PR is often considered to be a “fluffy” activity or a “nice to have” within a business, but it is so much more than champagne drinks receptions and expensive press trips. Whilst it is harder to define the ROI of PR activity, it contributes in more ways than you might consider for marine and outdoor businesses – above and beyond financial sales targets, and into the realms brand visibility, consumer perception and loyalty.
Measurement can be a challenge that all marine and outdoor businesses face when selecting a PR agency or agreeing to part with a portion of their marketing budget. Thankfully, we have moved on from the likes of AVEs and PRVs, so what do we use now?
The short answer is that is really does vary! From brand to brand, but also between campaigns and often dependant on the season or time of year.
The long answer is a little more complex, so grab a cuppa and let’s dig in…
Planning
Before you can think about what we need to measure, it’s important to discuss what will make a difference to your business. Working backwards to establish what you want people to do, think or feel as a result of the campaign, will provide some guidelines around how you can measure that action or behaviour.
For example, this might include raising brand awareness, changing brand perception in a particular market or driving engagement on social media.
Once you know what you want to achieve, getting creative is the fun part. What engaging and inspirational campaigns can you develop – that fit within your budget – to drive the end result? Be realistic, but also have fun and work hard to engage with your core audience to really attract their attention and take action! For tips on planning your campaign, check our a recent blog: www.adpr.co.uk/blog/insight/what-makes-a-good-pr-campaign.
Metrics
Once you have this in place, ask yourself what you can measure?
With ample time, budget and resource, you can ultimately measure whatever you like, but that isn’t always the case, so think realistically about what will make most sense and showcase the real value to your decision makers.
From the number of pieces of coverage in top tier publications, links through to your website, the number of new social media followers, building partnerships with relevant influencers, increasing the number of clicks on an article, promotional codes being used, the share of voice against your competitors, growing a newsletter database and downloads of a resource from your website, the list is endless…
To help add some clarity, our top three metrics to measure for our marine and outdoor brands are:
- Reach within key audiences – highlighting the opportunity for the target audience to read more about the brand and its new launch, company update or milestone. Before you let the world know, take the time to consider the pool of available publications and digital platforms, and discuss which ones will drive the best engagement – note, sometimes the more targeted or niche publications might have a smaller circulation, but if you have 20,000 sailors reading about your new sailing kit compared to 200,000 of the general public reading about your new sailing kit – who may or may not sail or spend time on/near water – ask yourself, which will be more value?
- Inclusion of key messages – it’s important to secure the coverage in the right titles, but what are the media saying about your brand? Identifying key messages – whether it’s a brand campaign, tag line or product name – can really help to add credibility and present your brand to your audience in the right way, ensuring the coverage is more meaningful and valuable to your brand.
- CTAs / Call to Action – making the coverage even more valuable, is when the publication proactively links back to your website or social channels (depending on where you are directing “traffic”), to continue their journey or research amongst your own channels. And, the more established the publication driving that traffic, particularly online, the more valuable this coverage can be, as the higher their domain authority, the more Google will push your brand up in its organic rankings…
If you have the tools and time, a bonus metric is Share of Voice.
How you stack up against your competitors is important, especially if you have a new product or service launching! Identifying and tracking your performance against their coverage will take your reporting to the next level, giving you the insight into what potential customers are consuming across the industry. It is important here to dig into the coverage being generated – because not all coverage is equal – for example, a four-page feature about your new outdoor gadget and how to use it is much more valuable to your business than a one-liner to say XYZ has launched the new ABC model. So take the time to read the articles and develop your own analysis.
Setting KPIs
With a clear idea of what you want to measure, it’s important to set some specific objectives, including timelines – SMART objectives. This will give you clarity as you are monitoring and evaluating your campaign – which should be an ongoing, continuous practice, giving you the opportunity to identify if something isn’t quite working out as planned and ensuring you can change tact and thus, the results, before the end of the campaign.
If you don’t have any historical data or this is the first time you are developing a campaign of this nature, you can make an educated judgement on what you’d like to achieve or you can simply benchmark the first campaign or year, so you have something to work on and develop in the campaigns to come.
What worked in the past, might not be right this time – so do follow these same steps each time you plan a campaign, to ensure your targets are correct and your KPIs are the most suitable for each new PR campaign.
AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework is a great place to start, if you want a great process to work through: www.amecorg.com/amecframework
If you have any questions or would like to speak to one of our team of experts to support your next PR campaign, please get in touch via hello@adpr.co.uk or check out more measurement and ROI advice from one of our recent podcase episodes: www.adpr.co.uk/podcasts/how-to-measure-pr-and-comms/