It's great to get a front page story about your company in the newspaper, but how can you measure its impact on your business?
While there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution to measuring earned media, a strategic media relations program presents several ways you can measure that front page story for its effectiveness and relevance to your target audiences.
Content Analysis
Research fans, this one's for you – and it's going to give you the best idea of the impact your article has. Content analysis is literally analyzing the content of the article to determine the positive, negative or neutral value in different elements of the story.
Items typically looked for in content analysis include spokesperson quotes, photos, key message delivery and clarity, article placement and article importance, among other items. These items are marked or charted and then rated as positive, neutral or negative – or sometimes given a number value.
Charting content analysis is a great way to see how a company is portrayed in the media or whether a spokesperson is effectively communicating key messages across various media platforms.
Content analysis can be time consuming if there are a lot of categories to chart. The good news is, it allows for a customizable system for media relations efforts and a way to track media relations successes over time.
Advertising Equivalency (also called PR value)
Probably the most controversial method to measure earned media, PR value is still widely used in the industry. The controversy lies in whether or not you can equate a front-page story to a front page ad, because, well, most newspapers won't sell you a front page ad, and a news story has more credibility than an ad. While it's not a true apples-to-apples comparison, putting a dollar amount on the article can help those who are more numbers-focused see how PR work can be a more cost-effective way to get your message out to the public.
While there are many ways to measure PR value, a basic formula is as follows: column inches (or the size of the article) times the ad rate, then that total is given a multiplier (M) of two, five or sometimes ten (based on how much "value" the article has.)
(Size x Rate)M = Value of earned placement
This method isn't rocket science, nor is it always the best method to determine the actual value of earned media. We always recommend using content analysis with PR Value for a better idea of what an article meant for your company.
Plan your work, work your plan
Yes, it's always going to come back to planning. What were the goals in your marketing plan? Trying to increase Web site traffic? Check your Web statistics the day the story runs. Want to sell more products? Check sales figures the day before, the day of and a few days after the story appears. Trying to increase event attendance? Ask ticket buyers how they heard about the event and capture that information! Wrapping your media relations strategies around the goals in your marketing plan helps enhance the number of times a potential consumer sees the message.