You’ve dedicated substantial effort to your marketing campaign, event, press release, or press conference—how do you gauge its success? Measuring public relations efforts and earned media can be challenging but achievable with the right data insights. Let’s delve into it.
Overview: To effectively measure public relations efforts, first establish a clear goal. Next, identify the specific actions your audience needs to take to achieve that goal. Then, gather the relevant data that will help you measure those actions. Finally, the new data will be compared to previous data to track growth or decline. I have included some examples of PR goals, questions, and data to evaluate later in this article.
Setting the Foundation: Research
Maya Angelou said, “You can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you have been.” This statement holds when measuring public relations efforts. As the first step of the RPIE process, you should have researched before beginning your efforts. This means you pulled as much of the following data covering the entire year before your campaign launch.
- – Web traffic (organic & paid)
- – Blog Traffic
- – Search engine rankings and search terms
- – Page views and impressions
- – Backlinks
- – Conversion rates
- – Social media metrics (followers, engagement)
- – Email subscribers (number, open rates, click rates)
Why gather data spanning at least a full year? Comparing year-over-year data provides a clearer picture, ensuring you compare similar periods to account for seasonal variations and calendar influences on online traffic. The longer the historical data, the better the insight into growth attributable to PR efforts.
Measuring Public Relations Efforts = Comparing the Data
Armed with data from both before and after your PR initiatives, the next step is analysis. Success measurement hinges on predefined goals.
Consider the following PR goals and corresponding evaluation questions to aid you in measuring your public relations efforts:
Examples of PR Goals and Evaluation Questions
The following examples and questions should spur your thinking about evaluating data in light of a public relations goal and hopefully determine success.
Example PR Goal: Increase Brand Awareness
Compare the following data from the previous year to after your implemented PR strategy:
- – Has web traffic increased compared to the previous year?
- – Are there more impressions on your website and social media?
- – What changes are evident in branded and non-branded search terms?
- – Are you ranking higher for branded and targeted keywords?
- – Did earned media efforts correlate with increased web traffic?
- – Have email subscribers and social media followers grown?
- – Did printed ads drive measurable web traffic?
Comparing these metrics before and after PR efforts clarifies progress and highlights areas for improvement.
Example PR Goal: Boost Email Subscribers and Conversions
Compare the following data from the previous year to after your implemented PR strategy:
- – How have subscriber numbers changed post-PR efforts?
- – What’s the opt-out rate since the campaign began?
- – What actions do subscribers take after opening emails?
Measuring public relations efforts for any PR goal can be accomplished by collecting data for comparison and asking the right questions to evaluate growth or decline. Positive data growth indicates a successful campaign, but does it mean your public relations efforts have been successful overall?
The Bottom Line
Ultimately, the impact of PR efforts extends beyond metrics like traffic and engagement—it should ideally translate into increased revenue. Stakeholders typically prioritize revenue growth as the ultimate measure of PR success. While metrics such as traffic and engagement provide valuable insights and can speak to the success of a particular PR effort, true success lies in business growth indicators:
– Have sales and revenue increased during the campaign period?
– Has the sales cycle shortened?
– Are there more leads generated?
Integrating these revenue-focused insights with positive PR metrics solidifies the narrative of successful PR efforts that contribute tangibly to business growth.
Dogwood and Public Relations
At Dogwood, we are more than simply a press agent. We create insightful campaigns and communicate valuable information on your behalf. Contact us to learn more about our services and how we can partner with you.
