Many think PR is impossible to measure as it is an industry that works with intangible factors like media relations and client/customer support — this, however, simply isn’t true.
PR measurement is crucial to success because it helps you to keep track of the outcome of any campaigns you’re running — and it helps to determine the impact of your other PR efforts, like social media promotions or media pitches.
With time, measuring your public relations efforts will help you to assess growth. It also helps you to form a clear understanding of the decisions you should make going forward.
This is all good and well, but what metrics should you track in the first place? Let’s find out.
Knowing which PR metrics to measure
It is clear that public relations is a key part of any business, but to prove this you need figures and facts to back it up — enter PR metrics.
These metrics will help you to assess just how much of an impact your work is making and areas that may need a little more work.
The most important PR metrics to take note of are:
Online traffic
Online traffic is easily the most important metric to look at when doing PR measurement because it helps you grasp the most meaningful factor in any industry: the number of visitors you have.
By looking into your visitors’ web browsing habits, you are able to gauge what content works best. You can gain insight into this information with a media analysis tool.
When looking into online traffic, the most important factors to look at is:
The number of returning visitors
PR focuses on cultivating a positive brand reputation, and if you have customers returning to a website after they have made a purchase, you have succeeded in creating a brand image that makes people want to come back for more.
If users are returning to your site, this is also an indication that the content on your page is a hit with your audience.
If you notice that you have a low number of returning users, this could signify that you need to switch up your content strategy.
The number of new visitors
If you are running a PR campaign, the number of new visitors that your website gains during its run is a strong indicator of whether it was a success or not.
For example, if you launch a campaign that generates a great deal of publicity, resulting in more users being driven to your site, the campaign was a success.
Bounce rate
Your website’s bounce rate is an indicator of how many people click away from your site after only viewing one page. If your bounce rate is high, this is a sign that your content is not grabbing your audience. A high bounce rate is anything over 70%, while 41 to 55% is average.
Conversions
As mentioned above, public relations is centred on reputation building and maintenance, but it is also an underlying goal to make sales.
When assessing conversions, you would need to note how many users became customers due to your PR efforts. For example, if you saw an increase in sales after running a campaign, it was a success.
Referrals
Whether you are running a PR campaign via earned media (TV, radio, print) or owned media (social media, newsletters), your goal is to drive traffic to your brand’s website.
Referrals are another indicator of whether your work is successful. This is because if people are being directed to the brand’s site due to a campaign, or if they are sharing this with their peers, you are proving its value in nurturing leads, driving traffic and building consumer trust.
Backlinks
Backlinks are the number of people that are linking to your site or your content. This metric is crucial to analyse how much coverage your brand is getting or how well your content is doing.
The number of backlinks you get helps to prove how valuable your PR work is in building awareness. And it doesn’t hurt that the more backlinks you get, the more credible you are as a source, which increases your site’s SEO.
Engagement
Engagement is a specifically important metric for determining the success of social media campaigns and assessing how interested your audience is in your content.
This metric refers to the number of users that engage with you online. This engagement can come in the form of likes, comments, shares or subscribers.
Social media mentions and sentiment
Do you ever wonder what people are saying about your brand online? Well, wonder no more because using media intelligence and sentiment analysis tools take all the guesswork out of measuring public perception.
These tools allow you to measure whether the brand mentions you receive are positive or negative, which will help you understand what your audience thinks about your brand.
Share of Voice (SOV)
Lastly, Share of Voice measures how popular your brand is, and how much coverage it gets compared to competitors.
For example, if you notice that your brand doesn’t feature in discussions about your industry, it is likely that your SOV is weak and you should look into new ways to set your brand apart from the crowd.
Having positive SOV will help you to establish your brand as an industry leader, which will help you gain consumer trust.
Learn more about PR measurement in our blog, What PR pros need to know about the Barcelona Principles 3.0.