It has always been challenging for PR professionals to put an exact dollar amount on the return companies receive on their PR investment. There is always the age old tactic of determining advertising value equivalents of press coverage received and how that translates into receiving a return the financial resources dedicated to PR. But, what about money in the bank? How do you know an article, promotion or any other PR strategy or result translated into actual revenue? Customers rarely, if ever, let a company know their purchase was based on a positive product review or article.
However, there are a few ways companies can at least get a good read on what they are getting back from their PR venture:
1. Return on impressions: How do impressions produced by PR activities drive behavior? You ultimately want your message to influence your audience to think and act in a certain way. You want to convey a message to your target audience that makes them aware of who you are and what you have to offer, especially if you want them to become aware of a new product or service. Once your target audience is aware, they will change their level of knowledge, understanding and behavior, which ultimately translates into sales.
For example, you spend $100,000 to announce and promote a $50 product, and you receive 1,000,000 impressions through print, online and broadcast media. Typically, it takes four impressions to make one person aware, so 250,000 people are now aware of your new product. If only 10% of that audience purchases your product, then you have received a significant return on your PR investment.
2. Media impact: You can also track media coverage against sales over time in various markets. This tracks patterns in sales by market and time frame and highlights what promotional tactics were being used so you can determine what is driving sales.
3. Audience influence: What type of outcome did you want to achieve with your campaign? How have you influenced your audience's attitude or behavior? Companies can use surveys to determine the level of change and understand if their audience understood, retained or attended to their message. After this activity, did a company see a change in audience attitude, i.e. does your audience now intend to purchase the product?
Obviously, getting immediate monetary return on your PR investment is ideal, but you can also realize significant return over time. With the right data and measurement tools in place, you can easily solve the the PR ROI puzzle and understand what you're getting back from your PR investment.
Data and information gathered from the Institute of Public Relations
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