Wisely, most businesses and brands today expect an ROI to be attributed to every expenditure. Since the value of PR is often far less tangible than a direct sale, this has long presented challenges. Many PR firms have developed various formulas and approaches for showcasing the ROI of their efforts, but we know that there are accepted “gaps” in the quantifiable, readily-available metrics …most significantly in radio media coverage. This is due to the fact that most broadcast media monitoring services only include between 100 – 300 of the over 15,000 radio stations in the US. They feel they have no option but to simply accept only the mentions from the top news/talk stations in the largest markets.
We have always found this perplexing, since we know so well just how much brilliantly structured strategy, PR acumen and down-and-dirty hard work goes into PR campaigns. When you or a team has put so much in to doing something the absolute best way, we can only imagine it has to be disappointing to have meager metrics to apply, particularly if a campaign is state or regionally focused. Even if your task is monitoring for positive and negative sentiment in the marketplace, we know there are regionalized flare-ups, which are missed without a comprehensive listening tool.
We were excited to read a recent article from PR News entitled, “How Tech Tapestry Can Work for PR Measurement.” In this article, they speak to an idea introduced by Zach Silber, chief innovation officer, managing director at Kivvit.
Silber believes the “tech stack” will soon become “tech tapestry,” because of how tools and data are integrated.
“To build a tech tapestry, you need to start out with a recognition that no single tool is a silver bullet,” Silber says. “There is no PR or ad technology that can do everything, certainly not well. Building a tech tapestry means you have to be just as focused on a product’s limitations as its core capabilities. Knowing what a product cannot do is incredibly powerful, not only for building your tech tapestry, but also for educating internal teams and clients…Transparency is key to successfully scaling data and analytics within an organization.”
We highly recommend the article. Not only is it interesting and enlightening, but it showcases the thinking behind services we have delivered to so many clients who already subscribe to a monitoring “platform.” These clients aren’t willing to accept anything less than a complete picture, whether it’s campaign monitoring or brand mention/sentiment monitoring. Many of these PR professionals have clients with strong regional focuses or who are discussed on radio stations outside of the news/talk genre. By using National Aircheck’s services, they can cost effectively assure that every mention is captured and can be addressed and presented in whatever way makes sense for the circumstances.
We have often wondered how PR professionals present broadcast impact and metrics when they know they are only capturing a small portion of the buzz that’s been created. We would love to better understand how you’ve tackled this ROI for the radio portion of your campaigns in the past. Please leave us a comment so that we can better understand the various ways media monitoring is used and presented, particularly as it relates to ROI.
