No one said it would be easy. Not only are there many and varied approaches in evaluation standards, the media and channels of communication that require assessment have multiplied exponentially in recent years. The explosive growth in social media, consumer generated content, social networking and blogging has dramatically increased number of communication platforms with provide both opportunity and threat. PR is moving into a new era where single influencers and key opinion leaders can have a large impact on the overall success of programmes.
Suddenly, for a B2B campaign, it is not only a circumscribed group of trade titles that need to be taken into account, but a plethora of dynamic and continually changing blogs and social networking sites which are very powerful communication channels and can impact a B2B issue as dramatically as a consumer brand.
So how can PR’s support of business objectives be measured and evaluated? All the acronyms have their roots in a particular research methodology. The measurement of media coverage or outputs’ is core to most. Approaches range from the quantitative to the highly qualitative, and the quantitative methodologies can be either very manual (analysts reading and scoring individual articles) or highly automated (sophisticated database search and analysis). Truthfully, all have their place depending on the specific objectives of the analysis at hand. Evaluating the subtleties of competitive positioning might be best accomplished by focusing in closely on a small sample of media. Deciding whether or not to invest millions in that positioning might require a review of a larger sample of media, a task best aided by technology.
Falling short of the mark
Though a great leap forward, these solutions still fall short because, regardless of the methodology used, these solutions still only measure the outputs and the relative success of PR activity. They’ve gained acceptance and spawned standard’ measures (like SOV) primarily because it’s all we’ve had to work with and because even if we don’t know the business outcome’ of having twice the share of voice of your closest competitor, this has been presented as a good thing’.
However, this is not always the case. Particularly when the news is bad or when you’re spending four times the budget to gain half as much advantage. It will be the next generation of PR evaluation approaches that define effective communications at board level. Tomorrow’s measurement will link every pound invested in PR to PR activity outcomes and to support of the overall business objectives of the company. This is true ROI PR measurement. And we are not that far off. Today, PR output data can be evaluated in combination with other forms of information like CRM data, customer enquiries and sales data to define programme-specific ROI returns. Similarly, while it’s known that a company’s overall reputation has a tangible value (defined as goodwill when calculating the financial value of a company) it’s been difficult to access PR’s contribution to building and defending that value. PR evaluation companies are now taking significant steps towards quantification of the dynamics and value of company reputation.
Bridge the gap
A bridge between today’s evaluation of PR outputs and full ROI measurement is the practice of Measurement by Objectives. Conceptually, MBO is simply an approach where we step back from the PR strategy and tactics and define what we hope to gain in a business sense and how that helps the company overall. By aligning the PR programmes with specific business returns we can track back output’ success to measures and objectives easily understood by non-PR professionals. Yes, it sounds like common sense, but it’s often surprising how few PR programmes include true measurable objectives.
As a positive development, several large agencies work with close evaluation partners or have in-house measurement and evaluation arms meet evaluation requirements, harness new technology, and develop tools for MBO evaluation. H&K, for example, helped create the independent company ComMetric, two years ago, as part of its drive to recognise and harness the potential of new technologies its evaluative processes. The company now provides H&K clients and others with media analytics and metrics. However, its independent status and management means it is also able to focus on creating innovative new processes and applications.
Influencer Network Analysis (INA) is one of these newly developed MBO evaluation tools. INA works as a discovery engine’ to identify the influencers in a discussion space (traditional or social media), as well as opportunities to modify the overall discussion. INA was developed specifically for use in Key Opinion Leader and Influencer Outreach PR campaigns – programs that usually have well defined objectives and business outcome targets. It uses a combination of very sophisticated natural language search software, advanced social networking mapping and good-old-fashion human analysis to balance the need for both quantitative and qualitative understanding.
These initiatives are very positive for the industry and for business in general. INA is just one tool in a growing toolbox, which indicates that the one-size-fits-all approach to PR evaluation is no longer enough to meet the growing demands for analysis and qualification that will push the PR discipline higher up the business agenda.
