Metrics vs Meaning: Measuring the True Impact of PR & Communications Campaigns

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:04

"What gets measured gets managed." So the saying goes, anyway. Turns out Peter Drucker never actually said that. And that may not be the best way of talking about measurement, because not everything that matters can be measured and not everything that we measure matters.

But for PR firms, communication firms, and internal comms teams, finding ways to count and measure the impact of campaigns remains a critical issue, even as platforms and the actual metrics themselves evolve over time. Abbie, what's on your mind?

Abbie Fink: 00:00:38

Well, that's exactly what's been top of mind recently, as we are always looking at valuing the role that a communications professional plays, whether that's with our clients, with our internal teams. And how do we measure our success? What are we looking at to share that this particular effort is considered successful?

I can remember when I was first starting out in the business and we presented a clip book. You know, we actually clipped out of the newspaper the articles that we placed on behalf of our clients, and we had some measurement activity that we justified against an advertising rate. And the higher the number and the thicker the clip book, the more successful we were.

And it had very little to do with what was actually in those articles or what was being said. It was just the mere fact that we had an article in the paper, looking back, that was a relatively naive way of analyzing ourselves.

And fortunately, that philosophy has changed over the years. But I think there is still and will continue to be a conversation about how do we measure success? What are we measuring in order to determine that?

And it will be a topic of conversation forever when you get a handful of PR professionals in a room about proving our value to our clients and such.

And in the third of the series that we've been addressing, the Cision and PR Week survey, the they looked at measurement, and when they launched the Survey back in 20 17, 75% of the respondents said, we can do better at measuring ourselves. And now Two thirds, or 68% now say we finally have the tools to do the work. I don't know that we didn't have the tools before.

I think it was more about what were we looking at and what the bottom line for me is, and I think for my colleagues as well, is our success has to directly be related to what the business itself is measuring as success. And how is what we do in communications strategy impacting those business goals?

Because if it's not, no matter how amazing that article in the newspaper is, it shouldn't be considered a success.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:03:09

Yeah, I find this fascinating because it's one of these areas where there's always a bit of anxiety, perhaps rightly so, because clients want to know is what we're investing in making a difference? Is it moving the needle? Is it accomplishing our objectives? And yet it's one of those areas where comms pros always feel like maybe we're not doing enough, maybe we could do it better even as the tools to do it evolve and get better and better.

And it reminds me a little bit when, when I was in graduate school I was deeply immersed in learning Arabic. And the thing with Arabic is you never feel like you're good enough no matter how advanced and sophisticated your knowledge is. It's such a rich and deep historical language that fluency, if you define fluency as being able to read anything anywhere that was ever written in this language, it's going to be very hard because that spans centuries and all the different technical vocabularies of different domains, et cetera. So you never feel fluent even when you're really, really good.

And this seems a little bit like that. There's always something elusive about measurement in part because the phenomena we are trying to measure is ephemeral. I mean we're trying to measure some of those things we can count share of voice and so on, but some of them. Does it change brand awareness? Well, there's different ways we might try to get at that question and different decisions we might make as a result of the information we collect. It's really not straightforward in the least bit.

Abbie Fink: 00:04:45

No, no. I had a client several years ago who had a pretty significant budget to run a campaign for a very high level strategy of high level project.

And it was one of those dream type clients. We had open space to do whatever we wanted. She was, you know, do what you need to do. Everything is amazing.

We did collateral materials, we did earned media, we did all these amazing things. We got the kind of news coverage that you only dream about, you know, front page of the Sunday Daily and the top story of the, of the nightly news. I mean it was amazing. We accomplished so much for them.

And we were about the end of the campaign and we're talking and we're so excited and we presented her with a framed copy of the article. I mean we were so happy with it. And she said, well yeah, it's great but nobody called and registered for our workshops. And it was a very big learning lesson.

When she said, I mean yes, the article was amazing, raised awareness, did all the things it needed to do. But in her mind the purpose of this effort was to get families in House to come and listen to presentations and such on the topic. And we didn't do that. There was nothing in any of the work that we did that actually resulted in that particular thing. The awareness was successful, but her measurement of the success would have said, we failed. Very important learning lesson.

Something I bring up all the time when we're talking about this, and we have to regularly have this discussion with our teams, but also with our clients, that whatever it is that we are going to do for you, whatever you are bringing us in to manage from a communications perspective, has to tie back to what you are doing to measure your business success. And it will vary from day to day. It will vary from topic to topic. And that should be a.

It needs to be an important part of how we develop our strategy. And it also needs to be something that we're continually asking, are we reaching those objectives? Have your business goals changed?

How does what we are doing now matter? And does it need to be adjusted or modified because something else outside of our efforts is changing?

And if we're not asking those questions, we're doing a disservice to our client, but we're also doing a disservice to ourselves because we will never be able to demonstrate our value if we don't know what we're being measured against on an ongoing basis.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:07:35

Now, in that example, had you known in advance that that's how the client was going to evaluate success?

Abbie Fink: 00:07:41

We never asked the question.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:07:43

Yeah, see, this is where I think this gets so important and so interesting, because it's really not about what can we measure, what do we have the tools to measure? We have all kinds of tools. We can measure all kinds of things. I think the critical takeaway from that example is we have to know what the client's going to count.

Abbie Fink: 00:08:03

Right.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:08:04

And then to the extent that it makes sense that there's alignment, sometimes you have to tell the client, hey, that's the wrong yardstick. That's, you know, a little bit like the old joke about the drunk outside the bar was on his hands and knees, looking under, looking around, and somebody says, "hey, what are you doing?"

He says, "I'm looking for my keys."

And the person says, "well, is this where you dropped them?"

"Oh, no, I dropped them over there, but the light's better over here."

Just because the light's better over here with some of the things we can measure directly does not mean that's where your keys are. Does not mean that's where you're going to find what you're looking for.

So let's talk about this because there is a two way street that's not really addressed here in the report. Everyone acknowledges measurement is critical and that we have tools to do it. But in every single client relationship, there is a coming to terms or understanding about what the objectives are. So having learned the lesson that you learned in the past, how do you approach this differently now?

Abbie Fink: 00:09:06

Well, sure. And you know, look, there are reasons that a client will want to engage with a public relations agency. And you know, a lot of times it's as simple as, you know, our competition is getting a lot of news coverage. We want to be, you know, in the media as well. Okay, that's great, but why do you want to be there?

What do you, you know, what do you perceive is happening? Because they're getting news coverage that you aren't seeing happen in your business. What do you believe will change if we do this?

And then what do you want to be known for? If we get this done now, we know we can get it done or we wouldn't be that far down the path with them.

But it's really, it isn't just about we want to be in the news or we want to be interviewed. It needs to be about what do you want to be known for and what will that do for your organization and your business structure?

If you get to be known for that, if you get to be recognized for that particular area of expertise, and this is a conversation that should be addressed at every meeting and every time you're about to embark on a particular project, if you are not addressing those key markers in everything that you're doing, you will not see that success. Now that's not to mean you aren't going to be successful.

I mean, yes, I can get those articles placed, we can get you interviewed, we can get you thought content, you know, all those things can happen. But if the client's need is not being met in what we're doing, then we are just getting news coverage for the sake of news coverage.

And there's so much more to what we do than just, you know, earned media. Of course, it's not always an easy question to get answered either.

And depending on where our relationship sits within an organization, if we're working with the Chief Marketing Officer or working with the PR director, and we're not necessarily a direct line to the CEO, what information is the CEO sharing with his line officers? His or her line officers, are they getting full information in order to then share that out with the partners? That are going to help them do that.

We don't always get to the top level, but we hope that the individuals that we're interacting with do have that access and do get that piece of information.

It is our responsibility and I think it is what we should be expected to share with our clients is if we don't have this information, we can't proceed in an organized, strategic fashion for you and get you what you need to see a return on this investment. Because we all agree that what we bring to the table needs to be seen as an investment, not an expense.

And if we aren't able to show that return, it will be difficult to value what we do and see a long term play if we want to keep this relationship going.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:12:12

Now, there's some interesting data in this report on page seven. They dig into the details on data and analytics. They actually ask firms participating in the survey, are you relying on data and analytics more than ever? And specifically what are you using data and analytics for?

And I think ... I could be wrong, but I think that there's a little bit of not walking the talk represented in these numbers. And let me tell you my interpretation and then tell me if you agree or disagree. Either one is valid.

First of all, more than 90% said yes, they are relying on data and analytics more than ever. Okay, great. So this is important, and everybody agrees that this is important when asked to specify what they're using data and analytics for.

I think we're seeing the light better under the lamppost phenomenon happening here because the top three are audience targeting, ROI measurement, and media targeting, which are things, by the way, that happens in numbers. So those are representative numbers, things that we can count. We have tools to track audience and media targeting.

ROI measurement is a little bit indirect. It goes through the CFO. But we can put our heads together and say, okay, are we seeing a change in revenue as a result of the campaign? Fine.

But look at what's at the bottom of this list. Strategy formulation is the lowest one at all. People are not using data and analytics to formulate the strategy of the campaign.

They're using it after to track some things that show up, but they're not using it before. And the second lowest is proving communications value to the C suite. Now, I think if you asked most people, why are you? Why do you do measurement or analytics? Most of them will say what you just said. We need to show to leadership that their investment matters. But we're not using data and analytics to do that, apparently. So there's a little bit of a disconnect. What are your thoughts on this?

Abbie Fink: 00:14:09

Well, and to the extent that, you know, these numbers then jive with the other half of this equation, which is, should we be measuring? What are we measuring? How are we measuring it is a little bit counterintuitive. I mean, just look, I don't think that we...

Proving communications value to the C-suite is our goal. Like that's what communications professionals want to use data and analytics to be able to do. We want to be able to say, here is what we set out to do, this is how we did it, this is the analysis behind it, and here's our value.

Organizationally, they may be using data and analytics to think more about who are we targeting, are we making a good investment here, who should we be using, what media outlets should we be using? So I see these in tandem a little bit that the question is how are communications professionals using data and analytics?

And then how are we helping our clients use that information to make good strategic business decisions? And then that loops back around again to those business decisions being incorporated into what we're doing.

It's an interesting development, I think, and over, you know, I can't really say that it's, it's never been part of our, our conversation about, you know, what, what are your goals and expectations for your business? I think we've always asked that question.

I'm not sure that there's always been a direct connect between why we might be in the conversation to impact those decisions.

But if you put out, you know, if you think about it in a variety of different contexts, you know, nonprofit organizations who are constantly in a fund development mode are looking to raise awareness, are looking for support, providing support in the community. They need awareness. In order to do that.

They make a direct link from how much people know about the organization to how much they're willing to donate. We can apply some of that. Similarly, maybe in the retail space, right?

There's that many people walking through the door because they saw this particular advertising campaign or promotion on social, they reacted and are here.

Where it gets a little bit less direct is in that business to business environment, brand reputation, where there's not a product or a service specifically, but an awareness, a reputation, a thought, leadership, positioning. And to get to that stage and figure out how we will measure it is where the tricky part comes in.

And we all in this role as counselors to our clients or to our internal audiences need to regularly be asking this question is what are we looking at and how are we going to look at it?

Adrian McIntyre: 00:17:20

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I have two follow-up thoughts to my original thought, which I just thought while you were talking.

And one of them is that these percentages would probably look very different for a different type of marketing or communications firm. So performance marketing or an advertising agency would rely on these types of data analytics in a very different way.

It's probably also true that this may reflect the number of staff positions assigned to these things, with a larger number of junior staff handling some of this very sort of mathematical kind of quantitative analysis of the audience, targeting the media, targeting and so on. They can pull the reports, they can, you know, do the, put together the spreadsheet, etc. Collect it, report it.

And there's a smaller number of team members who are having these executive level conversations. You know, the principal or the account lead talking directly to the C-suite may be why there's less, why they're relying on this less because there's simply less people doing it. So if you just looked at the firm through the lens of, well, how many people are we paying to handle data and analytics?

Far fewer of them are talking to the C-suite directly. So maybe that's one way to interpret. I'm reading a lot into the numbers here, but trying to be generous in doing that.

I think what you said about the unattributable, uncountable, unmeasurable aspects of this are where some of the most valuable forms of communication impact actually lie. And that's why I personally think sometimes we get very misguided when we get too caught up in having to create a graph or a chart to show the impact of something as opposed to what we know moves the needle for human beings.

There's a parallel conversation that's been happening in digital marketing around a phenomenon called "dark social." And really all that means is we're seeing revenue that we can't attribute to anywhere else. So we assume now it's coming from this. I think dark social is a silly phrase, by the way, because all it really means is something we can't put on a spreadsheet.

The things humans do when they talk to each other, when they make recommendations, when they text each other, you know, on their phone, as opposed to click a link that shows up in a click through rate, you know, measurement somewhere.

Dark social is just another word for human beings recommending things they like to other human beings in the way they always have, which is conversation, right? Informal and so on. And of course that happens around significant purchasing decisions as well.

Of course people are talking outside of the realm of what's trackable about campaigns, about brands, about the issues that matter to them, about products that they like, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So to a certain extent, we also have to make peace with the fact that we're just not going to be able to show you a bar chart for some of these important things. In the world of SEO, it's really quite similar as well.

We're seeing increasing number of direct searches, meaning somebody just goes to Google, types in the name of the company and goes directly to their website. And the question is, well, how do they even know to do that? Where, where did that come from?

And the answer is all the other places that you know it didn't. In other words, it didn't come from a search result. They didn't say what's the best PR firm in Arizona?

And of course, we have our own opinions about that. They didn't get a search that led them to HMA Public Relations. They literally just typed HMA Public Relations into Google and went directly to the website. They knew to do that because of something that we can't measure because we can't see. The light's not that good over here, but that's where the keys are!

Abbie Fink: 00:21:22

You've brought that into the conversation now three times. That's pretty good. But it's right. And it's why a good campaign strategy has multiple ways of sharing information. Because we don't know what's going to move the decision, what's going to trigger that conversation to happen.

We talked about things like trust and employees as brand ambassadors in some previous episodes. And that fits into that same thing is I learned about something. You ask me my opinion, I share it with you. You don't ask me necessarily where I learned about it. You trust me, you pass it along and you tell two friends and you tell two friends and magically everyone knows. So that word of mouth communication is valuable regardless of the industry that you're in. And you're right, it's more difficult to measure. It is not because it shouldn't be. It just is more difficult to put some, you know, parameters around it.

I have this conversation with my SEO consultant all the time and you know, we'll get my monthly report and it'll be up one month and down another month. And I'm, you know, y and this. And he said, yeah, but how many new business calls did you get?

Okay, well, he says, does it really matter if I can't show it on the dashboard that that call came because they clicked here and went here, or the fact that they actually reached out to you. All right, but if I'm looking at it from well then why am I paying if I can do it another way? He says, well, you could, but unless you ask the question of that particular query, how did you find out about us? You'll never know.

And the pretty good chances that they were referred and they were referred by someone else who read an article, saw you at an event, whatever it is, and as you said, went directly to the search bar and just typed in my name as opposed to looking up PR firm in Phoenix. All this is to say is that regardless of what you're measuring, we need to be measuring. We need to have clear goals and strategy.

We need to have what the expectation of the business is for the effort that they're investing in. And when we are developing campaigns and messaging and implementation strategy, we have to be aligned with that and cognizant of that.

So down the line, when we are asked to report on success, we know what the client will be measuring us against. We will understand from them this is what's important to us. This is what we want. This is how we will know that this was worth doing.

And it may not always make sense and it may not always be feasible with the work that we're doing.

But when we are doing a better service to our clients and the in house teams that we are supporting, when we regularly and consistently ask the question about key business goals, objectives, what is it that is going to be your measure of our success and align the programs that we're developing to help them achieve that. And then, and only then, I think, do we be able to prove our value. We know we're valuable, but we know we have to oftentimes demonstrate that value.

And it is only going to be when we have this opportunity to go back to what was important to them at the outset and how what we did impacted and made a change in that organization.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:25:18

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Copper State of Mind is brought to you by HMA Public Relations, the oldest continuously operating PR firm in Arizona. The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm in Phoenix, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona.

For all of us here at Speed of Story and PHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks for listening and for sharing the show with others if you choose to do so. We hope you'll join us again for another episode of Copper State of Mind.