How to measure your PR and set up benchmarkable KPI’s

Let’s face it – measuring and putting a value on PR is not easy. Media monitoring tools and digital analytics offer ways of measuring and tracking data but turning press coverage into a comparable value and a measurable ROI is a whole different challenge. 

The new Barcelona principles 3.0 offers a new take on the media monitoring landscape and reflects a broader standard for measurement. The new principles focus not only on measuring the value of communication but also on what drives the continuous improvement of a company’s PR value. PR measurement shall focus on how you can reach your business goals and a more holistic approach is suggested, where social media also is included in the measurement. By setting the right KPIs, you will be able to track your PR activities and illustrate how PR contributes to your company’s overall business goal. 

Key Performance Indicators

There are different ways to interpret and measure the performance of your PR.

Impressions

Impressions express the number of people that are presented with news about your brand when you are mentioned in the media and therefore indicate the total reach that a particular mention gives you. 

Media mentions

Media mentions are counted as a mention of your brand or product in a media outlet, whether it’s online, print, or social media and evaluated on the quality of content. The number of times you are mentioned and the tonality of these mentions can be used to indicate if your audience is generally presented with a positive or negative brand story, this has a great effect on the value that the mentions and impressions represent for your brand and how it affects your brand reputation. Stories in media with an audience matching your own target audience “A tiers”, naturally present the message to a more relevant audience than an outlet with less similar readers. This also affects the value of the impressions generated from mentions in the different media.

The quality and effectiveness of the content can also be evaluated by the length of the article, and whether there is a brand associated image or logo in the article, or whether it is an exclusive mention or you are sharing the “spotlight” with other brands and subjects.

Another critical factor when evaluating the value of PR is the value of comparison. How are you performing compared to your competitors? How many mentions are there about other brands in the market and are they more or less positive than yours?  With insights about your competitors, you will get a better understanding of your market position and goal for future PR strategy.

PR strategy 

The questions to ask, regarding your PR strategy is, which audience do you want to reach – who do you want your PR to influence? This should correlate with your overall business goals and the type of reputation that you want to establish and nurture for your organization. This will help establish what media outlets you should focus your PR activities on (your A tiers), and if it’s more important for you to get fewer mentions in highly relevant media or many mentions on a broad, but less brand relevant, selection of outlets.  

Through insights about the number of impressions, media mentions, quality of content, and value of comparison, you can establish the value of your PR activities.

That summarized, KPI should evaluate your PR value, and this should be quantified and tangible. By comparing different markets and the performance in the previous months, last year, or across campaigns, a company will be able to evaluate, set goals, and measure the way PR contributes to the overall reach of business goals over time. This lets you see if the effort, time, and money that is put into your PR actually pays off enough to justify the spendings. 

KPIs with Hypefactors

In Hypefactors you add in your PR spendings, your goals for the different KPI’s and the platform will then automatically keep track of your progress and calculate your values. The Hypefactors Value gives you an indication of the value of your PR. Furthermore, impressions and clippings will indicate the reach of your content and the range of your earned media. 

Your most important media outlets can be marked as ‘A Tiers’ – this will then be accounted for when the Hypefactors value is calculated, ultimately giving a higher value than a similar mention in a less important outlet, this also lets you distinguish your important mentions from the lesser ones. Hypefactors also lets you differ between countries so that you can benchmark and adjust your efforts in different markets accordingly. 

Based on all the different factors, a calculated ROI can tell you how much value your PR generates compared to the money you spend on it.