PR and Measurement

R.A.C.E Basics

R: Research

A: Action or Planning

C: Communication

E: Evaluation or Measurement

E: Evaluation

Measurement evaluates the effectiveness of messaging and provides a way to show whether or not PR actions are achieving objectives. Measurement is one of the most important parts of a PR plan.

Measuring

• Assessment of Objectives• Agreed PRIOR to campaign• Adds to the “bottom line”

Measurement Levels

Basic Measure Production

Intermediate Measure Exposure

Advanced Measure Attitude/Change

3

Production

Counting Quantity NOT Quality

Exposure

Press Clippings Wire Services

Social Media

Impressions

Web Hits

Advertising Equivalency

ROI

Information Requests

Attendance

Press Clipping

• Manual vs digital• Collection of coverage• Clips, radio bits, TV minutes,

Facebook “likes”

Impressions

• Potential eyeballs• Measure exposure• Just an estimate• Circulation X Coverage

• Ex: Magazine circulation of 140,000 and you had one article. Imp= 140,000. (3 releases, 106 stories, 486 online mentions and then 108

million impressions)

Web Hits

• Google Analytics• Page views• Time on site/page• Entrance paths• Pre and Post PR

Advertising =

• Compares PR to paid ads• Unreliable• Not used anymore in PR

measurement• Column inches compared to ad cost

Ex: 1 column inch cost $100 and your story ran 5 column inches. Story “worth” $500

Information Requests

• Visit to special website or phone number

Attendance

• Number of people who showed up.• Not reliable due to apathy,

awareness, weather, other noise/important events

Attitude and Change

Awareness Attitude

Baseline Study

Sales

1

23

34

1

Day After Recall5

Objectives MATTER

Measurement must acknowledge sales, attendance or awareness

“Tell ‘em what your going to do, do it and then tell ‘em how you did it.”

New Trends in Measurement

Shonali Burke at PRSA 2010http://podcast.prsa.

org/pr/prsa/blog-post.aspx?id=3625

CreditsAndrea Genevieve Michnik

Intro to PR

St. Edwards University- Spring 2011

E-mail: andream@st.edwards.edu

@AndreaGenevieve

All photos protected under Flickr Creative Commons