I had an interesting meeting with one of my most loyal clients this week – someone who Fusion PR has supported through various successful ventures over the years (about seven, I believe, which is a long time in tech).
He’s a successful entrepreneur who is very sharp, on top of tech, social media, and a veteran and pro when it comes to working with all types of traditional and new media.
We had a lively discussion about the changing nature of PR. We covered the blogs, top tier media and tech trades in this discussion. He was of the opinion that print coverage in general and the tech trades specifically don’t provide the same PR dividends that they used to.
Measurement is not the sexiest topic in the PR trade. The profession has typically shied away from measurement unless backed into a corner and forced to do so for many reasons, some good (or at least understandable), and some bad.
The more understandable reasons are that measurement (at least in any meaningful way) is hard to do, time consuming (hence, costly), and – without ways of connecting back to outcomes like sales, reputation building and brand equity – of questionable value.
The primary bad reason of course is that some don’t want to set goals and measure against these for fear of coming up short, or having the goals arbitrarily increased.
Particularly, in light of the hard work many PR people are doing to advance and update our profession, now is a good time to swing the conversation back to measurement.
Whether you are talking about pitching blogs, issuing SMRs, or leveraging Twitter and social networks, or pitching traditional media, I’d like to update my credo If it Ain’t Online, it Ain’t Worth a @!#$%??*& to: if it ain’t measurable, it ain’t worth a @!#$%??*&.
Adapting the usual advertising gimmicks–this is about the only way I see of measuring PR results. Back in the days when I had a job, being responsible for PR, I only had news release placement as a measuring stick.
Hi, Jack
Thanks for commenting and reading. Actually, there are some very sophisticated methods for measuring PR impact which eclipse the usual comparable ad value calculations.
See my post on the Fusion Forum, http://fusionpr.blogspot.com/2007/04/unleashing-power-of-pr.html, which features an interview with Mark Weiner, a leader in PR measurement and author of a book on the topic.