A question that PR professionals have dealt with and some are still struggling with their Client” Does PR Really Work”. We all know the answer that it’s a strong Communication and effective tool in today’s complex environment. Stakeholders, decision-makers need assurances that their brands’ PR investments will generate a good ROI and they should communicate the same to TOP Brass. It’s not easy to answer or quantify PR impact overnight. We have devised several ways to measure the effectiveness and impact of PR campaigns for our Clients:

One way to gauge your success is to track the amount of press clippings that mention your company or products and services. When you receive a large number of mentions in target media outlets, your PR program is successfully raising awareness for your business.

Another method of assessing your PR efforts is to calculate the number of media impressions for a given period. Multiply the number of press clippings by the total circulation of the publication in which it appeared. For example, if The Wall Street Journal mentioned your company and it has a total circulation of two million, you achieved two million media impressions.

In addition to the quantity of articles and impressions, companies evaluating the impact of their PR programs should monitor the content of the articles that are published. Quality matters over Quantity. How many key messages of your brand are mentioned in an article? Is your company being portrayed in a positive light? In case you get your key messages right, company is portrayed positively across stakeholders. For sure PR Works!!

Another way to determine the effectiveness of PR investments is to measure the amount of traffic your website receives before and after launching your campaign or after an important Event. Sales leads often come from calls-to-actions listed on your website, so analyzing increase in site traffic can help answer whether your PR efforts are working.

A well-executed PR campaign directly contributes to sales leads, but it’s difficult to determine when press coverage triggers sales. To know more if your PR efforts influence your clients’ decision-making, simply ask new customers how they heard about your company and its offerings.

Research is paramount to tracking a PR campaign’s success. Before starting your PR campaign, survey your markets to see if they’ve heard of your brand and offerings. After launching your PR strategy, survey your markets again to check whether awareness statistics are trending up.

Yet another metric for measuring the impact of a PR campaign is social media mentions. Social media measurements should also focus on conversations about your brand, as well as social communities in your industry. If social media mentions of your brand increase after launching your PR program, you can stop wondering “does PR work?”