March 7, 2019
Setting meaningful KPIs is a valuable driver and measurement of business success. At LCWA we work with our clients to set KPIs based on their goals and objectives, resulting in a clear understanding of how our PR and social efforts support the business. This moves PR from a “nice to have” to a “must have.”
Here are some proven KPIs to consider when tracking your campaign’s success: - Media Impressions: Media coverage secured by the PR team. This number can be looked at as a whole for the brand or broken down into subsets such as tracking placements by product, industry vertical, priority media targets, etc.
- Sentiment: Measuring tone of articles or brand mentions allows you see if your brand is creating positive or negative associations. It may also be of value to compare your brand’s sentiment to that of the competition.
- Key message penetration: Outline the priority messages for your brand or product and track how successfully those messages are communicated through secured media coverage. At LCWA, we like to track this metric (really all metrics) along the way and make any necessary campaign adjustments to ensure the right messages are reaching the target audience.
- Share of voice: This is the percentage of coverage for your brand compared to its competitors. Share of voice can be tracked by volume or reach. If budget does not permit to track both, work with your client or team to determine which is of most importance.
- Social engagement: A measurement of how many likes, shares and comments the content and coverage you generate receives. If you are finding a certain type of content is driving more engagement than others, incorporate more of this content into the mix.
- Event promotion: Track your team’s success in driving event attendance, garnering media coverage of events, and building relationships with attendees and key constituents.
- Web traffic: The number of visitors that are driven to a brand or company website as a result of your campaign. This can be easily tracked by creating a unique link to be used in your communications efforts.
- Reach: Focuses on the sum of your efforts. How many potential consumers did you reach through broadcast, print and online coverage in traditional and social media outlets.
Now that you’ve set KPIs, how do you measure? There are a host of analytics dashboards available that enable you to see your public relations performance metrics and keep track of your KPIs. Burrelles, Meltwater, Hootsuite, Radian 6, Facebook Analytics…the options are endless. With a little research you will be able to employ the right mix of tools within your budget to track results.
Finally, don’t forget to merchandise and promote your campaign’s success. This includes creating visual reports and presentations that can easily be shared by your direct client with internal stakeholders. It’s a sure fire way to keep PR as a “must have.”