Measurement Standards
A
Powerful New Set
of Public
Relations Measurement Standards
This time they're based on business outcomes.
by Katie
Delahaye Paine
Last week PRSA
announced a call for industry agreement on standards for public
relations measurement. A working group, chaired by David Rockland
and made up of former or current chairs of the IPR Measurement
Commission (Pauline Draper-Watts,
Mark
Weiner, Don Wright, and myself)
has put together a set of recommended metrics and approaches for
evaluating PR's influence on business outcomes. (Notice I said
"outcomes," we'll talk more about those in a minute.)
You can
view our actual recommendations in the slide show below. Or visit
the PRSA's ComPRhension blog, where you can read David's post
and give us your comments.
Before
I list the actual outcome measures recommended, here's some
background on recent efforts to develop public relations measurement
standards, and a glimpse into why this new effort is more useful
and powerful than those in the past.
Guidelines,
standards: We've been there before.
Over the
past fifteen years or so, I've
been personally associated with every serious effort to develop
public relations measurement standards. Back in 1995, Jack Felton
got a
group of us measurement geeks together at a PRSA conference to talk
about
establishing
some kind of measurement standards.
The result
was the formation in 1996 of a "Special
Commission on Measurement" under the auspices of the
IPR. Together we wrote
the first IPR white paper (offically authored by Walt Lindemann), "Guidelines
and Standards for Measuring the Effectiveness of PR Programs
and
Activities." You
can download it (and/or a somewhat newer and revised version
of it) from the IPR's website. At
about the same time, the Brits and the Europeans were trying
to tackle this
problem,
and Walt and
I went
to Europe to be part of their standard-setting confab.
Since
that time, various other groups, like CPRS (with
whom I consulted) and AMEC, have attempted to set more formal standards,
but none
gained significant traction. So, despite a decade
and a half of serious and well-intentioned efforts, no official,
industry-wide standards have resulted.
This time,
however, things are a little different, and the new PRSA effort holds
great promise.
Eyeballs
or outcomes?
Back
then, what
people wanted public relations measurement to provide
was a "GRP" of
PR – a
way to quantify success as conveniently as the GRP measure used
by advertising. But GRPs are only a count of eyeballs, and not
every
PR campaign
is designed
to attract eyeballs. In fact, just about every PR program ever
launched has a unique set
of goals, and thus, a different set of measures of success. Thus, there
never can be a single metric that applies to all PR.
Now we
have PRSA's most recent effort, and I think this time we'll
have some standards that people will agree upon and use. Why?
Because this time the standards are based on business
outcomes -- metrics that the C-suite
can understand and respect.
When CEOs
and the rest of the C-suite look to marketing and PR for measures
of their success,
they expect to be presented with business-oriented metrics --
not AVEs, or clip counts, or even impressions. All those output measures
are relatively easy to put together, but are really only useful as
a way of describing activity. They are only surrogates for the
outcome metrics we
wish we had, the
real
revenue-related
numbers like
sales or cost savings.
Why outcomes
now?
Of course,
many of us have been pushing the value of outcome measures for years
(myself included). Why have we now, at last, built outcome measures
into industry recommendations? It's because PR is now under
tremendous pressure to
up its
game:
- When
money is tight, the fat gets trimmed. Never
has it been more important to demonstrate the business value
that PR brings
to the table. If you can't show how your work contributes
to the bottom line, chances are you'll have a smaller budget
going forward, and you probably won't
have
a job
much
longer
either.
- There
are more alternatives to traditional PR tactics than ever before--
and they come with powerful new metrics. Reaching
out to reporters in a traditional sense is now only the start
of a good campaign. You
need to bring in Twitter, Facebook, a blog or two, and probably
some videos as well. And the
outcomes for those social media are far more measurable than
for traditional PR. They are not impressions, but
rather, engagement – measured
by comments, clickthroughs, downloads, retweets, votes, ratings,
and all the other
new metrics that social media is bringing to the table. And,
believe me, the hungry new social media industry is not waiting around for
PR people to catch up. Just ask anyone in the newspaper business.
So what
exactly is it that PRSA is offering for standards?
Below is
the presentation developed by our Working Group. It's not just a
list of recommendations, rather it's really a philosophy that PR
practitioners can and should take to the C-suite
to explain exactly how PR can help the bottom line. It's also channel-
and industry-neutral; designed to work whether you're measuring social
or traditional media. And equally applicable whether you're working
for a small local nonprofit or a Fortune 500 corporation.
If
the above slide show doesn't work, visit
the PRSA's ComPRhension blog, where you can see it and
leave your comments.
The recommendations
are summarized in the table below. They divide the business outcomes
of PR
into
four basic
categories:
- Financial
- Reputation
- Employee
- Public
Policy
and
offer
measurement
guidelines for outcomes related to each category. Again we are very
eager to hear your comments, so please visit the PRSA blog and let
us know what you think. 
|
Business Outcome |
Measurement
Method |
| Financial
Outcomes |
Marketing
Public Relations drives sales
Investor
Public Relations drives investment
Public Relations
drives donations and membership for relevant organizations |
Consumer
Response:
Field survey of consumers, determine purchase levels
and exposure to PR results, isolate causal effects through statistical
analysis
Market Mix
Modeling / Econometric Modeling:
Gather PR output/outcome data
in conjunction with other marketing activity by market, by
marketing function, by
region, by time period and factor by revenue-generation by market, by region
and over time. Apply regression analysis. |
Improves
efficiency by better audience targeting
PR reaches
more people with a credible message for less money
|
Determine
comparative cost of different communication approaches; calculate
percent of target reached; determine change in purchase
cycle resultant from PR activity. |
Avoids catastrophic
cost
Mitigates
impacts of crises
|
Assess
competitors and peers who may have faced similar crises, track
emergence of their crises and impact on sales, stock price,
and relevant business measures to evaluate the potential impact
that was avoided. |
Reputation |
Increases likelihood to purchase / consider your brand(s)
Minimizes
the effects of a crisis
Reinforces
communication of organizational values
Rebuilds
trust after a crisis
Establishes
credibility of new products / companies; ease of market entry
Commanding
higher prices, lower costs, premium on stock price
Enhances
recommendations / word of mouth leading to faster adoption
Increases
customer loyalty / renewals / satisfaction
Improves
the attracting / retaining of talent
Lowers legal
costs
|
Benchmark
reputation / relationship metrics via survey prior to a campaign,
repeat
every 3 - 6 months
Correlate
attitudinal studies with customer purchase attitude and behavior
Map conversations
(and tone) in traditional and social media to web analytic
data, e.g.,
registrations, requests for information, sales leads, etc.
Map conversations
/ reputation to financial analysts opinions and stock price
volatility
Correlate
share of thought leadership visibility to adoption of policy
positions
|
Employee |
Increases
employee satisfaction and engagement, leading to greater
efficiency, increased
retention, lower turnover rates,
lower recruitment costs, and higher productivity
Lowers legal
costs
Change employee
behaviors such as greater levels of focus on key areas such
as safety, quality, call response times
Provides
greater transparency and commitment to and from employees
Creates a
platform should it be necessary to communicate bad news at
some stage in the future
Note: Items
here can also refer to other internal publics such as trade
association members.
|
Use
control groups and compare to employee populations exposed
to PR activities
Focus on
performance outcomes not attitude or awareness
Match /
correlate messaging data to:
-
Employee
satisfaction and engagement findings
-
Employee
turnover statistics and other recruitment data
-
Call response
times
-
Customer
experience surveys
Consider
other research tools and data – focus groups,
exit interview data, days of sickness, etc.
Note: items here can also refer to other internal publics such
as trade
association members.
|
Public Policy
|
Creates
public awareness, understanding, and support for legislation,
regulation,
and political candidates
Affects
voter behavior
Helps pass
legislation, regulation, and initiatives
Affects specific
companies and industries through appropriations, tax impacts,
and regulatory changes that can affect any and all aspects
of a
business
Instigates
and perpetuates grassroots or grasstops campaigns
|
Use
available public tracking services at national (e.g., major
network polls)
or local (e.g., university polling centers) to track
changes in awareness, understanding, support, and voter intent.
Also where possible link to level of PR activity.
Conduct tracking
survey of key politicians or regulators. Can often use Influentials’ awareness
as a proxy for elected officials, as well as to measure the “edge” of
a trend.
Post-election
surveys can isolate specific effects of PR by determining actual
voting behavior, as well as levels of exposure to different
communication media.
Actual public
or legislator voting behavior.
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