KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog

Another good way to measure success -- stop it

That's right, stop what you're doing. In down times we're always under pressure to cut budgets, but that is in fact a great way to measure the effectiveness of your tactics. For example, a year ago, we were spending over $1200 a month on Google adwords but had no idea whether it was really helping us bring in qualified leads. Sure, we could tell it was driving traffic, but was there any real ROI in it?

Yes, there are lots of variables, like the key words, style and content of the specific ads, that can influence effectiveness. But across the board we saw no drop in traffic whatsoever, and, more importantly, no reduction in leads. In fact, by  blogging and tweeting more often, we've doubled traffic across all of our sites and according to Leadlander  the leads we are getting are actually more qualify.

Now obviously if I had to pay someone to spend an hour or so a day blogging or tweeting the ROI calculation would be different, and obviously my time isn't exactly "free," but as a way to test the effectiveness of one of our marketing efforts, it's pretty clear that the ROI isn't there.

Another good measure if your objectives is sales leads

My friends at PARC introduced me to LeadLander a very cool tool that tells you not just how many people are visiting your site each day, but where they are coming from. Every morning I get a list of the companies that have visited my site, which tells me a great deal about who I'm attracting. it also gives you the search terms that they are using to find me. The daily report looks like this:

LeadLander Daily Report

TODAY'S TIP: View contact info by clicking on the link to Jigsaw in LeadLander.

 

	Pageviews		Company		Most Recent Visit		Search Terms
	12		NORTHWAY FINANCIAL AND ITS AFFILIATES Berlin, NH, United States		11/19/2009 9:02:07 AM
	5		COMCEL GUATEMALA S.A. Guatemala City, Guatemala		11/19/2009 11:16:21 AM		transparency measurement
	4		KDPAINE-&-PARTNERS,-LLC Berlin, NH, United States		11/19/2009 9:01:24 AM
	2		Canandaigua Wine Company Constellation Brands Rochester, NY, United States		11/19/2009 4:47:20 PM
	1		Risk Management Services T2 Secondaries Louisville, KY, United States		11/19/2009 9:55:46 AM
	1		Keller Williams Realty Intl Austin, TX, United States		11/19/2009 6:52:18 AM
	1		General Electric Company Fairfield, CT, United States		11/19/2009 8:03:23 AM

Prices start at $1900 a year and if you develop a system to follow up on these visits, it's well worth it.

Guess what these pictures have in common?

True confession time. I've gotten so many compliments on my outfits of late, I decided it was time to come clean with my source.   

Yes, all these pictures were  taken at various speeches I've given in the last few years, but there's one other element they all share. They all came from my favorite boutique, which should be called

"La bonne volonté" but is, in fact,  my local Goodwill store. Now, in the interest of transparency, Goodwill is a client of ours. But I was a big fan of Goodwill long before they became a client. I just realized that as I'm trying desperately trying to reduce my carbon footprint, one way I could do that was not to buy yet another piece of clothing that was manufactured in China or Honduras and traveled god knows how to my local Macy's. I think of it as recycling chic.

If you know your labels, and as the daughter of an edit

or-in-chief of Harpers Bazaar I better --- you can score some amazing deals. Nothing makes your day like finding a $500 suit for $19 and then finding the shoes to match for $5. Most of these outfits cost less than $50 and the most expensive element is probably the earrings. 

Goodwill is yet another in a long line of non-profits that is effectively using social media to change and upgrade its image. And, as it happens, one of our recommendations to Goodwill was that they needed to use visuals more in their social media efforts. I decided I better practice what I was preaching.

Mamma Mia, I love Sweet Scoops

Warning, if you're only interested in learning more about social media measurement, come back on Monday because today is Saturday, and I'm taking a day off from measurement to just write. I'm staying in a friends gorgeous apartment overlooking the Oyster River (it's for rent by the way if you're looking for a to-die-for place on the Seacoast of NH) . Remnants of Hurricane Ida are making today a classic rainy fall day, and the notion that I have two whole days with nothing on my agenda is inspiring me to write. I've spent the last two weeks on the road at amazing conferences, talking to really smart people and needless to say have a lot to write about. But before I get to that... there's what I'm calling the Mamma Mia post.

This should probably be on the Sweet Scoops blog, but since they haven't started it yet, here goes. First of all SweetScoops is what I call "the No Confession Confection" -- a creamy wonderful frozen yogurt that tastes like really rich premiuim ice cream but has half the calories.  So when I'm feeling like I really need to indulge my sweet tooth, I pick up some of their Ginger or Mudslide or Blueberry and feel wonderfully self-indulgent, but not nearly as guilty as I normally would.

Which got me, a wickedly lapsed Catholic, thinking about guilt and indulgence and all those decisions we make every day that seem to be all about achieving some balance between the two. Normally, when I have a bunch of writing to do and I have 5 hours on a cross country flight, I'll whip out my computer and write like crazy until I run out of battery power. That's what the "good" Katie Paine would do. The "bad" Katie Paine would watch Mamma Mia the movie. A movie with no redeeming intellectual value, but with a bunch of music I adore.

So last week I had this conversation with my friend Pam that took place while I was making my annual batch of apple Thyme jelly:

Pam: "Why can't I grow time"

Katie: "That's an incredibly profound question"

Pam: "Not really, I plant it every year and it never comes back"

Katie: "That's even more profound. What would happen if it did? "

What would happen, I wondered if somehow the time you "Spend" could actually be redeposited in your life. You wouldn't have to make nearly as many decisions.

Philosophers and parents might lead you to believe that  life is made up of big decisions, but life is really made up of a continuous stream of tiny choices that somehow become the story of your life. I live in a world where, in order to achieve a bit of balance,  I am constantly shushing the  voices of the Puritans, the Catholics and the other guilt mongers I grew up with, and just take a break. But if you could "grow time" you wouldn't have to make those diminutive decisions. You could actually have a time for everything in the season.

• A time to indulge in desert and a time to "eat healthy."
• A time to watch a movie  on the flight home, AND time to plow thru 300 emails.
• A time to read that "bodice ripper" AND time to read a report.
• A time to listen to all those podcasts of "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me AND a time to return all those phone calls
• A time to the green house AND clean the bathroom
• A time to feed your funny bone watching all those Jon Stewart episodes you tivoed AND time to feed the cat
• A time dream your next garden AND time to weed the one you have
• A time to run thru the mountains, or back roads or streets of town you’ve never been to before AND time to run thru spread sheets 
• A time to sail away AND a time to make sales.
• A time to write a friend a hand written note AND time to write up the meeting notes 
• A time to comfort a friend in trouble AND time to stay up on your contacts on Twitter
• A time to walk with a friend AND time to talk to a client.
• A time focus on the beauty of an autumn afternoon AND time to focus on the numbers 
• A time pay attention to wildlife (#NWF)  AND time to pay attention to profits
• A time to forage for new plants AND time to forage for new clients
• A time to make pickles & piccalilli  AND a time to make speeches
• A time to stop everything and get out and listen to a friend play your favorite music and a time to stop everything and finish the damn report.

This is what my life is made up of, and I thank Sweet Scoops for taking decision #1 off my list.What's your life made up of?

A third shot fired into the cold dead body of the AVE

First it was Canada and the CPRS that rejected the notion and practice of using AVEs as a measure of PR. Then it was the Institute for Public Relatoins, now its the UK. well maybe not all of it.. but at least the COI calls for changes in PR metrics.
I give it another year before US agencies will follow suit.

Every have one of those Mondays?

When you get up thinking you're organized and within an hour of getting into the office you realize that this really is the story of your life:

I'm currently getting ready for a marathon trip that includes Boston for a BankerStuff event, the SNCR Symposium and Awards Gala, PRSA International, a day of consulting at PARC, another SNCR Meetup, an all day offsite board meeting, an IABC and SMC Louisville event, and finally a reception for recipients of the Seacoast Concert for a Cure funds. 

Never mind trying to pack for multiple climates.. just keeping the tickets straight is proving daunting. So when my friend Ann Boyce sent me the above, I dropped everything and just started to giggle.