In the changing landscape of PR, with a balance of traditional and digital tactics available to reach and influence audiences, how do we effectively measure campaign success?
In our latest video, our managing director, Rosie, and our creative PR manager, Elliot, dissect some of the most pressing industry topics and discuss the ways in which PR professionals and agencies can demonstrate value and deliver return on investment to their clients. They even managed to squeeze an Ab Fab reference in there – how fun!
Scroll just below the video and you’ll find some handy key takeaways too…
AVE (or advertising value equivalency) is the practice of determining the value of PR coverage by comparing it against the cost of advertising space. It is now a widely discredited method of measuring PR outputs; however, it is still one of the most widely used.
The issue with AVE is that it draws parallels between PR and advertising which are untenable. Putting a monetary value on coverage sees PR professionals oversimplifying the value of the work they do and doesn’t tell us anything about the real impact our work is having, such as how it’s received by audiences and how they’ve acted on what they’ve read, seen or heard.
Crucially, using AVE doesn’t account for the added value of gaining your position in a publication organically.
While securing coverage in national mainstream titles is always useful to brands, it might not be the best way to go.
It’s important to consider who you’re trying to reach and influence, and the kinds of publications they might read. An example we discuss in the video is a manufacturing client we work with, whose primary focus is on reaching key decision makers through landing themselves in trade publications.
For this client, which operates within the B2B engineering space, articles in niche industry journals are generally far more beneficial, placing the company in front of the people most likely to require their products and services.
What you’re aiming to achieve through PR activity should align, in some way, with the broader objectives of your business and feed into what you want to achieve at an organisational level.
This could mean many things – sales, increased brand awareness, behaviour change, or bums on seats at an important industry event – but it’s vital to view PR as a vehicle to organisational success, helping you work towards tangible and meaningful goals that support business development.
Nail down your business goals and your PR goals will follow…
Let us know if there’s a topic you’d like to hear us discussing next. You can do this by getting in touch with elliot@kenyons.co.uk
Want to learn more about influencer marketing? Watch our video discussion with Lorna and Clio here.
What you’re aiming to achieve through PR activity should align, in some way, with the broader objectives of your business and feed into what you want to achieve at an organisational level.
