The agency and the client must establish clear, measurable criteria for evaluating a campaign’s success. It is essential to define realistic expectations upfront while also planning to manage unforeseen outcomes, such as unexpected public interest or heightened awareness. A public relations (PR) agency plays a critical role in a broader communications strategy, but it is just one piece of a complex program. For instance, an agency may successfully drive millions of visitors to a website; however, the organization could face financial losses if the site crashes during the traffic surge (a real example). This highlights the importance of alignment between PR efforts and the organization’s operational capabilities.
We once ran an environmental stewardship campaign for a private sector group in response to a request from a high-ranking public official, who was the target audience. The program reached her directly through public radio and other communications. In this case, we hit the bull’s eye.
Had we generated tens of thousands of Facebook likes but failed to reach the department’s director, it would not have been considered successful.
Success or progress can be measured in both quantitative and qualitative ways.
Concrete Measurements
Concrete measurements entail quantitative metrics that provide hard data on the performance of a campaign.
- Media Reach: Analyzing the reach of your media placements can help you visualize how many individuals encountered your material.
- Website Traffic: Utilizing analytics tools, track the number of visitors to your website, page views, and the average time spent on the site post-campaign launch.
- Engagement Rates: Social media data, including likes, shares, and comments, offer a yardstick to measure audience interaction.
- Sentiment Analysis: Undertaking a sentiment analysis can reveal the perception of your brand in the public domain, distinguishing between positive, neutral, and negative sentiments.
Anecdotal Measurements
Anecdotal measurements embrace qualitative feedback, personal narratives, and experiential insights garnered during or post-campaign.
- Testimonials: Soliciting testimonials from your audience can provide firsthand accounts of the campaign’s impact, offering human narratives of its success.
- Case Studies: Developing case studies based on individual or corporate experiences during the campaign narrates a story of its reach and influence, encapsulating personal journeys and transformations.
- Feedback and Reviews: Gathering reviews and feedback paints a picture of the audience’s perception, which, when positive, echoes the campaign’s success.
- Media Coverage: While media coverage can be a quantitative metric, the qualitative aspect of the coverage, including the tone and narrative style, speaks volumes about the campaign’s resonance with journalists and influencers. In some cases, it can be better to get less press delivering key messages than more press that doesn’t tell the story you want to be told.
Be sure to discuss metrics in the early stages of your relationship with your agency, which may have other suggestions about measuring progress and success.
