KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog

Can't make it to one of my IRL workshops, join us on line

While social media has given everyone a platform to voice their opinions, all individuals are not equal when it comes to the ability to spread your company’s message. Join our panel of experts for a lively discussion on influencer engagement.

via prhub.wordpress.com

We're all wondering and worrying about measuring influence these days. Thomson Reuters is hosting a webinar to help figure it out. Pierre-Loic Assayag, CEO of one of my favorite influencer companies, Traackr, will be joining me and Greg Radner from Thomson Reuters to talk about online influence. Join us

How well do you know you customers, really?

Marketing is more than Multi-channel marketing, Campaign Management and Marketing Databases … it's really about generating revenue and results

via www.sas.com

The bad news is that historically, I've been amazed at how little most communications professionals know about their customers. The good news is that social media is providing more insights. The good forward thinking companies like Southwest and Dell are listening. But a great many are not. If you're wondering how to get started. Come to this workshop in Toronto next month.

Give us some data, please!

PRWeek and AMEC launch survey on the PR industry's views on measurement | LinkedIn

I'll be in Lisbon participating in follow on discussions to last year's Barcelona Prinicples. Part of that discussion is this survey on the PR industry's views on measurement. Please participate! As we all know, the more data the better the conclusions.

How much does a girl friend cost?

One of the most frequent questions I get at conferences is: How much does measurement cost?  And everytime I give a response, my answer gets a little longer.

The short answer is that it shoudl be a percentage of your budget. Doesn't it make sense to spend 10% of your budget to measure the other 90% to find out if its working? 

The slightly longer answer is of course "it depends."  It depends on your goals, because how you measure depends entirely on what your goals are. If your goal is awareness, you need surveys, if your goal is message communication you need content analysis. If your goal is outcomes, you need correlations and statististical analysis. How big a survey,  how much content you have to analyze and how many variables you need to analyze  depends on the size and nature of your audiences, the complexity of your campaign, and purpose of the research.

The right answer is the one I gave at PRSA Spokane yesterday which went something like this:  Today's communications are all about building enhancing and strengthening relationships. The notion that the you should be able to do that for free or for mnimal cost just because the technology is free is ludicrous. And of course 10% of $0.00 is still $0.00.  So lets take a big step backwards and look at the vaue of a good relationship.

Organizations with good relationships with their publics are known to have lower legal costs, greater renewals, lower recruitment costs, higher revenue per employee and shorter sales cycles. Customer loyalty has been shown to have a direct link to higher profits. All of which go straight to the bottom line. So if  you're worrying about being able to afford to measure that, you're clearly focusing on the wrong things. It's as if you're already in a relationship and you're trying to figure out the ROI of dating.

There is no such thing as "reputation insurance" even though you can buy it

 

In his recent brilliant column in the FT, Andrew Hill makes a great point. Just because you can now buy "Reputation Insurance" doesn't mean your protected from your own mistakes. As Hill writes:

recent events prove that the worst injuries to company reputation are frequently self-inflicted. Yet, other than in Enron-style cases of outright fraud, this insurance pays out even if the insured has messed up. That seems odd. I can’t claim on my motor insurance if I leave my valuables in view on the back seat, and self-harm will invalidate my health policy.

The word self-inflicted it particularly apt, since clearly the recent reputation crises of Tepco, Toyota, BP etc etc area ll self-inflicted. I would also argue that while Sony's might not have been self-inflicted, they were certainlly made worse by Sony's internal culture.

But Hill's best point is that while crisis management insurance may pay for the best, or at least most expensive PR, advertising or advice, it really is only offering a false sense of security. Ultimately if you think you can "buy" reputation protection, you will continue to do stupid things that no amount of good PR or crisis managmeent can save you from. But Hill puts it so much more eloquently:

But beware of the comfort such hired hands offer. Brand and reputation are the sum of the investment of management time and energy in the invention, manufacture, marketing and distribution of successful products and services. Reputation management may sustain and promote your brand in good times and crisis management may help salvage some of it when they turn bad. But bosses who neglect the building blocks of their company’s success will find in a crisis that they have no reputation to defend, no matter how much insurance or advice they have bought.