Contemplation takes priority for businesses before investing in public relations. Consider questions like; what impact will this have on my business? How will I track its success rate? Is it worth investing in? The impact of PR on business success rates is not all that easy to calculate. There are no designated methodologies or metrics in which one can accurately measure the impact of PR campaigning.However, living in the digital age has its perks as it brings with it a flurry of new techniques through which we can track the effectiveness of campaigning and ensure it is generating a return of investment.
Here at MediaHQ, we have devised 7 strategies you can consider applying to your business. These methods will work miracles for you with their ability to calculate the level of success and benefits that PR is lending your business.
Content Analysis
When looking for success in your PR methods, content cannot be forgotten. Monitoring the quality of the content you are distributing could be the difference between an increase or decrease in your success rates. What kind of content do you want to release? In what way is your product being portrayed and what light does this shine on your company? What kind of message do you want to be portrayed and how will you aim this at your target audience? These are all important questions to ask before beginning your campaign. It is crucial for your press coverage to contain valuable content for its viewers to remain interesting. The content of your writing has the ability to hold your product to a higher standard.
Keyword Rankings
While assessing your PR methods, it is understood that tags are an important aspect of press coverage that must be thought through meticulously. It is a well-accepted fact that the first three keywords will receive the majority of clicks. Therefore, choosing tags can play a crucial part in the outcome of the campaign. These improved keyword tags can lead to a better organic search result which in turn will retain customers.
Web Traffic
The calculation of your website’s traffic before and after the launch of your PR campaign can prove to be a helpful tactic in your calculation of the overall impact it's having on your business. Having a visual representation of the spikes in site traffic can offer an answer to your itching question “does PR work?”. However, the amount of traffic your site invites is entirely dependent on the quality of your content. Good quality content is one traditional advertising strategy that has never failed to generate a higher engagement. This method of measurement allows PR agencies to determine the level of success the campaign is offering while also giving you the ability to verify whether or not your content and services are reaching your desired target audience. Monitoring and reporting on web traffic is seen as one of the best and most employed methods of measuring your company’s ROI from campaigning efforts.
Sales statistics
Generally, the initial impact of PR campaigning is not substantial to begin with, but it works better when given time to take effect. You will see a slight increase in statistics each month thanks to your investment and given the opportunity it can generate significant sales over time. It is crucial for your campaign to resonate with your target audience as they are the main objective. If this is not working it would seem necessary to revise your PR strategies and identify what may be hampering your success in sales performance.
The power of social media
Social media is an underestimated power in the world of business. Be it media mentions or customer engagement, social media holds power many of us never expected as it is now a successful marketing strategy for almost every company around the globe. Social media allows agencies to report on a variety of things such as impressions, reaches, reactions, shares, links, clicks and leads. If increased, these metrics ensure that your PR methods are working and your efforts are not unjustified. However, with great power comes great responsibility. When managing a company’s social media accounts, many aspects come in to play when looking to succeed.As its influence continues to grow rapidly, it is essential to have entertaining and valuable content in order to win your audience’s attention online.
Incorporating strategies to ensure your press coverage appears in the most appropriate feeds is another method you can use in your favour. Your conversation should be focused on the product across all platforms. Understanding your target audience and their interests will give you the upper hand and the ability to alter your product and content to meet their desires. This, in turn, will give you the potential to design your PR campaign in the most effective way and figure out whether your message is resonating with your audience.
Surveys
Surveying your target audience before and after the launch of your PR campaign can be used as another tactic in measuring their awareness of your brand and finding out how they came upon it. If interest, awareness and eventually sales statistics increase after the campaign release, this will help your company assess the question of whether PR is worth the investment or not. It is clear that an increase in statistics or inquiries after your brand will help you determine the popularity of your content, your audience’s awareness and whether people have a clear-cut interest in what you have to offer. This also gives you the opportunity to ask the public how they came across your brand as well as ask customers their thoughts on your product. This advice will help your company determine what methods are working better than others as well as identify and study loopholes in the system to improve future campaigns.
Media mentions and impressions
This media monitoring service offers a method of calculation to track the number of times your brand has been mentioned in media content. Your customers will be able to view these media mentions to their own accord and recognise your popularity. In this way, a well-executed PR program can directly contribute to sale leads. Receiving a large number of mentions acts as another method of measuring your campaign’s effectiveness in raising your brand’s awareness among the target audience.
Another similar method is media impressions which similarly can track the number of impressions your company has received. Comparing the number of media impressions before and after the launch of the PR campaign would be a good indicator for a company evaluating the impact their digital PR program has on the company overall. If your press coverage is issued in a publication, your brand will receive an impression from the total circulation of the publication. Additionally, these impressions can help an agency understand and visualise how frequently your post is being viewed.We hope this variety of marketing tips will prove profitable to your company in determining the effectiveness of your PR campaign.
The presence of strong public relations can allow your business to flourish and raise sales in ways you had not envisioned. However, the highly debated topic of measuring campaign success remains a difficult task to pursue. The fact that there are no dedicated tactics to measure the impact can sometimes make the job of generating new ideas and methods quite tedious and time-consuming. However, successful PR practices can give your business the ability to acquire new consumers and retain existing ones.
Research is paramount in tracking a PR’s success and is an important part of the business to quantify the results of PR efforts to produce for clients. This gives your business the chance to branch out and discover new, more effective ideas to trigger sales and raise your company’s performance.
About MediaHQ
Designed for PR and Communications teams, MediaHQ is the all-in-one media contacts database and press release distribution software with the mission to connect your story with your audience.
It was founded by entrepreneur Jack Murray in 2009. Our cutting-edge software is the best, fastest and most accurate way to find the right journalists, build media and pitch lists in seconds, send press releases and get results.
The comprehensive MediaHQ database lists the details of every journalist, and media outlet in the UK and Ireland and is full of time-saving features.
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