If there’s one question that PR Pros hate hearing (myself included) it’s: What’s the ROI of PR?
The reason we hate it is because you can’t measure the immeasurable; you can’t measure the impact that your brand is creating, or the relationships that you’re establishing, or the reputation you’re building.
Last week I was on a Zoom call with one of my clients when the topic of mushroom coffee came up. The brand in question had no idea that we were talking about them, nor do they know what influenced us to buy from them. They can only see us at the point of sale because we weren’t already in their sales pipeline, following them on social media or on their email list.
ATTRIBUTION OF SALE
When you’re using multiple platforms to track leads, you can only see where a lead has entered the funnel, not necessarily what originally influenced them into the funnel in the first place.
Sounds like a head fuck, right?
Well, it is 😱
Let me break it down for you: My purchase could have been made because I’ve been following them on social media and one of their posts reminded me that I wanted to buy their product.
From that post, I clicked on the link in their profile and went through the checkout process.
So, would you attribute this sale to Instagram, because that’s how I clicked through to their website, or would you attribute the sale to the website, seeing as that’s where I paid for the product?
In this instance, neither of those answers is the truth.
The sale was originally influenced by word of mouth, and that word of mouth recommendation was originally influenced by an article that my client had read in the Sunday Times.
But here’s the kicker: the article in the Sunday Times isn’t easy to track because it was published in print, not online, therefore there’s a reliance on readers of The Sunday Times to visit your website directly, or find you on Google, or choose to follow you on social media before they decide to buy.
Once you’ve captured their data it’s easy to track how they engage with your content, but you can’t say for sure where they originally discovered you. It may not have been the point at which you’ve seen them enter your funnel.
WHY INVEST IN PR?
If you can’t track the effectiveness of PR then you may be questioning why you should invest in it in the first place.
The thing is, instead of focussing on what PR delivers in terms of ROI, you should be focussing on what you want PR to deliver, then agree on how you’re going to track or measure it (if it’s measurable.)
Say one of your goals is to book more podcast interviews. These are great for visibility, raising your profile and connecting with the audience, but those aren’t metrics you can measure.
However, what you can measure is how many people visit your website after listening to your podcast episode.
To do this, you can either rely on Google Analytics to provide this information, OR in your call to action at the end of the interview you can:
- Offer people an incentive to join your email list, or
- Ask them to follow you on social media and message you with a keyword so that you can send them something linked to the podcast episode.
This could be the link to a free resource like an ebook or digital download, or even a discount code. All work really well.
By doing this you’re able to track how effective that podcast has been in generating leads.
The same applies to speaking on stage.
It’s great for visibility, for raising your profile and getting your message ‘out there’ to the right audience
But unless people in the audience actively choose to message you, or follow you on social media, then how can you track the effectiveness of that speaking gig?
Again, it all comes down to what you’re offering in your call to action to get people to sign up to your freebie.
(Oh, new followers on social media don’t count as leads, FYI, so if you do gain new followers you need something in place to encourage them to sign up to your freebie.)
ARE PODCASTS AND SPEAKING GIGS CLASSED AS PR?
Yes. Yes they are.
You may not have realised because so many PR specialists (myself included) tend to focus on media coverage as PR.
But PR expands further than just the press – it’s any platform that positions you in front of their audience.
While we’re at it, here are other things that are classed as PR:
- Podcasts
- Press
- Public Speaking
- Publishing a chapter in a collaborative book
- Delivering a masterclass or workshop to your audience
- Delivering a masterclass or workshop to other people’s audiences
It makes sense if you think about it….
….Public Relations is all about communicating with your public (or audience, or prospects, or whatever word you use to describe those you want to work with)
All of the tactics listed above enable you to do that. Aside from delivering masterclasses and workshops to your existing audience, all the others revolve around earning attention.
You have to earn your spot as a podcast guest, or to have your expertise quoted in an article, or to deliver a keynote speech on stage.
You have to demonstrate why YOU are the person they should let loose on their audience.
You can’t just rock up, declare that you’re amazing and have opportunities land on your lap, it’s not that easy, unfortunately!
You can absolutely do this on social media and in your marketing activities though, which makes up the S (shared media) and O (owned media) in the PESO Model, which you can read more about here
ATTENTION and AWARENESS LEADS to SALES
As you’ve probably gathered from reading this, it’s not the PR tactics you should be measuring, but the outcomes of those tactics.
But before you can track the effectiveness of those tactics, you need to know what you’re tracking in the first place.
Are you tracking website visitors? If so, how will you know if a podcast did drive traffic to your website, bearing in mind that not everyone will listen to your podcast on the day that it’s been published.
Are you tracking sign-ups to your lead magnet? If so, are you asking people where they first heard of you? Or are you creating a specific link for each piece of PR so that you know exactly where leads came from?
Are you tracking followers on social media? If so, how do you know where they came from? Are you sending a personal message to every new connection to ask, or are you telling them to message you with a key word in your call to action?
Being interviewed on podcasts, being featured in the press and speaking on stage aren’t quantifiable in terms of measuring their success.
If your initial aim is to ‘be everywhere’ then the focus should be on how many podcast interviews you can secure, how many articles you can be mentioned in and how many guest expert slots you can secure on stage or online.
If this is you then chances are you’re not too fussed about measuring the ROI of PR – but you soon will!
THE ROLE OF PR
The role of PR is (and always has been) to position you in front of your ideal clients, to share a message that will galvanise them into taking action.
It’s the ACTION they take that can be measured and tracked, NOT the PR tactic.
It’s another reason why PR, Marketing and Social Media shouldn’t be used on their own to drive the growth of your business, because each one plays a different part.
Used together and you can effortlessly create a lead generation machine that really does work while you sleep.
Ready to seamlessly integrate all your visibility tactics into one, streamlined strategy that delivers results?
Then click here to book a call with me and I’ll talk you through the PR Strategy Day that will help expand your business without breaking a nail.
About Laura Perkes:
Laura Perkes is a PR Specialist, Communications Consultant and the Founder of PR with Perkes.
With a degree in Public Relations and Media Studies and 20+ years of on-the-ground experience, Laura published her first book ‘How To Get PR’ in 2022.
Laura works with creative, diverse and innovative founders, entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs who are looking to raise their profile, build authority and create an earned attention eco-system that consistently contributes to the year-on-year growth of their business.
