Measurement Maven of the Month:

Alfred J. Lautenslager

Alfred J. Lautenslager is a marketing consultant and owner of The Ink Well, a commercial printing and mailing company in Wheaton, Illinois. He is also the author of one of the best, most concise and cogent explanations of PR ROI we’ve ever seen. The article appeared in the February issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, and all I could say was “Wow, I wish I’d written that.” —KDP

Measurement Menace of the Month:

Business Schools That Don’t Teach Their Students How To Measure PR

It is the responsibility of business schools and marketing and communications departments to teach public relations, including measurement. Lately, I’ve been asking the academic folks, “What are you teaching about public relations? What are you teaching about measuring the success of public relations?” Unfortunately, the answers are usually, “Very little,” and “Even less.”

With some notable exceptions (the Universities of Maryland, South Alabama, Florida, San Diego and Miami all have excellent PR research departments), the vast majority of business schools seem to think that accountability is only for accountants. Having taught Intro to Business at the University of New Hampshire for a semester, I can tell you that the textbooks aren’t much help.

So I ask the Deans and the Professors and the Provosts out there: “How do you expect business leaders to be accountable if you don’t teach them how to measure their work?” Sure, you teach plenty about how to measure financial success and a little bit about how to measure overall marketing, but what’s wrong with teaching the basics of PR measurement at the same time?

Most big corporations that are strong in marketing (Coke, Apple, tobacco companies, Visa and MasterCard) know that if you can get 'em early, you get 'em for life. Wouldn’t it be helpful if we took the same approach with our PR/marketing students? Wouldn’t it make sense to teach them accurate ways to evaluate their work while they are in school, rather than sending them out into the corporations and PR agencies of the world armed with little or no understanding of how to measure their success?

It is time to begin teaching our future PR practitioners how to measure correctly, accurately and efficiently—before they head out into the real world. —KDP