Documenting The Business Outcomes

Editor's Notes

1. This group of authors, all members of the Institute for Public Relations’ Measurement Commission, has developed this presentation to help practitioners document the relationship between public relations activities and business results. It is part of a broader effort to showcase the critical role public relations plays in driving business performance.
2. Public relations outcomes generally fall into four buckets, which are often interconnected. The authors recognize that public relations may effect businesses in ways not found in these buckets; however, these four cover most possible outcomes. We also recognize that public relations is used for purposes beyond those that directly impact an organization’s business; this work is focused on public relations’ role in achieving business outcomes and verifying its true relevance as a marketing and management discipline.
3. Our fundamental goal is to change how we talk about what public relations accomplishes. Instead of meaningless catch phrases, such as “create buzz” or “drive stakeholder relations,” our approach focuses on identifying meaningful expressions of business performance, suggesting more appropriate measurement metrics and recommending proven tools for demonstrating how those metrics were impacted.
4. Before choosing metrics and measurement approaches, you must write objectives. If you don’t know where you are going, it will be hard to determine if you’ve arrived. Answering these four questions creates objectives that can be measured. Much of the rest of this presentation focuses on the “what” and “who” parts of this goal-setting. We also provide approaches aimed at “how much” and “by when.”
5. We’re asking public relations practitioners to help professionalize our field by increasing the use of business terminology in discussions of what public relations “does.” Stop talking about public relations in terms such as “buzz” and “clips.” Instead, conduct the conversation in the language of business. What follows are the ways that public relations affects business and proven approaches to measuring them.
6. Here we see how public relations affects financial performance, whether it be sales of a company’s products or donations to a non profit. But, public relations also can make a company’s marketing more efficient through better audience targeting and less costly approaches to reaching audiences. Public relations also can help an organization weather a crisis, avoid catastrophic loss and protect its reputation.
7. Measuring how public relations affects business performance is about finding and measuring linkages; when did the public relations campaign occur and did sales change or stock price vary over the same time period, for example. And in the case of efficiency, look at spending before and after. Crisis avoidance is the toughest to measure, because it is often about what didn’t happen. Look for similar examples of companies that did not avoid the crisis.
8. A huge role for public relations is improving reputation, image or brand equity. The results of doing so are listed here.
9. Measurement of reputation change is most often done by survey. Good surveys include questions that allow one to isolate how public relations activities are moving the needle. It’s all about linkages, most often uncovered through statistical analysis. Yet, one also can simply tie data on total press coverage (e.g., traditional and social) to a host of consumer or other behaviors toward a company. Remember, it’s all about linkages.
10. While we talk about employees in these next two slides, we’re really referring to a broader set of internal publics, such as contractors, business partners and organization members. Basically, it’s about creating a stronger bond between an organization and its internal publics through the skilled public relations practitioner’s efforts. Those bonds create better business results.
11. Remember, it’s all about showing where public relations activities occurred and how things changed. Matching data and linking outcomes to communications is the key. That said, remember that quantitative, representative results are best obtained through surveys or hard data, not through focus groups or more qualitative approaches.
12. Public relations affects public policy usually in the form of public affairs activities. The result is a change in the realm of political, regulatory or legislative outcomes. From a company’s perspective, it’s how those changes affect the bottom line.
13. Measuring public relations’ effects on public policy changes can be quite easy or very hard. For example, there are many publicly available surveys from news organizations, foundations and academic institutions. On the other hand, surveying legislators is next to impossible, where even if a survey is completed, it’s probably been filled out by an intern. Consider using influentials as a proxy for legislators, since that 10 to 20 percent of the general public usually leads public opinion and policy change (see “The Influentials” by Ed Keller and Jon Berry for a better explanation.
14. Knowing where you’re starting from and defining meaningful change is often the hardest part. Your goal is to find good data on your own company, others, industry benchmarks, etc. Many organizations collect useable information for this purpose, but it’s often in a different department, such as market analytics or advertising.
15. Here are some very rough estimates of measurement costs. There are a number of companies who can quickly provide quotes.
16. There are a number of good resources to help you get started. Public relations measurement is a fully developed field. There is no reason not to measure the business outcomes from public relations.