Many people ask “how do you measure the success of a PR campaign?”, or “how do you reflect on the impact of a PR campaign?”

Unlike online advertising there is no specific analytics platform, however there are several methods that will help you to measure your PR campaign’s results. In this article I will guide you through some tips and advice to set your next PR campaign up for success.

To find out more about any of the below, or if you have any further questions – please do not hesitate to reach out!

Media Mentions and Impressions

You can use free tools like Google Alerts or professional media monitoring services to record how publications and outlets are using your media releases and how many times your campaign message has been mentioned.

It’s important to go one step further and check to see if your key messages have been included. How has your call to action has been presented and displayed? For example, have you run a core message in a series of outlets that have been published on a particular day? If the message is promoting an event, special offer or new product did you see an uplift in enquiries or sales following this key moment?

Web Traffic

Are you driving your campaign message to a site? Be sure to monitor your web analytics to see how the number of users and goals are completed over the course of your PR campaign. Are there any spikes that could be attributed to your communications strategy?

Social Media Mentions

When releasing your campaign material are you using a hashtag that can be easily related to your strategy? Do people, organisations and businesses know your social media handles so that they can tag you in their posts? If the answer to both questions is yes, this is a great method to track the success of your PR campaign.

When managing the communications strategy for National Road Safety Week I always ensure that we can monitor all campaign materials. In May 2021 our PR campaign results showed that we reached the Australian and global population more than 17 million times through almost 5,000 media articles and social media mentions.

Find out more about my work and further case studies in the media.

Stakeholder Surveys

Stakeholder surveys are an excellent way to measure the impact your campaign has had. Ideally, you would survey your key stakeholders before the campaign and then after to see if their perceptions of your organisation, your cause or their behaviour has changed.

Alternatively, you can establish a measurable call to action such as with National Road Safety Week where we ask drivers to take an online pledge to drive responsibility and never under the influence or distracted. In 2021, this resulted in more than5,000 pledges, which is more than 5,000 Australian drivers taking the time and making the effort to commit to driving more safely on our roads.

Setting Your Benchmarks

By using all the methods discussed in this article to measure your PR campaign, you’ll have the required analytics and statistics to set and beat your benchmarks for each communications strategy. Thus, giving you the ability to really see the success of your PR strategy.

Reach out today and let’s discuss how I can deliver your business a measurable PR campaign that sees the results you’re hoping for.