on the advent of new technologies, such as blogging and podcasting, which are shifting the way we protect and enhance our clients'
reputations. Before that, the talk of the PR town was on the ongoing ethics and transparency issues that began with Armstrong Williams and continued with VNR distribution
challenges.
But the topic that consistently receives a great deal of attention year after year but experiences the least amount of change or progress is the topic of measurement. The
Achilles' heel of the public relations industry, measurement as a topic of discussion has been beaten to death by industry pundits and debated ad nauseum across the senior ranks
of the agency, corporate and academic worlds.
While all the talk about measurement has created a lot of noise within the industry, the ways in which this industry measures its work has changed very little. Yes, technology
has made it easier and more cost effective to measure what we do, but what we're measuring has remained a constant.
Since the beginning of time, at least in our industry, measuring return on investment in public relations activities has been squarely focused on analyzing media, media and
more media. Typically, most companies follow one of two routes. Most do little more than either count impressions, equate editorial articles to advertising or take a qualitative,
best guess approach of measuring media relations results. Others, who take a much more scientific approach and really care about trying to gauge programs against ROI, have sliced
and diced data a million ways creating subjective "formulas" by which a quantifiable score based on the quality and quantity of media obtained in a given period can be measured.
Either way, it's still only about media.
This phenomenon has been partly due to the fact that the C-suite, where we as an industry strive to have an influence and presence, can easily digest the measurement criteria
we've created for them. The pie charts and bar graphs fit nicely into PowerPoint presentations and play well with CEOs who don't understand or give sufficient time to evaluating
the true value of PR. Ironically, though, it's been our industry's lack of innovation in the measurement area that has prevented us from having a seat at the table and being seen
widely by CEOs and their management teams as strategic counselors instead of cost-centers and order-takers.
The major problem with this approach is that it does not measure the real value-add that most strategic public relations programs actually provide. Instead, why aren't we
factoring in other fundamental parts of our communications efforts, such as digital communications initiatives, partnership development, trade show activities, speaking
opportunities, sponsorships and much more?
If media relations is only one component, albeit an important one, of a standard communications program, then why are we only measuring this one piece to show ROI?
In the end, whether it's about generating target awareness, new business leads, product sales, Web site traffic or any combination of the above, the ability to measure entire
communications programs in order to really understand and determine whether these success gauges have been met should be a key focus. While it's not that surprising that the "holy
grail" hasn't been found yet, it is amazing that this isn't the real focus of the measurement discussion.
Bending Measurement
To change the laws of measurement within the public relations industry, we must focus on measuring fully integrated campaigns across an entire communications platform that can
create one standard to quantify qualitative results. If done effectively, the measurement system can be leveraged to produce many of the same benefits as other tools today. The
following are five rules of engagement for measurement:
1.) Are the right mechanisms in place? Much the same way that we have clipping and Internet services in place to collect articles/broadcast placements to be measured,
clients need to have the right mechanisms in place to be able to collect data surrounding the quality of speaking platforms, trade shows or events that can also be measured.
This means creating better systems at the onset of programs to collect data during these initiatives, which can be assessed and assigned a meaningful score.
2.) All program components aren't created equal. Many media measurement programs use third parties to create their own criteria for what constitutes the rating of good,
bad or somewhere in between.
We've always been puzzled by this because ultimately it should be the client's own determination about which parts of a program should be weighted more importantly than others.
Understanding this, a valid end score can be created based on what the client cares about, not what is considered important by a third-party.
The same rule should hold true with weighting different components and variables within an entire integrated communications program. This will allow for end outcomes that
actually matter.
3.) Those same warm and fuzzy areas in media can also be measured elsewhere. Our belief is that many other program components such as the events or tradeshows aren't
measured because they are often viewed as too cumbersome from a data collection and score validation standpoint. As long as the right mechanisms are put in place, nothing could be
further from the truth.
Sophisticated media measurement turns "softer" subjective data such as tone and ownership of articles into objective, quantifiable scores. The same principle should apply to
other program components as well.
4.) One consistent measurement system is critical. This statement sounds completely logical and is obvious to any communications professional. So, let's make sure it
actually happens.
Why can't a simple scoring system across an integrated program be created that is based on the same measurement methodology, weighting system and scoring outcome. Once this is
created, it will allow for real benchmarking and improvements, impacting ROI.
5.) Wouldn't it be great to forecast and predict? Public relations is one of the only communications disciplines that still isn't able to leverage historical data as a
means to predict which initiatives or programs should be created/implemented to offer the best chance of success.
A clear next step for our industry is to follow our direct marketing/advertising brethren in this way and come up with a solution.
Contacts: Ed Moed, [email protected]; Ted Birkhahn, [email protected].