Please Kill The ‘PR Isn’t Measurable’ Myth
February 25, 2013 
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Semil Shah recently shared a post on TechCrunch on the value of PR. Most of our readers here don’t need to be persuaded on this, so the post isn’t likely new territory for you. However one bit from the post deserves a response (emphasis mine):
…the work of public relations, or “PR,” is the dark art that’s impossible to measure, the craft of indirectly encouraging or persuading the crowd to seemingly engage in organic chatter about something, to somehow become a natural part of an ongoing conversation that, over time, incepts the audience to become, somewhat unknowingly, evangelists for a certain point of view. It’s Don Draper with a splash of Dominick Cobb.
Perhaps Semil has had the unfortunate experience working with a PR firm that didn’t deliver a results dashboard or even include metrics / goals in their agreement. But as I’ve noted in previous posts, data is everyone’s domain and all specializations of marketing and PR can get to conversion.
We’ve also shared several posts on web analytics for PR, many smart analysts have developed PR dashboards, and people like KD Paine continue to push the industry to measure what they do. There aren’t excuses here not to measure both activity with results. If I reported measurable digital marketing and PR KPIs and outcomes while on the agency-side for more than 6 years, so can your brand’s agency, consultant or in house professional.
If the value your PR delivers is questionable this is the fault of the people working on your PR program, not the specialization (which is quite potent). We have the tools and talent to develop a measurement process. We can educate stakeholders (either clients or internal managers) on what digital metrics mean. We can create goals that push our teams. We can develop our analysis skills to understand what PR tactics work best and how to improve them. It’s simply choosing to do it and be an accountable public relations professional.
image credit: Shutterstock
Sydney replied | Mar 4, 2013 (3 comments)
I completely agree. The only reason this myth persists is because some PR professionals get lazy about evaluating the work they produce for clients. Reporting appropriate ROIs for campaigns is becoming crucial since in-house PR practitioners are being seen as counselors to top management. Educating PR students on how to evaluate and measure success will be an important part to shaping the future of the industry.
Madeline Kruger replied | Mar 17, 2013 (1 comment)
I think it’s very interesting that there are ways you can measure how effective PR is in creating a buzz for a product. It is extremely important for companies to be able to measure their success. Facebook is now enabling companies to see just how many people they have reached, which just goes to show you how measurable this data really is. My only questions is, how reliable is the measurements that are made? Just because Facebook can produce an estimate regarding how many people have seen a post, doesn’t mean those people have taken the time to read the post, or have gotten anything out of it.
Madeline Kruger: Tulane Student
Dave replied | Apr 9, 2013 (2 comments)
Great post Adam.
If PR is not being measured it is either because the PR agency isn’t doing its job or the client hasn’t put enough focus in their brief and budget on evaluation.
Evaluation can be done and can be done quite easily in some areas, in others it needs to be budgeted for and plans.
For example, it can be relatively easy to show awareness metrics using online tools especially if you are using your website to centralise communication efforts.
Measurement and evaluation of behaviour change and education objectives require deeper research and budget.