Presentation by Libby Howard of Intelligent Conversation, Rick Guttridge of Smoking Gun PR independent measurement and evaluation consultant Steph Bridgeman on PR Measurement

1. The Measure of Success
#amecmm #ciprnw

2. The Measure of Success30 September 2015
What we will cover
• How to keep measurement front of mind
when pitching for, briefing with and
retaining clients
• Incorporating measurement into award
winning case studies
• Embedding measurement techniques
across the organisation, both agency and
client side
• Measurement on a limited budget

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Measurement: why bother?

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The good news
• 88% always or sometimes measure/evaluate comms work
• Only 12% do no form of measurement
The challenges
• 46% still use AVEs
• 75% think the PR industry is not good at measurement – but 100% agree it
is important for our future (and 76% say it’s crucial)
Sample size: 16 respondents. 50% work in a PR agency, 31% in-house, remainder student/other
Results of audience poll

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#1: It can will bring you more income
“We will move more money from paid
for the right ideas.
We want a newsroom.”
80%
20%

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#2 It gives you influence at the top
“You cut through in a business when you use the language of business, not the
language of communications and marketing.”

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#3 It is essential for our survival
“In the future there
will be two kinds of
agencies, those that
measure and those
that don’t.”

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Still not convinced?

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Industry context
• 2010: launch of Barcelona principles (AMEC)
• 2011: PR Week bans AVEs from award entries
• 2012: CIPR bans AVEs from award entries
• 2014: launch of social media metrics (AMEC)
• 2015: launch of Barcelona principles 2.0

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Our story
• Proud of PR as a complex and professional discipline – NOT ‘fluffy’!
• How could we demonstrate that?
• Project with independent expert
• Basic measures, dashboard

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• Clearer thinking (what does success look like?)
• Celebrating success (targets reached)
• A clear end to a piece of work
• Scary at times but also exciting
What difference did it make? Team

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What difference did it make? Clients
• Agency is seen as confident,
professional, transparent
• Success is clearly evidenced
• Dashboards make the client look
good internally
• Impact at CEO/board level

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What difference did it make? Agency
• Supports a distinctive positioning – strategic, professional, high
standards
• Awards success
• We have won more work from existing clients
• Has moved us into digital and built skills and income here

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Practical advice

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measurement + innovation = transformation
(Cannes lions)

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What clients say
“We need more Likes
than our competitors!”
“What difference will
these followers make to
our bottom line?” “Success will include a
DPS in the Daily Express
because our CEO’s
parents read it.”

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What we've done
• Banished AVEs at launch
• Won CIPR award for Best Evaluation - metrics
inc. Eyeballs per £ spent
• challenged clients for more information - sales
updates, brand tracking etc.
• require google analytics access as standard
• Tried (and ditched) many tools to help us -
there’s no silver bullet, I promise you

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• IPA effectiveness awards
• Big Chip Digital Awards
• PPC - invest £ and expect £ back
• Media buying - what coverage by target audience
- frequency etc.
• DM - “Dave who lives within 2 miles of a derelict
pub is most likely to need our loan”
Learning from other disciplines

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5 barriers to great evaluation
• Client apathy (they don’t know what they don’t know)
• Lack of clarity on the really important data
• Paralysis by fear
• Ostrich syndrome from the PR leaders (in-house or agency)
• YOY comparisons (the stick to beat you with)

21. The Measure of Success30 September 2015
10 things to measure & analyse when pitching
• Link volume / authority
• Share of media voice
• Influencer audits
• Social media account comparisons
• Content analysis
• Net promoter scores
• Brand tracking
• Audience behaviours inc. media consumption
• SERPS around brand and key product

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• A phrase of unknown origin describing the use of
statistics to bolster a weak argument
• Could very well be describing PR measurement
during my career!
• The Pritt Stick and scissors days!
“Lies, damned lies and statistics!”

23. The Measure of Success30 September 2015
Data overload

24. Website ranked
c 104 in the world!
5m+ unique visitors
a day (avg newspaper
circulation 1.6m weekdays,
212k on Sundays
Average reader
age 28 (newspaper
62)
Story voting has been a
roaring success (inspired
new Facebook feature?!)

25. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/stats/inde
x.html

26. • What to measure?
• 1 x national hit?
• Reach - 5m+ uniques a day?
• Number of comments?
• social shares?
• messaging?
• Photo galleries
26

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5 top tool tips
• Markettiers - test audience sentiment to coverage
(online)
• NLA Article Impact Checker - how many people
ACTUALLY went to that page, shared via social,
reproduced article elsewhere etc
• Youtube videos - look at how many people actually
watch ALL the film
• Facebook video views beware NAPOLEON Syndrome
re your figures
• coveragebook.com

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• Persil Washing Up Liquid- Cook With
The Kids:
o Net Promoter score
o Propensity to buy post campaign
• Silentnight - Sleep Expert:
o Share of voice, 8 x more media
coverage than key competitor
o Agreement with statement that SN
is the UK’s Sleep Expert - compared
to last period
• Red Bull Harbour Reach
o Red Bull Gives You Wiiiiings

29. The Measure of Success30 September 2015
• There’s a lot of good PR work going on, use
measurement to establish yourselves as GREAT
• Always being focused on the right results is imperative
• An award is not the most important thing!
Winning awards

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A view from the measurement
industry

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How many content metrics can you spot in the article from the handouts?
Practical facilitated by Steph Bridgeman

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10 items per hour
Half an hour per chart
Crunching the numbers

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Final thoughts

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• Even major corporations still at quite early stages
• Start small – doing something is better than doing nothing
• eBAY: “done is better than perfect”
• Fail fast – if it doesn’t work, try again
Don’t be daunted

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• Libby

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Barcelona Principles 2.0

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• One size will never fit all, but there are lots of
resources to help you
• Keep it simple: outputs, outcomes, impact
• Think about what you can measure (and don’t forget
social media)
• Ask your client for data
#1 Find or create a basic framework

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• A small project is the perfect starting point – beginning, middle and end
• If you’re worried try it ‘blind’
• Learn, refine
• Then train your team and roll it out
#2 Try it out

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• Make your evaluation look good
• Invest in professional support if you can
• Push your client to consider e.g. tracking
research for major projects
#3 Invest

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• Less is more, C-suite want information on a page
• Focus on insights
• A useful technique: summarise the campaign aim
in a sentence
• “We believe that by doing X we will achieve Y”
And finally… keep it simple

46. The Measure of Success30 September 2015
• www.hypestat.com
• http://amecorg.com/barcelona-principles-2-0/
• #measurepr Tweet chat Oct 6th 5pm (12-1 ET)
• https://prstack.co/#/
• moz.com
• http://www.google.com/analytics/
• https://monitorbacklinks.com/
Helpful resources

47. The Measure of Success30 September 2015
• AMEC’s Evaluation https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WVHY3FF
• (Bottle of champagne up for grabs)
• CIPR evaluation – see handout
• Questionnaire from us – see handout

48. Libby Howard – MD at Intelligent Conversation
@LibbyHoward
@weare_ic
libby@weareic.com
Rick Guttridge – MD at Smoking Gun PR
@rickguttridge
@smokinggunpr
rick@smokinggunpr.co.uk
Steph Bridgeman - Independent evaluation specialist and provider of
agile freelance teams specialising in monitoring and measurement
@stephbridgeman
stephbridgeman@googlemail.com

49. Next event from Lancs Group:
Facing the Future – where are
PR and journalism going?
Edge Hill, 3rd November