With the ink drying on many corporations' annual budgets, not all PR departments captured the funding they were seeking. But even if they don't have the bottom-line numbers to prove their worth to CFOs and CEOs, PR executives can still make a case to boost this year's numbers and chart a course to significant increases in advance of next year's budget season.
"You're going to be in better shape if you prove your department's successes year-round, not just at the annual review," says Lisa Wyatt, VP of public affairs and marketing for Washington Hospital Center & MedStar Health. "It's most important that you connect with [senior management] on a continuing or incremental basis. Quarterly or biannually is best."
But cementing a positive, on-going relationship with financial decision-makers is only half the battle.
PR departments on a shoestring budget can't always afford proper measurement tools to make their budgetary cases. And as the usefulness of advertising equivalencies is called evermore into question, the PR executive is losing a trusted and easy friend.
Fear not. Case studies can suffice when solid numbers are nowhere to be found.
"I certainly think you can use [a case study] to show that PR is making a contribution to the bottom line," says Bruce Jeffries-Fox, director of public relations research for AT&T, and chairman for the Institute for Public Relations Commission on Measurement and Evaluation.
According to Fox there are two ways case studies can substitute for numbers.
First, you can assign value to your efforts. If your PR team averted a crisis, look at similar crises in the past - either at your corporation or at competitors - and determine the estimated cost to the company. Assume, for example, that the crisis would have cost the company 10% in sales.
"[Make the argument that] if we hadn't handled it right, it would have eaten 10% of our sales," says Fox. "But this time we averted it."
The second approach presents more of a challenge in trying to sway the opinion of the financial side. It involves showing PR effectiveness when there are no actual benchmarks. Here, salesmanship counts.
"It has to be a compelling story that a CEO can appreciate," says Fox. "You have to choose carefully a story that is a 'no-brainer' about how PR made the right choices and saved the company from a terrible consequence. It has to have that kind of face test."
To make the case, you must draw a correlation between the actions your team took that directly stopped a crisis from transpiring. The best evidence for this is how your people stopped the story from getting to the press.
No Crisis to Fall Back On
If your corporation has averted crises without the help of the PR department, there are other ways to make a qualitative case for your department's effectiveness. For example, consider playing to the CEO's ego.
"If you tell your board that with an extra $70,000 you can get them speaking at X amount of conventions, they'll be more inclined to okay your budget increase," says Mel Ochoa, director of PR for BridgePath.com, a headhunter firm in Silicon Valley.
Of course, fluffing the ego of your CEO may not be in the bottom line's best interest. Before presenting your company's head with the opportunity to speak in public, be sure he or she has the personality that will boost the ROI and not grind it to a pulp.
A communications department can also help its budget-cause by clearly expressing the often-overlooked role PR plays in decreasing corporate turnover. Hiring efforts are reduced when a company gets positive press and less headhunting effort helps keep a bottom line healthy, Ochoa says.
"Show that you were placed in X number of places and how turnover has subsided since," says Ochoa.
Review No No's
Few can forget the joke fodder presidential wannabe Bob Dole created when he began referencing himself in the third person.
But he had a point. He did it to brand his name in his listeners' minds and avoid looking selfish on the campaign trial. (Saying "I" while preaching from the soapbox can leave an audience wary about a candidate's true motives.) And using the singular first person can play just as badly when talking to superiors about increasing your department's budget.
"If you start several sentences in a row using the word 'I,' you're bragging," says Richard Thau, president of Third Millennium, a political advocacy group for change within the Social Security system.
"I've encountered the problem a thousand times as people try to sell me on why I should give them money."
The trick is to get your superiors to buy into your department's vision.
"Use 'we,'" says Thau. "It softens your agenda and makes a collective vision, something both parties will want to be a part of."
Other items to avoid are:
- Taking credit for something that your team didn't do. Imagine a CEO hearing managers from five different departments taking credit for the same kudos. It's better to show you're trying to isolate your contribution.
- Demonstrating that you've changed the perception on something the company doesn't care about. It shows your team is out of touch with the company agenda and, perhaps, meaningless to the bottom line.
(Bruce Jeffries-Fox, 908/221-8191, [email protected]; Mel Ochoa, 415/512-2982, [email protected]; Richard Thau, 212/226-2077, [email protected]; Lisa Wyatt, 202/877-6305.)