Measuring the Impact: Evaluating the Success of Corporate PR Campaigns
In the current competitive environment, getting your brand noticed and not just seen has become increasingly difficult. Consumers are consistently bombarded with advertising content, resulting in overstimulation and hesitancy in retaining information.
However, a strong corporate PR campaign can be a game-changer for companies that wish to stand out and be remembered. Unlike conventional marketing or advertising, a PR campaign is simply designed to create a buzz. It is a way to put your brand in the limelight, welcome some attention, and create a lasting impact on your audience.
While creating a corporate PR campaign is essential today, measuring its impact to see if it’s actually benefitting your organization and further creating effective plans based on the progress thus far is equally important.
7 Ways to Evaluate the Success of Corporate PR Campaigns
Assessing the success of public relations goes beyond the typical marketing metrics. While corporate PR, advertising, and marketing are closely interlinked, there’s more to the picture. Let’s look at 7 ways to evaluate the success of corporate PR campaigns.
1. Market Surveys
Research is crucial for tracking a corporate PR campaign’s impact. Before implementing your campaign, survey the target market to see if people have heard about your brand. After launching your PR campaign, the survey again to see if people have become more familiar with your company, product, or service.
In a consumer-oriented world, it is okay to ask people, “How did you hear about us?” To link PR to sales, you should include a news/media article as one of the options for meeting request forms.
2. Social Media Reach and Engagement
Social media use is growing by the minute and can provide a good insight into measuring a corporate PR campaign’s success. You can do this by taking into account the average monthly post reach and the number of new followers you gain on your social media channels. Moreover, the number of likes, shares, retweets, and shares can help measure engagement which ultimately shows the success of a PR campaign.
3. Website Traffic
Another way to evaluate the success of a PR campaign is by measuring website traffic before and after implementing it. Did your website traffic increase dramatically after? This metric is also effective in showing the usefulness of a campaign since getting visitors to click on a link to an external website is not always easy. To achieve that, the content of press clippings must be actionable. You can use various free CMS tools for tracking website traffic.
4. Press Clippings
Press clippings are a measure of how many times your company name has been mentioned in the press, including magazines, TV, newspapers, on online platforms. The caveat is that mentions and articles should appear in published content viewed by potential customers. When you receive a sizeable number of mentions in target media outlets, it means that your corporate PR campaign has been successful in raising brand awareness.
5. Content Analysis
Besides the number of impressions and articles, you can also evaluate the effectiveness of your PR campaign by monitoring the quality of the content being published. Did the reporter mention the main messages of your company? Is your brand being depicted in a positive light? To gauge the effectiveness of your PR campaign, you should see whether your press coverage is leading to more valuable content.
6. Website Backlinks
A backlink is a URL that directs a user back to your original website. Backlinks are an essential component of a good SEO strategy and can also be used to measure a PR campaign’s impact. Increasing the number of backlinks to your webpage could ultimately increase your website traffic and eventually lead to higher sales.
7. Sales Figures
Sales are a critical metric to understand whether or not your corporate PR campaign has been successful. Most businesses carry out advertising, marketing, and PR efforts to increase sales, and if that bottom line is being satisfied, there’s a good chance that your PR strategy has been a hit. However, when analyzing your sales statistics, paying attention to the source is important. Doing so will help you plan better for upcoming PR campaigns.
How to Successfully Measure the Success of a Corporate PR Campaign?
- Set a clear goal. A clear purpose for your campaign is crucial, be it attracting more leads, increasing brand awareness, or generating more revenue. This will help you understand what you are measuring and allow you to make sense of your metrics.
- Define your metrics. See which metrics are more relevant to your campaign objective. For example, if you aim to raise brand awareness, you may use metrics like social media reach, website traffic, or market surveys. On the other hand, if your goal is to increase sales, then your sales figures will be a viable metric. Having an objective in mind will give you a straightforward direction and eliminate any confusion about which metric to use.
- Assign a timeframe. Specify a timeframe for your PR campaign so it’s crystal clear when to start evaluating its success. This will create a sense of urgency and push you to focus on accomplishing your campaign goal within the allotted time frame.
Final Thoughts
A PR campaign is a valuable asset that will allow your business to reach new customers, increase sales leads and generate profits. However, it needs to be done right to be effective. Measuring the impact of a corporate PR campaign is not a straightforward process. However, with the abovementioned metrics, you can gauge its effectiveness and make the appropriate changes for better results.
