The terms "mind share" and "competitive analysis" have, in the last decade, seeped into the business vernacular, shorthand expressions for top managers to indicate to the rank-
and-file how crucial it is for companies to measures their overall success against that of competitors.
In a similar vein, the term "share of discussion" may be the tool for senior PR pros hoping to cut through the minutiae of measurement and to prove to decision-makers that
seeking (and getting) exposure in the media adds value to the bottom line (see PR News, June 29). "Share of discussion" means the quantity and quality of your media
coverage, compared with that of your rivals, includes a combination of media costs, slant and client prominence.
Learning more about share-of-discussion tools was the advice for PR pros from Angela Jeffrey, VP of PRtrak (which was acquired last week byNew York-based Video
Monitoring Services or VMS), who recently participated in a PR News-sponsored Webinar "Linking Your Media Coverage to Business Outcomes."
Jeffrey said PRtrak's former owner, Surveillance Data Inc. (Philadelphia), originated the term and the algorithm "share of discussion" to help PR pros close the loop
between their media coverage "outputs" and business "outcomes," such as sales and lead generation. (Measuring "outputs" applies equally to PR execs working for nonprofits,
associations and educational groups and PR pros at the corporate and agency levels. "A lot of you are competing for the fundraising dollars in the same communities or competing
for volunteers," Jeffrey added.)
Susan Peters, director of worldwide public relations for Ilog Inc. (Mountain View, Calif., and Paris), a mid-size enterprise-software company with $125 million in annual
revenues in fiscal '05, said the company flourished during the dot-com boom by selling high-end software components to packaged software companies like SAP and
Oracle.
But following the tech wreck in 2000, Ilog had to shift marketing gears. In 2003, it made a strategic bet on the then-emerging business-process-automation trend. It invested
more than half of its corporate resources on building its "Business Rule Management Business" (BRMS) tool, and it sold investors on the idea that this trend would generate the
company's next growth wave.
The company wanted to position itself as a leader in the space, but it had to educate the media in order to make that happen - and it "needed a way to measure it if we
accomplished it," Peters says. She adds that an aggressive media-relations campaign - including hitting the trade pubs hard - was complemented by a new measurement approach.
Previously, Peters and her team scored clips based on tone (positive, negative, neutral), prominence of the company in the article as well as how many column inches, and ad
equivalency. "All of those have their failings," Peters said. "They're great for internal PR marketing teams to know but they don't have a whole lot of meaning for
management...It's looking at coverage in a vacuum."
However, by using share-of-discussion techniques (see charts), Peters was able to track how the company was performing in the context of the broader market, and the
shift in measurement strategy has paid off: In its last fiscal year, Ilog garnered 15% share of discussion, and it also was able to correlate the impact of media coverage with
increased sales six months later. Ilog now owns 27% of its market, according to research firm IDC (Framingham, Mass.).
What's more, Ilog's CEO was so pleased with the results that he presented share-of-discussion slides to investors at the company's worldwide sales meeting. He also boosted the
firm's PR budget, albeit modestly, and Peters and her team members all got raises. (Measurement expenses are still just about 2% of the overall PR budget.)
"If PR is seen as an expense and not as something that can impact the corporate objectives, it's going to be a hard road," Peters says. "We learned the hard way that you have
to measure for other people (read: decision-makers), not for PR."
When presenting measurement results to senior managers, be sure to be selective. Managers don't need the whole spiel. "Use a lot of graphs that show metrics at a glance, not
lengthy reports," Peters says. "They won't even read the executive summary." (For the full Webinar transcript, please go to http://www.prnewsonline.com.)
Contacts: Angela Jeffrey, [email protected]; Susan Peters, [email protected]
Measuring Output: The Nitty Gritty
Establish media coverage objectives
- Achieve X% increase in share of discussion
- Achieve X% gain over last year's results
- X dollars of media value
- X number of impressions
- Achieve positive tone in X% of coverage
- Communicate top key message points in X% of your coverage
- Garner X hits in target print, broadcast and Internet media
Measure efficaciously
- If headline, photo or "sole source," take full story for credit
- If one of several sources, take a percentage
- If just a mention, take one column inch
- If a negative story, subtract it!
- Use audited metrics from third-party source
- Negotiated costs for broadcast, Internet
- Open rates for print (all that's available)
Newspapers
- Measure width by SAU column inches: length by regular inches, and then multiply the two
- Multiply two together
- Measure photos, headlines and captions the same way
- If photo and story are on one page, use color rates for the total
- Total column inches X cost per column inch = media value for the story
- Readership multipliers
- Dailies: 2.181 per copy
- Sundays: 2.314 per copy
- Weeklies: 2.5 per copy
(Sources: MRI, SRDS, American Newspaper Representatives, Newspaper Association of America, The Readership Institute)
Magazines
- Convert full-page ad rates to column-inch rates (see PRIMER: Measuring Media Coverage Effectively for instructions)
- Measure as you would a newspaper
- Readership
- Major magazines: 5 readers per copy
- Specialty magazines: 2 readers per copy
(Source: Magazine Publishers Association)
Radio
- Time of airing (by Daypart)
- Length of segment (minutes and seconds)
- Length X cost for a 60-second spot = media value
- Use negotiated rates from SQAD Inc., PRtrak, VMS/Burrelle's or VOCUS
- OR ... Ask for "planning numbers" from the station
- Do not use "rate card" rates
- Audience gross impressions: 18+ from Arbitron or more targeted, if available
| Monday-Friday | Saturday | Sunday | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COST | IMPR | COST | IMPR | COST | IMPR | |
| 5 AM-6 AM |
$61.85
|
9,900
|
$11.38
|
2,900
|
$9.22
|
1,400
|
| 6 AM-10 AM |
$172.98
|
31,900
|
$69.19
|
13,300
|
$51.89
|
8,600
|
| 10 AM-3 PM |
$143.94
|
32,900
|
$104.68
|
24,800
|
$78.51
|
19,700
|
| 3 PM-7 PM |
$173.12
|
30,000
|
$103.87
|
18,900
|
$86.56
|
14,500
|
| 7 PM-12 AM |
$35.06
|
7,500
|
$52.60
|
10,600
|
$35.06
|
6,800
|
| 12 AM-5 AM |
$18.75
|
1,300
|
$39.44
|
1,700
|
$21.55
|
1,100
|