If management has not already cut your budget, be prepared to “prove it or lose it” soon. This report will help you think through your measurement strategies, and either fine-tune an existing program, or get one started post haste.
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8 Great Tips for Smart Media Measurement
In Today's Economy
The Leader in integrated Media Intelligence Solutions8 Great Tips for Smart Media Measurement
In Today's Economycial Media
By:Angela Je?rey, APRVice President Editorial ResearchVMS
If management has not already cut your budget, be prepared to "prove it or lose it" soon. The following tips willhelp you think through your measurement strategies, and either ?ne-tune an existing program, or get one startedpost haste.
But before we give you speci?c tips, we need to put them into perspective by encouraging you to measure only whatyou really need to know. Here is a quick process to get you started:
Five-Step Process to Set up Your Measurement Program
1. De?ne organizational goals, and identify which ones can be most readily a?ected by communicationsstrategies.
2. De?ne audiences of importance to reaching these goals, and prioritize ? since rarely can a company a?ord todo them all at one time.
3. Set very speci?c and measurable PR objectives for your selected audiences.
4. Determine how you will measure each, with what tools, and benchmark at the beginning of your program.
5. Measure continuously, and adjust your programs accordingly, to maximize impact.
Please note: true public relations measurement involves much more than media measurement ? which falls into the?rst level, called measuring "Outputs." A truly e?ective program will also measure "Outtakes" (did anyone hear,understand or consider my message) and"Outcomes"(did anyone act on my messages), which are measured throughother techniques. Okay, on to the Tips.
The Leader in integrated Media Intelligence Solutions1 Decide if your immediate measurement needs are "Proof of Performance" or "Real Business Intelligence."
a. Proof of Performance measurement means you can simply measure against your own media coverage overtime or against the objectives you've set for yourself above. This is a good way to evaluate your own work andto identify key strategies and tactics for improvement. However, seeing "real" business impact may notbe possible.
b. Real Business Intelligence demands measuring against competitors to gauge real standing in themarketplace. For example, you can score 100% in key-message delivery, but if your competitors are deliveringtwice as many stories with 100% of their key messages, your e?orts will not be adequate. This is riskier, and mayreveal results you don't want management to see, but the data is invaluable, and relates directly to the bottomline. (See "Exploring the Link between SHARE of Media Coverage and Business Outcomes; available atwww.instituteforpr.org.)
2 Measurement is only as good as your monitoring, so think carefully through the following:
a. Comprehensive Monitoring is critically important for Proof of Performance, when you really need to accountfor every clip you have generated. The more comprehensive services, like VMS, specialize in broadcasttelevision and radio, print, online and blog collection, with leading edge technologies and solutions such as aproprietary digital network for both TV and radio creative, proprietary closed captioned system, and speechto text technology deployed in support of radio monitoring. Because closed captioning and speech to texttechnology is limited in its capabilities, VMS also uses human monitoring that allows for the capture of visualsand other references that can account for more than a third of the news coverage often missed withtechnology-only solutions. If you are comparing speci?c metrics year over year, you probably don't want tocome up short. Tool like VMS' RealTime broadcast monitoring solutions provide comprehensive access to itsentire broadcast database, but you do the search work yourself.
b. Sampling is a good alternative when the budget just won't stretch far enough. With sampling, you choose arepresentative subset of your media sources. Sampling is especially relevant when clip volumes are very high,which is sometimes the case with competitive analysis. For Proof of Performance, you can compare just thesemedia sources to prior coverage or attempt to estimate the portion of total media coverage represented bythe sample. For competitive analysis, if you apply the same sample set to all competitors, you get an applesto apples comparison that provides signi?cant insights.
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