The success of a PR campaign is measured by much more than mentions – it’s about driving results for your business.
Let’s talk metrics and why some of them don’t tell the whole story. Big numbers look good on a dashboard and they’re even better to present back to your stakeholders. However good ‘Ten million impressions’ or ‘500 media mentions’ sounds, though, numbers without context are just noise.
Your brand may have been mentioned in 100 publications, but what if they were all tiny blogs that nobody reads – or what if they were all negative?
Let’s dive into how you can move beyond ‘vanity metrics’ and focus on those measurements that really move the dial.
The right journalists, the right audience
The first thing you need to ask yourself is: are your stories making it into the right publications to reach your target audience?
Whether that’s regional press or the nationals, you need to understand whether your placements are helping you connect with the people you want to speak to.
Once the publication is right, make sure the journalist who is covering you is a voice of authority, regardless of the desk they sit on. As publications slim down their staff, lots of journalists write about topics that are beyond their beat. You want an expert: don’t miss a trick by only targeting journalists within your sector.
Key metrics: publication reach, audience demographics, number of mentions.
Quality over quantity
It’s not just about being mentioned: you need to grasp the context of your brand mentions to understand your impact.
Want a quick litmus test? Ask yourself if you are the focus of the articles, or just a passing mention.
If you’ve got done the hard work to get lots of column inches, does it reflect the brand as you’ve positioned it? Does it work with the narrative you’ve built? And what’s the sentiment of the mention? Positive, neutral, or negative? The saying all publicity is good publicity is outdated: a ton of negative press shouldn’t be a win.
Key metrics: salience, sentiment.
Keyword penetration
Now, see if your campaign keywords are showing up in coverage – or are they just sitting in your press release?
Nothing screams ‘we nailed it’ like seeing your carefully crafted tagline echoed by journalists. You can monitor the frequency your slogans appear, and analyse the context – are they being reinforced or diluted in each piece?
If they aren’t filtering through, it might be time to regroup.
Key metrics: keyword occurrence, context relevance, media adoption of campaign language.
Share of voice
Looking at the bigger picture can show a lot about success.
Are you dominating the conversation or playing hide-and-seek with the press? If your competitor is out there racking up double-page spreads and you’re stuck with one mention in a newsletter no one opens, that’s a clue.
Share of voice (SOV) is about how much attention you are getting, both from journalists and ultimately, readers. And attention, as we all know, is the modern currency. As a metric covering volume, tone and reach, it allows you to identify opportunities to get your brand involved in the ongoing conversation, and lets you assess how well you’re doing compared to your rivals.
Track SOV over a long period, and it can be a smart way to benchmark the impact of your campaigns, and the progress of the business as a whole.
Key metrics: percentage of industry coverage, competitor comparison, how loud you are versus how loud you think you are.
The value of your coverage
In the end, exposure is not enough on its own: it’s about how it affects business outcomes.
Good reporting will move beyond pretty slides for the end-of-month deck, filled with high traffic rates (and high bounce rates, too).
You should be aiming to track how media coverage influences web traffic, conversions, and sales pipeline growth, to show which stories drive tangible results – and which don’t.
Key metrics: conversions, website engagement, lead generation.
How visible were your spokespeople?
Positioning your executives as credible industry voices strengthens your brand.
Tracking their expert quotes or bylines in relevant publications can give you a measure of their visibility. A good thought leader is one whose quotes move the story forward, not someone who talks a lot but says nothing. Don’t forget to assess the quality and influence of the placements – not just the volume.
Key metrics: spokesperson visibility, quote quality, thought leadership impact, media authority.
Social listening and public sentiment
Are you getting any authentic engagement for your campaign, or did it land with the same excitement as getting socks for Christmas?
Even if you’re flooded with likes and impressions, the metrics which assess real interactions on social platforms are comments, shares and sentiment.
Social listening tracks how your campaign is being discussed organically to show exactly how effective your work has been. It can also detect early signs of reputational risk or viral traction.
Key metrics: Engagement rate, sentiment analysis, share of conversation, social amplification.
Get someone else to do the heavy lifting
You get the picture, but you’ve got a day job to do, too, right? Managing all of this while keeping your campaigns running smoothly can feel like a monumental task.
That’s why Roxhill’s tools are built to do it all for you – so you can show your stakeholders exactly how important you are for the business, without breaking a sweat.
We can do custom metrics built around your campaign goals; track your share of voice; keep you organised with our smart folders. Plus, we let you send unlimited, free newsletters to the people in your business who count.
It’s all designed to make proving your value as easy as possible.
Why choose Roxhill Media Monitoring services?
With Roxhill, go beyond monitoring mentions. Get valuable data to drive your business forward. Track the success of your PR efforts with custom metrics and downloadable reports.
Why choose Roxhill Media Monitoring services?
With Roxhill, go beyond monitoring mentions. Get valuable data to drive your business forward. Track the success of your PR efforts with custom metrics and downloadable reports.
