For years we composed a decidedly sad picture of PR measurement as Measurement Month arrived. For many PR pros, measurement was an albatross. It was something that people thought they’d avoided when they chose communications as a career path.
The tide appears to be turning, albeit slowly. Communicators seem more receptive to measurement in a digital world, where nearly everything is measurable. Digital communications is merely part of that world.
Digital operations should render nearly all of a PR pro’s actions and results quantifiable, making it easier to prove the value of her work. That’s only the first step.
More important is deriving insight from data, which should be part of a PR pro’s arsenal to tie communications to business goals.
Indeed, senior leaders increasingly are asking PR pros to justify decisions with data.
As Eric Koefoot, president/CEO of PublicRelay, a media monitoring and analytics firm, says, “We’re seeing an upsurge in the marketplace for insight from data.”
Kevin Winston, principal communications business partner at Genentech/Roche, agrees. “There’s no question. The tide is changing” in favor of using data to garner insight. “Measurement used to be about numbers of clips and share of voice; communicators rarely used it to gather insights.”
This optimism can be seen in conversations we had with other measurement analysts (see pp. 6-10) and in some of the findings in the second PR News-PublicRelay survey “The State of Data-Driven Communications.” The charts in this edition of PR News are from that report.
For example, 65 percent of the nearly 400 participants in the survey tell us they use media measurement “to show how our efforts are contributing to broader business goals.”
Source: PRN/PublicRelay Survey (Nov. 2018)
The survey does not paint a completely upbeat picture of communications measurement, though. “76 percent of the people don’t have reliable data,” Koefoot says, referring to chart 1. “That’s a problem and it’s scary. How can you manage without good data?”
Consumer Reports
Adds Matt Anchin, CCO at Consumer Reports, “This lack of confidence in the data is indicative of how far we have yet to go as a profession in terms of our ability to sort and leverage data in a truly scientific and applied way.”
Winston agrees, but believes communicators’ lack of reliable data is a larger issue that touches nearly all industries.
“This is not just a communications’ problem,” he says. “There’s so much data out there, it can be overwhelming. And it’s really, really difficult to know what data is relevant and should be measured and synthesized into useful insights.”
This year’s responses to the question in charts 1 and 2 were a slight improvement over the 2017 survey. Last year 74 percent of director-level communicators told us they “sometimes have good data” and 7 percent said they “rarely have quality data.” 72 percent of VPs and higher said “sometimes” their data is reliable and three percent said “rarely.”
There was a lot of reaction to charts 3 and 4, which show responses to how to improve measurement. “Make it cheaper” and “make it faster” trailed all the change proposals, including the leader, “make it more insightful” (64 percent), make it more “accurate” (46 percent) and make it more “comprehensive” (59 percent). In fact, more insightful outpaces faster and cheaper by nearly two-to-one. The results on speed and cost were similar to those in the 2017 survey.
The conclusion: Communicators seem to put a premium on insight, comprehensiveness and accurate data.
“Those answers are really anti- what you’d think you’d find in a highly competitive marketplace,” Koefoot says. “You’d expect faster and cheaper to be the leaders.”
Indeed, Anchin was “a little surprised” that there wasn’t more of an emphasis on speed. “In the news cycles we live in…we no longer have days or hours, we’re down to minutes.”
Anchin says the “alignment” in the totals between all respondents (chart 3) and agency respondents (chart 4) was “very telling” about the importance of measurement and data. “As a very long-time in-house professional,” he adds, “it’s something I will be able to press agencies on as I look for strategic partners in the marketplace.”
“I’m glad so many communicators want greater insight…we’re using a tool here that’s become a great source of insight. I’m starting to look at other tools to augment our suite. I’m very happy that I’m in a position to make the case for metrics-driven activity.”
Koefoot sees charts 3 and 4 linking to the responses to chart 7’s question: “Is/Are your CEO and/or executives asking for more data-driven analysis around PR measurement?”
Just about “everyone” (83 percent) is either being asked to defend decisions using data or preparing to do so, Koefoot says. “The results here are saying if your company isn’t data-driven yet, it’s coming fast, it’s a freight train. That’s not surprising. We’re seeing that in the marketplace.”
Anchin adds, “The existential threat where marketers were six to 10 years ago is where the leaders of our profession are at now. The decisions you make and the strategies you design, the results you deliver, if they’re not data-driven, especially in a world where so much data is readily available, you’re not going to be in a good spot.”
Taking it a step further, the savvy communicator uses insights from data to anticipate what’s ahead. “That’s where I’d rather be,” Anchin says.
The idea that the profession is data driven also links up with chart 10’s responses, where communicators respond to “Are you spending more time or less time on media measurement and analysis this year compared to last year?”
By comparison, last year 44 percent of director-level communicators said they spent more time on media analysis, 30% said the same amount of time. For VPs and higher, the responses were 64 percent more time and 22 percent the same amount of time.
Several conclusions can be drawn from the 2018 responses. As Koefoot says, it takes time to deliver the comprehensive insights CEOs are seeking (chart 7). “More and more companies are coming to us and saying, ‘I’m working with data-driven analysis and quick and dirty no longer carries water. I’ve got to do a better job. I’m being asked by my CEO for more data-driven insight.’”
On the other hand, spending more time with data might indicate that data is so overwhelming and perhaps confusing to communicators, that they need to spend more time just to cope.
In addition, as you can see on chart 9, the largest pain point (35 percent) involves communicators lacking enough training to garner deep insights from tools. Maybe a lack of training is why PR pros are spending more time on data.
“That’s a fair point,” Anchin says. “We are still light years behind where communications technology should be,” he adds. Maybe the takeaway here is that if communicators have to spend so much time with data “shouldn’t technology be thrown at data to collect and analyze it far more efficiently and powerfully?” Perhaps “we should be calling on service providers to do better and do more.”
Koefoot agrees with the last point. “On the training, that’s on the providers, all of us. If we have a tool and we’re not providing training, shame on us. We’re not supporting the industry,” he says looking at the top answer on chart 9.
Anchin adds, “Perhaps the balance between art and science in this profession is a little out of whack.” It’s great to have automated tools, but more than training in how to use the tools, you need an awareness of the value of the data, Anchin says, and “where you should push for more and better.”
Winston says the tools response on chart 9 is “a bit surprising…it’s not rocket science. You hire data people” who can use tools to gain valuable insights from data. Making another point, he adds, “Having a tool is the least of it. We all think [AI] can replace human beings, but you need humans to make sense” of what’s being measured. “You have to have [staff or a vendor] trained to understand data so you can gain value from insights.”
Speaking of chart 9, Anchin is dismayed with the 20 percent response to “data and analytics are not top priorities, so we invest little or no time on them.” As a profession, he says, we should want that to be zero.
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