Housevalues' senior director of marketing describes how the net can boost PR's use as a DR tool in a meaningful and measurable way.

For years public relations professionals have struggled with how to effectively measure the value of their efforts. As a former agency guy myself, I’ve seen first-hand how PR executives and clients alike test different means of measuring ROI from public relations activities -- everything from clipbooks to message consistency, awareness to website hits.

A recent study by Delahaye audited the PR expectations of executives in a broad cross-section of corporate America, asking them to rank various PR value measurements based on whether they were meaningful and/or reasonable. For example, clip volume was seen as reasonable, since it’s so easy to count, but not very meaningful. Direct sales as a result of PR was seen as exceedingly meaningful, but not particularly reasonable.

But can that be true? Should we have no expectation that PR can directly lead to sales or customer activity in a meaningful and measurable way? 

Can’t PR be used as a direct response tool with measurable value?

Marketers have to solve this challenge, and forward-thinking PR executives already are. That same Delahaye study showed that well-planned, and well-executed, PR strategies can deliver an ROI up to eight times the initial investment -- far more than traditional advertising. And this measurement was based not on clippings or message consistency, but on sales.

So how do you create PR activities that deliver real and measurable value for your business? How do you turn PR into a direct response channel?

It isn’t easy, but here are a few tips to get you started:

Make your message relevant, targeted and unique

This seems like a standard tenet of any marketing strategy, but too many public relations efforts are surprisingly off-target. Just because it doesn’t cost much money to write a press release doesn’t mean that the release (and hopefully broader outreach strategy) shouldn’t go through the same rigor that your best-laid television ad campaign goes through.

Think about whom you are targeting with a particular PR message or activity, what you want that target audience to do, and whether your message, value proposition and or request are unique in the marketplace. Uniqueness can go a very long way, and will significantly optimize your response.

Focus first online

Take that focused message, and look first to proving the value of PR through online channels. Get your story written in online publications, blogs, wikis and other channels relevant to your products, customers or industries. 

Whether you’re able to track pure clickthroughs or simply watch the volume of redirects to your site increase from PR-driven online placements, the internet and other digital marketing channels give a far more immediately measurable place to get some “quick wins” when trying to measuring immediate PR value. You can leverage those more immediately and accurately trackable efforts to gain the go-ahead for similar tests via offline PR channels.

Make them an offer they can’t refuse

Do your PR efforts currently promote your business or product, without ever asking your target audience for their business? Why not include an offer and call to action in your press release? 

Ten years ago this might have been a bad idea since press releases went exclusively to, well, press. But today, direct press release readership is extremely high -- thanks in part to the internet, corporate websites, email news alerts, proliferation of search engine usage, blogging, RSS and more. Many of your targets will read your story from the press, but many more will read the story as you yourself initially wrote it. That’s free media.

What’s more, don’t forget that the press wants to tell readers, viewers and listeners how to take advantage of your product or service. By including a phone number, email address or similar call to action in a press release, I’ve seen countless news stories include the very same call to action.

And when you include calls to action unique to your PR, that’s very measurable.

Repetition is a good thing

One press release likely isn’t going to convince your executive team to turn over the keys to the budget kingdom. It also likely won’t on its own move the needle. Just like advertising, repetition is important to build momentum in the mind of your target audience and with press.

And don’t forget that repetition within the same channel can quickly become monotonous and even annoying to your audience -- be it press or consumers and sales targets directly. 

Diversify the channels through which you tell your story. If you’re collectively using press releases, contributed articles, blogs (both your own and comments posted on others), print and broadcast outlets, et cetera, you are accelerating the visibility of your message and offer.

Isolate how you track PR from other marketing efforts

Do everything you can to isolate the performance of your PR activity from other marketing activities in the same market, via the same channels or to the same audience.

That way you know that any activity on the part of your target audience can likely be linked to your public relations efforts.

And remember -- measuring PR isn’t about measuring every PR effort ever. It’s about proving that PR has direct value to the bottom line. Once you’ve proven, for example, that broadcast PR can deliver greater value and response than the same amount of money or time spend on straight television advertising, you will have the ability to run both at the same time -- accelerating your rate of sales or customer activity at a more efficient, cost-effective level. Smart public relations strategies will help you get more value out of your other marketing channels as well by adding an extra layer of credibility and awareness.

Set the right expectations

Make sure you don’t train your organization or your executives to expect the entire value of PR to be direct response related. Public relations is one of the most leveraged opportunities in a marketer’s toolbox primarily because it has the ability to drive significant credibility, momentum, influence and thought leadership for any company. 

The fact that it can also be more directly measured on an ROI basis should make stronger investments in PR even easier for everyone.

Matt Heinz is senior director of marketing for HouseValues, Inc. Heinz joined HouseValues in 2002 and is responsible for managing the company’s strategic marketing direction and brand development initiatives. Heinz has more than 10 years of consumer and business-to-business marketing experience with technology, real estate and retail products. Previously, he spent five years at Microsoft where he was responsible for driving marketing and business development efforts for MSN. While at Microsoft, Heinz built several successful customer acquisition and retention programs that are still used companywide today.

Before Microsoft, Heinz led a team of marketing professionals at Weber Shandwick, a global PR firm, working on accounts for several technology and real estate clients. Heinz has also held marketing positions with The Boeing Company, The Seattle Mariners and the Washington State Attorney General’s office. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Washington.