What does success look like? (For PR campaigns)

(Originally published at renaissancechambara.jp on February 9, 2016.)

In public relations circles measurement is as much a discussion point as the weather. The industry has attempted to deal with it. In this approach they generally have a goal to reach a singular solution. Rather like ‘how to write a press release’.

But in reality all measurement revolves around one question. What does success look like? It could also framed as:

• What is the job required?
• What is the problem to solve?

Measurement then breaks down into four categories:

• Outputs (how much activity has happened)
• Amount of content
• Paid, earned and shared distribution / reach including serendipitous engagement
• Events / stunts
• Outcomes
• Views / opportunities to see / audience
• Attendance
• Followers
• Propagation (shares, mentions, backlinks etc). One could also consider mentions or shares serendipitous engagement alongside comments or retweets
• Competitor or category benchmarking (share of voice)
• Trend-focused outcomes, where the rate of change is as important as absolute values
• Sentiment — though measuring sentiment is time for an article in itself
• Pre-and-post or regular stakeholder research (brand perception, talkability, recall, message penetration)
• Referral traffic (normalised for seasonality and ongoing activity)
• Awards, reviews or recommendations
• Stakeholder behavourial changes
• Platform behaviour change (basket size, conversion rates, downloads, sign-ups)
• Organisational success measures
• Sales increase
• Reduction in time to sale
• Behavioural change (particular for non-commercial organisations)
• Reputation improvement (share price increase, stakeholder net promoter score improvement, increased influence)
• Talent acqusition (increased applications per job, increased proactive applications, reduced staff churn)
• Financial security (funding round, share placement, share price, bond placement)

The problem of measurement from a PR perspective breaks down into a number of parts:

• The activity didn’t have a clear link to organisational success
• The basket of measures wasn’t considered in-depth at the beginning
• The goals change over time, or are post rationalised
• The resources aren’t dedicated on measurement that need to be done
• Some measures derived can’t be separated from other work done except through the use of econometrics
• The measures used lend themselves to long term campaigns, yet are measured on a short term basis
• The span of responsibility that the activity has to deliver isn’t matched by access to the internal data required to measure success