A recent article in PR Week covered the AMEC Conference and the issue of measurement in PR. While the article tackled the lack of clarity around effective measurement in PR, criticising the meaningless PR jargon that surrounds the issue, it still lacked clarity around some of the simple forms of measurement that are available to all sizes and types of company. Measurement that doesn’t involve the CEO, sitting around the boardroom table and complicated methods of evaluation that involve co-operation from a multitude of departments within an organisation.
That type of measurement is unrealistic and dare I say it, a little optimistic in the world of business analysis. Rather, we should be providing more management information to allow the board to make strategic decisions around their marketing. So, in today’s digital age, it amazes me that so many PR professionals are missing the opportunity to genuinely add value by measuring PR effectiveness against web activity.
Today’s web analytics can provide genuine evidence that PR is working and driving business leads to your organisation, which at the end of the day is what most organisations ultimately want PR to do.