Jeweller - December 2020

BUSINESS
Marketing & PR
How to evaluate your PR and marketing
strategy on a limited budget
It is critical to measure the success of PR and marketing campaigns – the challenge
is doing so in a cost-effective manner, writes WILLIAM COMCOWICH.
A large budget makes it easier to
obtain substantial media exposure
and measure the results of PR and
marketing. But most businesses don’t
have millions – or even thousands – to
spend on media measurement.
Most non-profit organisations, start-ups
and small businesses generally have
limited resources for PR and marketing,
and especially for PR measurement.
Even many large organisations rely on
shoestring budgets for media monitoring.
The following approaches can help those
with limited funds affordably measure
their PR and marketing.
Selecting the right goals
When it comes to marketing and PR, set
goals that are easy to measure. These
could cover lead generation, increased
sales, or positive media mentions in
certain publications.
The more specific the goal, the easier it
is to measure.
To find meaningful results, make sure
more general PR goals are linked to
business objectives and can be measured
accurately and regularly.
As Kathie Green, director of marketing
at mobile advertising firm TapSense,
explains, “It is important to set and
meet your quantifiable press-coverage
goals every quarter, to ensure you
stay focused on creating great content,
raising awareness for your company,
and getting return on investment from
your PR efforts.”
Many PR teams tend to track and analyse
more data than they need.
Review your metrics periodically to
eliminate outdated and unneeded data
– many are obsolete or unhelpful and
consume precious time and energy.
Focusing on just a handful of key metrics
can bring clarity and save time.
The rule of thumb is to use data points
that show how the PR campaign helped
Dive into the data to find out if your campaign is reaching its targets.
attract customers or potential customers,
boost sales conversion, or support other
business objectives.
The first data points to go should be
‘vanity metrics’, such as numbers of
Twitter followers and Facebook likes.
These are easy to report and boost
the ego, but they don’t materially help
improve business results.
Instead, businesses should focus on
how these metrics increased sales – for
example, how many followers shared
links to your website or clicked through
from an Instagram post.
Mara Conklin, founder and president
of Clarus Communications, advises
businesses to look beyond traditional
media metrics to find ways to
meaningfully and affordably
measure PR success.
“Because good PR positively impacts
attitude and perception, it’s okay to
look for ‘soft’ measurements that really
contribute to the company,” she writes.
Ultimately, it all comes down to one
thing – does the metric help you make
decisions? When you see the metric, do
you know what you need to do?
When it comes
to marketing
and PR, set
goals that
are easy to
measure. These
could cover
lead generation,
increased sales,
or positive
media mentions
in certain
publications
Saving time and money
One of the most cost-effective methods
of measuring the success of your
marketing and PR strategy is to use
data you already have.
If one goal is increased traffic to the
website, examine web analytics for longterm
traffic trends, such as the number
of returning visitors, time on page, and
the most popular pages.
Social media platforms also typically
report engagement levels, the number
of followers, and more.
However, keep in mind their limitations;
social media platforms often include
analytics that are designed to encourage
continued use of the platform, rather
than offering useful data.
Other services may not provide the full
scope of information that your business
requires – for example, Google Alerts is
not reliable as a media monitoring tool.
Consider using a dedicated low-cost
media monitoring tool instead.
Marni Zapakin, vice-president at PR
research firm Ketchum Global Research
& Analytics, says, “While no tool is
perfect, tools today leverage web crawling
technology that scrapes the internet for
comprehensive media tracking of online
news and certain social channels.
“You can integrate external data to
have everything in one, easy-to-use
dashboard,” she adds.
The bottom line is that small businesses
and organisations can now measure
their PR and marketing efforts without
spending huge sums by focusing on the
correct metrics and using an effective
monitoring tool.
WILLIAM COMCOWICH is is founder
and acting CEO of Glean.info by
CyerAlert. Visit: glean.info
62 | October 2020