PR Needs A Dashboard

Does PR even work?

Can you imagine a bigger punch to the gut than that question? But this is probably a question you are getting more and more, especially when your company is faced with the decision to invest money in public relations.

PR can be difficult to track but that doesn’t mean you should skip measurement in your PR practices. In fact, this might mean it’s more important than ever.  Below, we will walk you through the steps that allow you to qualify and quantify your results and ensure clients (and budget) keep coming back.

Dashboards

There are no silver bullets of PR but there are tools that can make it easier, especially when it comes to measuring success within PR and marketing. This is where a dashboard comes in. And we aren’t guaranteeing that a dashboard will solve all your problems but it will help you easily identify what is and isn’t happening which is an important step when it comes to improving and proving results.

Where To Start

When it comes to finding and creating the right dashboard for your brand you have to answer two questions:

1. What are your goals
2. How does your client/company define success? 

Question two is especially important because PR and marketing teams need to ensure their goals align with their companies. The way your company defines success is going to be completely different from a win in the PR department. C-level Executives will be looking at how PR impacts sales, leads generated and the bottom line. They aren’t going to be impressed if you know how many social shares your press release got but they will be impressed if you know how many of the shares turned into leads which created new business. You have to push your team (or client) to pick goals that aren't only relevant to PR but show the impact PR has on the company.

See, measuring PR is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to proving it's worth. Measurement provides the resources to do it and a dashboard puts it in a place that is easy to understand (and does a lot of the work for you). 

Once you can answer those two questions you are going to want to research the different types of dashboards available and what capabilities they each have. Some dashboards are very generic and some are super customizable but no matter what you pick they should allow you to do these three things below:

• Audit: What kind of sources can you add? Is it only social? Well, that won’t be too helpful saying PR happens outside of social. What about offline PR events? Can those be tracked? You need to decide what data you want on your dashboard and ensure the dashboard you pick has access to it. 
• Define: Everyone has different ways to measure the same things within PR and marketing- there are probably differing opinions on your own team. When you can define your metrics from the beginning you will also have an idea of what data is important to your team and ensure you are able to track that within the dashboard.
• Improve: Does your dashboard allow you to easily analyze? Data is important but it doesn’t mean much unless you can use it to improve business outcomes. Make sure the information your dashboard supplies is actionable, not just filled with a bunch of numbers that make you look good or have no meaning to you. 

What To Measure

Now that you know how to pick the perfect dashboard you must fill it with sources that your team can impact, measure and improve.

1. Track Company Press:  Make sure your dashboard is able to track and gather sources that are mentioning your brand. Take it a step further by putting a higher weight when certain industry insiders mention your brand.
2. Media Impressions: If the Wall Street Journal mentioned your brand how many media impressions would you have?
3. Content Analysis: What kind of content is being put out about your brand? What is the sentiment and who is saying it? Are you able to easily find these pieces? 
4. Website Traffic: How much traffic is your website getting before and after each campaign?
5. Leads Generated: How has your PR efforts influenced consumer decision making? Have sales increased? 
6. Brand Recognition: You have to complete research and track results before your campaign even starts. Make sure you send a survey out to see if your campaign market has heard of your brand before and send the same survey out afterward. 
7. Social Impact: You will want to measure and track everything social because a lot of PR happens on social these days. Understanding what is being said and by who should be a focus for your team. 

Wrap It Up

It feels like PR has taken a tad longer to warm up to data than marketing has but that doesn’t it's too late! PR’s data is more complicated but a dashboard can easily gather and generate insights for you and your team. Since a lot of what you do happens offline, tracking that can be tricky but not tracking it can make your role in the company become tricky. This is why picking and using the right dashboard is so important. I hope we have laid the groundwork for what you should be looking for and maybe even nudged you to make a move!

If you want to learn more about a dashboard that could be the perfect tool for your PR team then check out Converge here!