By Heather C. Conover
Conover + Company Communications
PR agencies and their clients have long grappled with how to measure the success of a public relations program. While it is impossible to isolate the impact of a PR campaign from other aspects of a company's communications program, several methods have been developed which attempt to quantify PR's effectiveness.
One of the first methods adopted was the evaluation of one aspect of PR, media relations, based on advertising equivalency. That is, if a story is placed in a newspaper, the article is measured and the cost of an ad of equal size is computed. The problem with this method is that ads and stories are not the same. Readers know that the advertiser places an advertisement. Hence the message is viewed as self-serving. In contrast, an article is typically viewed as more objective and, if positive, as an endorsement. Its value is, therefore, probably greater than that of an ad.
New methods have emerged that attempt to account for some of these differences between advertising and PR. Scores are given based on such factors as length of clip, positioning of the story, exclusive coverage, number of company/product mentions, and the overall tone. This score is then multiplied by the circulation of the media outlet to arrive at a final score. Other approaches factor in the cost of personnel or consultant time and production expenses to arrive at a total ROI figure. While these more systematic approaches to examining media coverage have greater value than a straight ad equivalency measurement, they are expensive to implement, do not represent a truly scientific approach and may not be an accurate gauge of the effectiveness and value of a campaign. For example, we still don't know if an article was read; and if it was read, if it resulted in the desired action or behavior. Finally, we don't know if it improved the company's bottom line.
Another method is to survey the target audiences. Traditionally this research has been very expensive, but the Internet provides an alternative and less costly means of evaluating a PR program with certain-not all-target audiences. Unlike the previous methods that focus on evaluating only one PR strategy, surveys can measure the entire PR program, as well as individual strategies. Furthermore, this approach can provide a benchmark at the start of a campaign and measurements taken throughout the campaign can give a much better sense of whether or not the campaign is working. Armed with this information, adjustments can be made to the campaign, as needed. While still lacking a true ROI measurement, this method examines whether the message has been heard, understood and resulted in the desired action.
Winter 2001 - Volume 11, Number 1