subject: Measuring Your Pr Success [print this page] Ive said this before, but evaluating a PR campaign based on sales or rate of return isnt the proper way to measure whether your campaign and efforts are a success or not. PR doesnt work like that; its a long-term investment and when done right will increase awareness of your product, service, book or expertise, to your target audience. This doesnt mean skyrocketing sales right away.
Lets look at ad equivalency. Say you land a placement in a popular newsstand magazine. You may have paid a publicist or spent your own time scoring this placement, but you didnt pay the magazine to feature you in its pages. But what if you had? How much would it have cost you to buy an ad in the same magazine?
It wouldnt have been cheap and it wouldnt have the same effect as the placement either. Why? Well, what PR does that no ad can do, is build your credibility. Its basically an implied endorsement from the media outlet that you have the goods and their readers should take notice. A placement is worth 3 to 10 times that of an ad because of the credibility factor!
So what about the bottom line? Well, PR isnt directly about increasing sales or profit. Its about the increasing the intangibles the credibility, awareness, word of mouth and buzz that combine with all your other efforts to help take your business to the next level. So if you sit down and figure out what youre committed to achieving and how you can utilize PR to help you reach your goals, youll quickly learn how valuable and vital PR will be to you and your endeavors.
