[New Post] How to Prove Your PR’s ROI with the Right Reporting

 

Blogs

How to Prove Your PR’s ROI with the Right Reporting Melissa Toso "Was it worth it?" This is the one question you must be able to answer at the end of every PR and marketing campaign. Members of the C-suite, agency clients and other stakeholders all want to know whether the money, time and energy that went into a campaign changed consumer behavior and, more importantly, generated profit. To prove your campaign's ROI, you need to report on meaningful metrics that relate directly to business goals. Follow these four steps to show the worth of your next campaign. Step 1: Define your goals across teams When planning a media campaign, it's important to first define your goals. Because PR and marketing no longer work in siloes, these goals must align across all of your teams. Traditionally, PR's goals have focused on the relationships built with journalists, influencers and online audiences, while marketers' goals revolved around creating brand awareness and filling and optimizing the sales funnel. However, for a campaign to be successful in today's media and buyer landscapes, PR and marketing must work together to meet their goals – from generating earned media coverage and increasing key message pick-up to driving content engagement and boosting revenue. Step 2: Match your metrics to your goals Once you’ve defined your goals, how exactly do you demonstrate your ROI for them? Choose the right metrics. Each team that contributes to a media campaign needs to report on metrics that measure their goals and, crucially, prove attribution. Different goals will have different metrics; it's important to make sure yours match. Consider a campaign that has the goals of educating audiences and driving engagement to a piece of content. Here are three types of reporting you could gather, along with key metrics for each. Paid Media Reporting Campaign Tactic: Social, digital or traditional ad placements promoting your content Campaign Metrics: Impressions: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed or listened to a paid media placement about your content. Clicks: The number of individuals who engaged with the paid media placement and followed through on the call to action. Press Release Reporting Campaign Tactic: Press release distributed to media networks and websites promoting your content Campaign Metrics: Distribution Reach: The number of websites your press release appeared on and the total potential audience reach. Engagement: The number of times your audience engaged with your release, including tweets, shares and clickthroughs. Earned Media Reporting Campaign Tactic: Successfully pitching journalists, bloggers, and influencers who cover your story Campaign Metrics: Potential Audience Reach: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed, or listened to a news article or broadcast. Target Audience Reach: The estimated number of individuals who read, viewed or listened to a news article or broadcast from an influential media outlet. Key Message Pick-Up: The number of times the key messages in your outreach or press release were discussed in the media. Want to see which other metrics matter? Check out our list of 18 metrics that prove and inform for more tips on matching measurement and goals. Step 3: Define "success" To prove your campaign was successful, you'll need to set a baseline for each metric you report on. To set a baseline, it is best to think about the results of previous campaigns and determine your average results. If this is the first time you are measuring the results of a campaign, determine a baseline using industry standards. For example, if your first campaign garnered a potential audience reach of 50 million and your second campaign garnered 70 million, you can set your baseline at 60 million for your third campaign. If you surpass your baseline, you can dig deeper into what worked in this campaign versus previous campaigns and, ultimately, improve upon future campaigns. Our article PR's Changing Benchmarks offers 10 questions that will help you set a baseline and make the most of measurement. Step 4: Communicate your success in a comprehensive report Once your campaign is over and you have your hands on all the data, how do you cohesively demonstrate your success? Present one, comprehensive report that highlights each team's contributions and tells your campaign's story. Some best practices include: Start with an introduction that outlines the purpose of your campaign and the goals you wanted to achieve. Organize the report in sections that show how each team contributed to the campaign. For example, the PR team should take ownership of the earned media reporting, while the marketing team should explain the results of paid media placements. Conclude with lessons learned and ideas to optimize future campaigns. Keep your audience in mind. You may need to have different versions of the report prepared for each audience you are presenting to. C-Suite executives will want high-level numbers that show ROI as a dollar value. Mid-level managers in your communications department will want more insight into the quality of the campaign (e.g. was the target audience reached?) When compiling your reporting, you should also consider how the report can benefit you long after its presentation. Take the lessons learned and immediately establish a follow-up plan while the campaign’s fresh in your mind. Then, consider conducting an A/B test with your next campaign to optimize how you connect with your audience. To see how one company used reporting to optimize their press release strategy, download our case study PhRMA Increases Blog Readership & Reaches Broader Audiences with Content Syndication. The steps PhRMA took — and the results — can help you define a strategy for your own goals. Author Melissa Toso is a media analyst on PR Newswire's media analysis team (also known as 'professional services'), a group of communications and industry experts focused on monitoring and measurement.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, click on the following link: Unsubscribe

[New Post] 5 Simple Considerations for Packaging and Presenting Content

 

Blogs

5 Simple Considerations for Packaging and Presenting Content Victoria Harres Digesting a page in print is nothing like experiencing content digitally. The digital world allows for a much more interactive experience. The expectations viewers have when consuming your digital content are much higher and the job of the publisher is more complex. Yet, we can get so focused on what the words in our message will be that we give little consideration to the broader experience someone will have with our blog post, article, press release or white paper. If you want audiences to return and engage with you again and again (who doesn’t?), your entire content package – or content experience – must be considered. And it needs to be considered long before you upload, publish, and distribute your content. A major reason for this is that search engine algorithms are continually giving more weight to human behavior. As shown by the best practices in PR & SEO: Still Driving Discovery, you will be rewarded with better search visibility when you publish content that people spend time on, interact with, and share across their networks. When starting down the content creation path, keep these five simple things in mind to ensure your viewers encounter the best experience possible and you achieve the results you desire. Words convey: Whether it’s an article covering new product features, an ebook about your industry’s latest trends, or a cute cat video, the first requirement of a great content experience is providing quality information that delivers on your headline’s promise. Even if a non-speaking feline is the only featured character in your story, you need to think carefully about what you want to say. For instance, a video can’t reach its full potential without a captivating title and appropriate tagging. Fluffy walking a tightrope is not certain to go viral unless you make sure people can find it. The same applies to your blog post or product announcement. Words are essential to any online content experience. They help introduce the content, categorize it, and tell your story. So choose your words wisely. Visuals engage:  A captivating title and great story are a must, but to hook your audience you need to consider visual elements. Content that includes an image or video delivers more views and inspires more sharing. Jamie Heckler details this in her blog post and infographic about The State of Multimedia in Press Releases. Visuals help readers connect with your message or story, and social media users are much more likely to share something with an engaging photo or video than something which is text only. If you’re writing a white paper, think about adding call-out graphics that highlight a quote or statistic used in the text. If you’re publishing a blog post, add a header image and other multimedia to break up the text and help illustrate the topic. A press release will ultimately perform better if you include a video, and it’s hard to find a story on any media site that doesn’t include a photograph or other graphic element. Remember that your photos and videos don’t always have to involve professionals behind the camera, but they do need to help your story. Directions convert: Whether you’re on a road trip through Texas or trying to find something online, everyone appreciates direction. Clear road signs can save so much time. Digitally speaking, you need to make sure your audience can find their way without getting lost or confused. A clear call-to-action can be worth its weight in gold — or leads. Point your audience in the right direction by offering more than one road sign or opportunity to take action. The second call-to-action serves as a reminder about the desired destination, in case your audience missed the first opportunity to follow your path. Sharing expands reach: If your readers share your content, you have the potential of reaching a much broader audience than your own. But, first, you have to set your content up so that it’s easy to share. Write headlines that are short enough to be tweeted, and include one or two lines in your content that stand alone and would make the perfect tweet (right length + interesting fact). Additionally, make sure the page where your content is published has buttons for easy posting to Twitter, Facebook and other key social media channels. These also serve as a reminder or call to action for your readers. No place like home: Your content and the website or page it is housed on must work together. They have to complement each other to ensure your message is easy to digest and as accessible as possible. The appearance of your content is the first impression you’ll make and visual appeal does matter. It draws the reader in, helps your content achieve authority faster and keeps your audience on the page longer. It must also be search optimized to add to your content’s discoverability. Ultimately, you want your reader to have an exceptional experience with your content that leads them to the next step. A rich content experience was top of mind during our recent redesign of PRNewswire.com. We wanted to offer a content experience that satisfies all of our audiences’ individual needs and flows well. Check out the press release to see how we made it even easier to find the news, resources, and solutions you need, then let us know what you think! Author Victoria Harres is vice president, strategic communications and content at PR Newswire. Her team leads social media, PR, creative and blogging for the brand. Vicky was the original twitterer on @PRNewswire and continues to be part of that crew. If she's not at her desk, you'll likely find her in the garden.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, click on the following link: Unsubscribe