thefunnel

Depending on the company PR can mean Public Relations or Press Relations, but in the context of this article it’s defined as trade press relations. Trade press relations have always been a “soft” marketing science, because the return of a PR investment is often not immediately fully visible, and PR like advertising often works in the background changing customer’s perceptions, rather than directly driving leads into the funnel. Having said this, there are many things that can be measured, and also digital marketing has added a new dimension to the measurement PR.

There are three parties in PR, the company, the subject matter influencers (editors) and the readers. The simplest measurement of PR is through the amount of coverage received in targeted media. A one level deeper metric is to also assess the type of coverage on some kind of “positiveness” scale based on being on message, or based on the type of coverage, such as case studies, customer testimonials, product news or awards.  Another metric is counting the amount of coverage, but then comparing this against the coverage for the competition. By doing this one arrives at something called PR mind share. Mind share is simply the amount of coverage received as % of total coverage (total being your + competitors) in your targeted publications for the products you compete. This metric can for obvious reasons be a hard sell if you’re a small one product line company, comparing yourself against a multi product line large company, due to brand halo effects. For PR in print publications the amount of PR coverage is sometimes compared to the equivalent cost of advertising for the same space, multiplied with some factor based on the notion that PR is more credible that advertising, but industry experts seem not have found an agreement if this is a good measurement or not.

Digital marketing and web 2.0 in particular have brought some new positive measurement practices for PR, and some new opportunities, but also some challenges. On the “what value does PR provide”, PR SEO with its potential to increase web site inbound link equity is a something that PR professionals should become familiar with. In addition, how much PR is driving web site traffic in general, can be easily measured, and if web site engagement activities are valued and also traced to its source, this can provide another way of estimating ROI for PR. The largest change for PR is probably the fact that the third part of the PR puzzle – the reader, who used to be a passive recipient (or probably not entirely passive but there was no way knowing what the reader thought,  has now also become a contributor through social networks, blogs, review and comment boards. This has completely changed the landscape of PR, and PR professionals now need to carefully monitor what is being said about them in numerous places, participate and respond as required. Companies are forced to move into the area of reputation management, whether they like it or not, depending on the type of discussions taking place.

This post might be a bit different to the ones than what I written before, but here’s a question for you all. In B-2-C, who is the stronger brand? The brand manufacturer itself, or the distributor of the brand (assuming it’s not the manufacturer)? There are plenty of articles about this topic (who has the power) and what tactics can be used to deal with it, but I thought this, my particular personal experience was interesting enough to bring up. At my work, I used to have a computer, brand X, that I was really happy with (it actually still works, but it’s a bit limited in speed and capacity). Then I got a new one, brand Y, because I needed an upgrade. Brand Y turns out to be a real disaster. Hard-drive failures, motherboard failing, sluggish, you name it, several times. Some of the software problems probably hasn’t anything to do with the computer itself, but every time I log on, what do I see. Not the operating system,or the network, or the virus checker, but yes, brand Y. So, brand Y is doomed. I will not recommend, actually, I’m an active detractor spreading the bad news, and I will never, ever, buy brand Y again (spending my own money), ever. And all this is confirmed by my organization, who has now signed up with brand Z. Anyway, I need a new personal computer (compatibility, need at least one non, you know), and it’s on sale at one of the distributors of brand Y. To my big surprise, I find myself considering the never, ever brand! Why? Because I trust the distributor, I trust their no questions ask return policy. In fact, I trust the distributor brand way more than the brand (Y) itself, go figure, to the point that I’m willing to take the risk, with my own money! And, I’m a marketing guy who should know better. I think this just shows the real power of the a brand, or  the brand of the carrier of a particular brand. How about that for a Porter’s Five Forces example? Or maybe brand Y was smart enough to even fool the most seasoned marketing guy. Only time and google  side wiki will tell. By all means, like to have some comments for a change.

One way to measure social media is through using NPS as a metric. Think about it. Social media is all about customers having conversations about your brand, and the ultimate question is, would they recommend your product, service or brand, or do they fall into the category of talking negatively about you? So if you track the conversations, and develop a way of rating these conversations, you have a metric. The metric is about your brand, the communication channel just happen to be social media. Combine this with some other marketing best practices, such as unhappy customersare each likely to talk about you with 10 other customer, which has a compounding effect on the negative conversations about you. Example. Let’s say your promoters % is 80 and you detractor % is 20, leading to an NPS score of 60%, quite good. However, lets now imaging that all the detractors talk to ten of their friends, therefore amplifying the negative message to 200%, while only two of your promoters talk positively about you leading to a a score of 160%. Suddenly your real NPS score has turned into a negative 40%. Using this math, you need 8 out of 10 of your customers to be a promoter, and a maximum of 1 out of 10 to be a detractor to hit a NPS of 60%. This really shows the power of social media, and the importance of customer satisfaction, and the importance of participating (by at least listening) and helping to create positive conversations. It’s could also be a way to determine what your social media strategy should be. If for example you have a really high NPS score, you need to go all out and capitalize on this. If your NPS score is low, and although you can’t control social media,  you need to consider a different approach.