We once belonged to a networking group which ended meetings with each business owner sharing their goals. I once declared, “I’m here to make more money.” The room erupted in laughter. I inferred companies sometimes feel awkward stating this objective and instead fall back on the latest lingo.
Companies ultimately want to know if public relations can bring more business to their brand. Some businesses see the intrinsic value of PR increasing brand awareness and engagement during an on-going basis. They hear the benefits by word-of-mouth from clients and prospective ones. Sometimes PR’s objectives are not financial. The goals can be to improve reputation, boost customer relations and raise community awareness. However, the ability to measure PR’s impact on income is a continuous debate. This discussion often includes talk of integrating Google Analytics and social media insight tools.
We sought additional insights beyond the anecdotal particularly because some data-driven companies without PR experience automatically default exclusively to advertising. At our request, we asked a PR client to share income data with us. We provided PR services for the company for four years. During this time span, our multifaceted plan included:
- Creating editorial and content calendars
- Earning news media coverage, which can improve SEO
- Writing contributed articles
- Posting on social media three times a week with high-quality articles, tips, custom graphics and fun facts
- Sharing a digital newsletter every two months with useful information and customer spotlight stories
- Improving the company’s overall website experience
- Applying for business awards
- Getting speaking engagements
During our four years of work, the business’ total income nearly doubled. While it is virtually impossible to measure PR’s exact impact on the company’s increase in total income, the business owner believes the impact was significant, once stating we have “done a tremendous job in keeping [the company] visible and has been the major contributor to our growth the last few years.”
Companies also can attempt to measure PR’s values by, for example, monitoring if earned news coverage coincides with spikes in web traffic and sales qualified leads.
The focus of this article is to persuade business owners married to traditional advertising to reassess their position and for businesses already employing PR to fully appreciate its benefits. Despite challenges, you can measure PR progress and then put thoses insights into play.
We no longer provide PR for the company that nearly doubled its total income. The owner sold the business and retired. We like to think PR is the unthought of retirement plan.
