Companies that have never set a PR measurement system before might find the tasks intimidating and overwhelming, as many of them don’t know where to begin. However, setting up measurement goals doesn’t have to be the most difficult thing in the world, and in fact, it can make the company feel a lot more secure in its PR efforts and endeavors. This is because those goals can help companies answer some of the bigger questions such as how to improve future PR efforts, and also give companies a competitive advantage. Furthermore, setting measurement goals for PR is another great way that businesses can get respect from other brands and corporations in the industry.
Leadership Perspective
One of the first steps that companies should take when looking to set their PR measurement goals is to ask the executive and other leadership level employees what kinds of goals matter to them. While most businesses already know that understanding the target audience is essential for every company, the same thing is important for a company’s internal strategy. One of the fundamental elements of a PR effort and measuring that effort is knowing what the executives deep as a successful result. Once the company is able to pinpoint the precise type of data that the executives are looking to see, it’s easy to gather information regarding those data points when the time comes. However, it’s important to remember that those data points and interests can change over the lifetime of a project, and even throughout the company’s life too.
Measurable Goals
The next step in setting PR measurement goals is to work on the details, which means figuring out what the company can realistically deliver in terms of PR efforts, as well as to measure. Sometimes, businesses aren’t too familiar with what things fall under the umbrella of PR and marketing, so they might have goals that aren’t very measurable or even abstract. However, most of the time, all of those goals can then be detailed further and distilled into smaller objectives, that then become measurable. The company should also define its key performance indicators (KPIs), which demonstrate how well a campaign is performing towards its goal, and share those statistics with the rest of the team when the time comes.
Daily Measurements
Once the goals and guidelines have been set for a PR campaign, it’s time to start measuring the relevant data points on a daily basis. While it might feel like too much work, in the beginning, it’s a helpful strategy that can help companies determine whether a campaign or tactic is working or not. Companies that only measure their data points periodically have a difficult time figuring out what might be going wrong in a given campaign, and since they’re not doing daily measurements, they have no way of pinpointing the exact issue.