A collection of press mentions shows that a campaign produced coverage. To understand its value, you also need to ask who the coverage reached, what people took from it and whether anything relevant changed afterwards.
Measurement works best when those questions are agreed before activity begins. Start with the business purpose, then choose evidence that can reasonably show progress towards it.
Define the change you want to understand
“Get more publicity” describes an ambition. A more useful brief names the audience and the intended change, such as improving awareness of a specialist service among a particular group of buyers.
Set a target only where you have a sensible basis for one. Record the starting position and the period you will assess. If you have no baseline, begin by establishing one rather than attaching a precise percentage to an unknown starting point.
AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework links objectives and planning with the assessment of outputs, audience response, outcomes and impact. For a smaller business, the practical lesson is to decide what evidence you need before the campaign generates activity.
Assess the quality of coverage
Record where the story appeared, whether the publication serves the intended audience and how the business or spokesperson was represented. Check whether the relevant message or explanation survived into the published piece.
A mention in a specialist title may be useful even when its audience is smaller than that of a national publication. Equally, a large outlet’s name does not establish that the right readers saw or understood the contribution.
Keep different measures clearly labelled. A publisher’s reported audience is not a count of people who read your article. Syndicated or repeated versions of a story should not be presented as entirely separate audiences without considering overlap.
Look for a relevant audience response
Choose response measures that fit the campaign. These might include visits from published links, use of a supporting resource, relevant questions received or feedback showing that people understood the explanation.
A fictional specialist supplier launching an educational guide could record which publications linked to it, the visits associated with those links and the enquiries that specifically mentioned the guide. Those observations would help assess interest without pretending to describe every reader.
Use tagged links for links you control when appropriate, and agree how enquiry sources will be recorded. Where a publication does not offer a link or removes a tracking parameter, document the limitation. Avoid implying that untracked interest did not exist.
Connect activity with outcomes carefully
Review the business measures relevant to the original objective, such as suitable enquiries, requests for a consultation or changes in how customers describe the service. Follow the same definitions and reporting periods so comparisons remain meaningful.
A rise after a campaign can be encouraging, but timing alone does not prove that PR caused it. Advertising, seasonality, pricing changes and other activity may also affect the result. Ask what evidence supports a contribution from the campaign and what remains uncertain.
Where a customer says they first heard about the business in an article, record that as a reported source. It does not tell you whether they also encountered other marketing before enquiring.
Use a compact measurement sheet
- Objective: The audience and change the campaign is intended to support.
- Starting point: The baseline, definitions and reporting period.
- Coverage: Relevant placements, accuracy and message inclusion.
- Response: Observable engagement or enquiries connected with the work.
- Outcomes: Business evidence relevant to the objective.
- Limits: Missing data, overlapping audiences and other influences.
Assign an owner to each measure. A detailed plan is of little use if nobody can obtain the figures or interpret how they were collected. Keep the reporting proportionate to the campaign’s scale.
Use the findings to change the next campaign
End a report with decisions. If the coverage reached the right readers but the supporting page did not answer their questions, improve the page. If the wrong publications showed interest, revisit the angle and audience fit. If the enquiry process lost source information, fix the handover.
The aim is to learn what the activity contributed and what to do next. For help planning a campaign with suitable objectives and reporting, talk to Empty Lemon. You can also review what makes a media pitch relevant before choosing your outreach targets.