Everypublic relations firmand other business actively employ KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). While we acknowledge that PR is no science, we can now use several metrics to measure its results.
Many businesses fail to see how beneficial KPIs are. They don’t see how these metrics are a great reflection of a brand’s marketing and business goals. The KPIs are also helpful in converting unquantifiable goals into more tangible ones while driving the participants to reach greater levels of success.
Public relations professionals will particularly find KPIs helpful because they determine whether or not their media relations plans are working. After all, the primary purpose of PR professionals is to promote brands and get their messages out to the masses. It is why KPIs are so particularly beneficial to them.
A range of KPIs now exists for businesses to help them measure the success of their PR strategy. Let’s take a look at eight key performance indicators below:
This KPI is beneficial for most businesses and especially for competing rivals. The primary objective of this KPI is to indicate the coverage percentage that a PR campaign has achieved for brands, products, and elite executives in comparison to their competitors.
This KPI can serve as a crucial benchmark to help relevant professionals discover key differentiators. Tracking becomes easy when installing this KPI in place, using volume, and reach. Using this KPI, one can discover how many mentions a competitor has and whether or not those mentions are in popular publications.
Media Impressions
With this key performance indicator, a brand can measure how many placements one of its campaigns could reach. This KPI is also a brilliant benchmark that PR teams can use for the many impressions they need, then launch efforts to meet or exceed beyond that benchmark.
Media Mentions
It is another fantastic KPI and are especially crucial since it connects all the other KPIs. Media mentions refer to the number of times media channels run a particular campaign, name, or message from a brand. The number of mentions of a particular brand on social media comes under this KPI.
The reason why this KPI is particularly an important one is that it accounts for all the respected and elite publications you can say. These include highly trusted channels, television sources, and more.
Inclusion of Key Message
In this KPI, we consider the content of placements rather than their outlet tiers. For instance, an apparatus brand might want a special mention in articles discussing cardiovascular health. Or they might request media placements in messages of a similar topic.
However, you must note that this KPI is most helpful when the differentiation points or value proposition of a brand aligns with the key message.
Reach
The initial forms of reach refer to the distribution of content through various channels, such as periodicals, magazines, and newspapers. As you can guess, this was long before online marketing came into place.
Now that we have a rapidly growing and thriving online marketing world, the reach KPI refers to online platforms, including websites and social media handles. This KPI measures the number of people who view your content through paid media or organically.
By combining your company’s organic and paid reach, you get the total reach. This total is a crucial component of your business’s PR plan.
Securing Target Media
You will see multiple public relations professionals creating lists that feature around ten to fifty top-notch publications. These publications are the ones that help brands reach their target audiences. The professionals then use this list as a benchmark to help channel their PR efforts, becoming part of a certain percentage of those channels.
The advantage of using a targeted publications list is that a business and its PR team can craft precise placements that boost its reach.
Engagement
The term customer engagement has especially become rampant since the growth of social media. But the truth is that it existed well before that, during the reign of television, print, and radio. Engagement refers to the act of convincing your target audience to take some kind of action after they view your content.
It could be anything, such as availing your product or services, re-posting, or re-tweeting. Regardless of their actions, this KPI uses engagement levels to improvise a brand’s online campaign.
Increased SEO
Media relations play a pivotal role in boosting brands’ online visibility and improving their search engine optimization. Several top-tier media outlets have great ranking sites. If you earn your place on them, it can widely boost your SEO.
This especially becomes possible when you work with a dedicated SEO team. Furthermore, this KPI is particularly more helpful if your brand has a negative past or a poor reputation that it wants to cover.
KPIs- What Matters
The main objective of using KPIs is to understand, measure, and analyze the performance and wellbeing of your business. KPIs are not mere numbers that appear in the form of reports on a company’s desk every week. They reflect how well or how poorly a company is faring and refer to what critical adjustments are necessary to improve the situation.
KPIs are also instrumental in helping a business achieve or execute its strategic goals and accomplishing desirable results faster.
Conclusion
KPIs are performance indicators that reflect the soundness or deteriorating health and performance of a company. They’re especially useful if businesses align them with their business strategy and use the KPIs in their strategic decision-making.