Measurement has been a buzz word over the last year as thinning budgets and looming layoffs drove communications execs to adopt more quantifiable measures of the impact of PR.
But beyond justifying the existence of the PR department, how are PR practitioners making use of all the data they've amassed to reorient strategy, revise client goals, or even
point the way to deeper, better measurement and research?
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Mark Weiner, CEO of Delahaye Medialink, says too many PR pros ignore or avoid negative results when those may be the most valuable and actionable. Research for one client, a
major cosmetics manufacturer, revealed that its massive ad spending with top beauty magazines (typically a precursor to additional ink in the beauty industry) was not paying off
at all in greater editorial coverage from those magazines. Because the competitor with the best editorial coverage also happened to own a beauty magazine, the company's initial
plan was to go out and buy its own pub.
But by responding to the initial results with deeper research, Delahaye uncovered a cheaper, easier solution - more responsive PR. Interviews with journalists in Italy's
fashion center, Milan, revealed that the beauty press most valued access to company samples, executives and lab scientists. The client, however, had labs in the U.S., was the only
manufacturer without a presence in Milan, and suffered a reputation for poor PR responsiveness. The client thought it should turn itself into a publisher "when the solution was to
answer phone calls," says Weiner. A Milan office and better PR practices have turned around the company's reputation in recent years. Rather than respond to an initial set of
analytics with a knee jerk reaction, the company used the measurement to guide more precise research and find the real answer to its problem.
Results as Ammunition
Katie Paine, formerly president of Delahaye Medialink, now president of KDPaine & Partners, offered the results of PR measurement to key spokespeople as ammunition to help
improve an entire state's image. The nation's first presidential primary is New Hampshire's signal media opportunity. But measurement showed in the 1996 cycle, coverage dwelled on
the state's weak economy, leaving the impression that "we're a bunch of flannel-shirted hicks who didn't deserve to have the first primary," Paine recalls.
Paine tracked the key state representatives being quoted in the stories: legislators, the governor and educational leaders. She took the '96 results to these key sources. For
the 2000 cycle, she urged them to emphasize the state's high-tech economy and active political engagement. The effort resulted in a 6 percent to 7 percent rise in positive
impressions and an increase in recommendations for tourists to visit. "The key to success was talking to the people we knew the reporters were going to talk to so that they knew
what the messages were," says Paine.
Meet the Press
Many PR pros are starting to use measurement to identify instances when they should go directly to the press for more detailed feedback about the effectiveness of their
communications strategies. Mary McEvoy, VP at Hoffman Agency, pays special attention to cases where she feels an announcement should have resonated better in the press, especially
relative to similar releases from the competition. In one such case, canvassing reporters about a press release that seemed to fall flat revealed that the announcement was too
technical to be understood. In the next go 'round, Hoffman stripped out the jargon. Not only are reporters best able to tell you what they want to write about, says McEvoy, but
they also can offer the best competitive analytics because "they are seeing what everyone else is doing," she says.
The most important factor in getting better use out of measurement data is to measure regularly, the experts agree. "The good [companies] look at their analytics on a monthly
basis and make changes accordingly," says Paine. McEvoy thinks that by monitoring performance in such a regularly scheduled way, Hoffman is able to detect and respond immediately
to any bad impressions. It also helps her read the numbers more accurately if she knows how they fit into a regular pattern of coverage. Getting bad numbers off of a single
announcement could be cause for panic. But if regular reporting of similar releases suggests this was an anomaly that may not even require a fix, you may have saved the company
from wasting money on a non-problem. Maybe the announcement was just fighting against a big news day, she says.
(Contacts: Mary McEvoy, 408/975-3052, Katie Paine, 603/431-6967; Mark Weiner, 203/899-1600)