April 4, 2025 • 26 mins
Abbie and Adrian talk about bridging the gap between what can be measured and what truly matters in communications and public relations.
They discuss how the phrase "what gets measured gets managed"—often wrongly attributed to Peter Drucker—can be misleading since not everything that truly matters can be quantified and counted.
Abbie shares her experiences from earlier in her career, reminiscing about the era of clip books, where the success of PR campaigns was measured by the volume of media coverage, rather than the content or its impact.
They conclude that while measurement tools and technology have certainly advanced, the core challenge remains: identifying the right metrics that resonate with the client’s goals and demonstrate the value of a campaign in achieving business success.
Read the transcript and notes for this episode on our website.
Key Takeaways
- Effective PR measurement requires aligning communications strategy with overarching business goals to accurately assess impact and success.
- Modern tools and analytics enable the measurement of various aspects of PR campaigns, but there is still a challenge in capturing intangible impacts like brand awareness.
- PR & communications professionals must align their measurement strategies with the actual business objectives to demonstrate real value to clients.
- Misalignment between client expectations and PR outcomes can result from failure to ask the right questions at the start of a campaign.
- Continuous dialogue between PR agencies and clients is crucial for demonstrating value and securing long-term partnerships.
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Credits
Copper State of Mind, hosted by Abbie Fink and Dr. Adrian McIntyre, is a project of HMA Public Relations, a full-service public relations and marketing communications firm in Phoenix.
The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like the PRGN Presents podcast, hosted by Abbie Fink, featuring conversations about PR, marketing, and communications with members of the Public Relations Global Network, "the world’s local public relations agency.”
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
"What gets measured getsmanaged." So the saying goes, anyway.
Turns out Peter Drucker neveractually said that. And that may
not be the best way of talkingabout measurement, because not everything
that matters can be measuredand not everything that we measure
matters. But for PR firms,communication firms, and internal
comms teams, finding ways tocount and measure the impact of campaigns
(00:30):
remains a critical issue, evenas platforms and the actual metrics
themselves evolve over time.Abbie, what's on your mind?
Well, that's exactly what'sbeen top of mind recently, as we
are always looking at valuingthe role that a communications professional
plays, whether that's with ourclients, with our internal teams.
(00:52):
And how do we measure oursuccess? What are we looking at to
share that this particulareffort is considered successful?
canrememberwhenIwas firststartingoutinthebusinessandwepresented we
presented a clip book. Youknow, outofthenewspaperthearticlesthatweplaced
(01:14):
onbehalfofourclients,andwehadsomemeasurement activity
thatwejustifiedagainstanadvertising rate.Andthehigher
thenumberandthethickertheclickbook, themoresuccessful wewere.
thicker the clip book,withwhat wasactuallyin those articlesor
what wasbeingsaid.Itwasjustthe merefact thatwehadanarticlein
thepaper,lookingback,thatwasarelativelynaivewayofanalyzing ourselves.
(01:40):
Andfortunately,thatphilosophyhas changedovertheyears.ButIthink
thereisstillandwillcontinuetobeaconversationabouthowdo wemeasuresuccess?Whatarewemeasuringinordertodeterminethat?
Anditwillbeatopicofconversationforeverwhenyougeta handful
(02:03):
ofPRprofessionals inaroomaboutprovingourvaluetoourclients and
such.Andin thethirdoftheseriesthatwe'vebeenaddressing, thecision
andPR Weeksurvey,thetheylookedatmeasurement,andwhenthey launchedthe
Surveyback in2017,75% oftherespondentssaid,we cando been addressing,
(02:28):
the Cision And nowTwothirds,or68% nowsaywefinallyhavethetools todothework.I
launched the Survey back in 2017, before.Ithinkitwasmore about
whatwerewelookingatandwhatthebottomline for meis,andIthinkformycolleaguesaswell,isour
(02:48):
successhastodirectly berelatedtowhatthebusiness itselfismeasuringassuccess.Andhow
iswhatwedoincommunicationsstrategy impactingthosebusiness
goals?Becauseif it'snot,nomatterhowamazingthatarticlein thenewspaperis,
itshouldn't be considereda success.
(03:09):
Yeah, I find this fascinatingbecause it's one of these areas where
there's always a bit ofanxiety, perhaps rightly so, because
clients want to know is whatwe're investing in making a difference?
Is it moving the needle? Is itaccomplishing our objectives? And
yet it's one of those areaswhere comms pros always feel like
(03:33):
maybe we're not doing enough,maybe we could do it better even
as the tools to do it evolveand get better and better. And it
reminds me a little bit when,when I was in graduate school I was
deeply immersed in learningArabic. And the thing with Arabic
is you never feel like you'regood enough no matter how advanced
and sophisticated yourknowledge is. It's arichanddeephistoricallanguagethatfluency,ifyoudefinefluencyasbeingabletoreadanything
(04:02):
anywherethatwaseverwritteninthislanguage,it'sgoingtobe very
hardbecausethatspanscenturiesandall thedifferent technicalvocabulariesof
differentdomains,etcetera.Soyounever of
different domains, et cetera.So you never feel fluent even when
that.There'salwayssomethingAnd this seems a little bit like
that. There's always somethingelusive about measurement in part
(04:25):
because the phenomena we aretrying to measure is butsomeofthem.Doesitchangebrandawareness?Well,there'sdifferentwayswemighttrytoget
at thatquestion on, but someof them. Does it change brand awareness?
Well, there's different wayswe might try to get at th
(04:45):
No, no. I had a client severalyears ago who had a pretty significant
budget to run a campaign for avery high level strategy of high
level project. And it was oneof those dream type clients. We had
open space to do whatever wewanted. She was, you know, do what
(05:08):
you need to do. Everything isamazing. We did collateral materials,
we did earned media, we didall these amazing things. We got
the kind of news coverage thatyou only dream about, you know, front
page of the Sunday Daily andthe top story of the, of the nightly
news. I mean it was amazing.We accomplished so much for them.
(05:29):
And we were about the end ofthe campaign and we're talking and
we're so excited and wepresented her with a framed copy
of the article. I mean we wereso happy with it. And said,well yeah,it'sgreatbutnobodycalledand
registered forourworkshopsandworkshops. And learning very big
(05:51):
learning lesson. When shesaid, I mean yes, the article was
allthethingsitneededtodo.Butinher the things it needed to do. But
in her mind the purpose ofthis effort was to get families in
House to come and listen topresentations and such on the topic.
And we didn't do that. Therewas nothing in any of the work that
(06:17):
we did that actually resultedin that particular thing. The awareness
was successful, but hermeasurement of the success would
have said, we failed. Veryimportant learning lesson. Something
I bring up all the time whenwe're talking doforyou,whateveryouarebringingusintomanagefromacommunicationsperspective,hastotiebacktowhatyouaredoingtomeasureyourbusinesssuccess.
(06:49):
Anditwillvaryfromdaytoday.Itwillvaryfromtopictotopic.Andthatshouldbea.Itneedstobeanimportantpartofhow we
developourstrategy.Anditalsoneeds tobesomethingthatwe'recontinuallyasking,arewereachingthoseobjectives?Haveyourbusinessgoalschanged?Howdoeswhatwearedoingnowmatter?Anddoesitneedtobeadjustedormodifiedbecausesomethingelseoutsideof
(07:18):
oureffortsischanging?Andifwe'renotaskingthosequestions,we'redoingadisservicetoourclient,butwe'realsodoingadisservicetoourselvesbecause wewillneverbeabletodemonstrateourvalueifwedon'tknowwhatwe'rebeingmeasuredagainstonanongoingbasis.
Now, in that example, had youknown in advance that that's how
(07:39):
the client was going toevaluate success?
We never asked the question.
Yeah, see, this is where Ithink this gets so important and
so interesting, because it'sreally not about what can we measure,
what do we have the tools tomeasure? We have all kinds of tools.
We can measure all kinds ofthings. I think the critical takeaway
(08:00):
from that example is we haveto know what the client's going to
count.
Right.
And then to the extent that itmakes sense that there's alignment,
sometimes you have to tell theclient, hey, that's the wrong yardstick.
That's, you know, a little bitlike the old joke about the drunk
outside the bar was on hishands and knees, looking under, looking
around, and somebody says,"hey, what are you doing?" He says,
(08:22):
"I'm looking for my keys." Andthe person says, "well, is this where
you dropped them?" "Oh, no, Idropped them over there, but the
light's better over here."Just because the light's better over
here with some of the thingswe can measure directly does not
mean that's where your keysare. Does not whereyou're going toFind
(08:42):
going to find what you'relooking for. So becausethereisatwoway
streetthat'snotreallyaddressedhereinthereport.Everyoneacknowledges in
the report. Everyoneacknowledges measurement is critical
and that we have tools to doit. But in every single client relationship,
there is a coming to terms orunderstanding about what the objectives
(09:05):
are. So havi
Well, sure. And you know,look, there are reasons that a client
will want to engage with apublic relations agency. And know,alot
oftimesit'sassimpleas,youknow,ourcompetitionis gettingalot
of newscoverage. We wanttobe,youknow,inthemediaaswell.Okay,that's great,butwhydo
youwanttobethere?Whatdoyou,youknow,whatdo youperceiveishappening?
(09:28):
Becausethey'regettingnewscoveragethatyouaren'tseeinghappeninyourbusiness.Whatdoyoubelievewillchangeifwedothis?Andthenwhatdoyouwanttobe knownfor?Ifwegetthisdonenow,weknowwecanget
itdoneor wewouldn'tbethatfardownthepathwiththem.But it's really,it
isn'tjustabout wewant tobe inthenewsorwe wanttobeinterviewed.
(09:53):
Itneedstobeaboutwhatdoyouwanttobeknownfor andwhatwillthatdoforyour
organizationandyourbusinessstructure?Ifyougettobeknownforthat, ifyougettoberecognized
forthatparticularareaofexpertise,andthisisaconversationthatshouldbeaddressedateverymeetingand every
(10:14):
timeyou'reabout toembarkonaparticularproject,ifyouarenotaddressingthosekeymarkers ineverythingthatyou'redoing,you
willnotseethatsuccess.Nowthat'snottomeanyouaren'tgoingtobesuccessful.Imean,yes,Icangetthosearticlesplaced,wecangetyouinterviewed,wecan getyouthoughtcontent,
(10:37):
youknow,allthosethingscanhappen.Butiftheclient's needisnotbeing
metinwhatwe'redoing,then wearejustgetting newscoverage forthesakeofnewscoverage.Andthere's
somuchmoretowhatwedothanjust,youknow,earnedmedia.Ofcourse,it'snot alwaysaneasyquestion
togetansweredeither.Anddepending on
(11:02):
whereourrelationshipsitswithinanorganization,ifwe'reworking with
theChiefMarketingofficerorworkingwiththePRdirector, andwe'renotnecessarilya
directlinetotheCEO,whatinformationis theCEOsharingwithhislineofficers?Hisorherlineofficers,aretheygetting
(11:22):
fullinformationinordertothensharethatoutwiththepartners?Thataregoingto helpthemdothat.Wedon't
Chief Marketing Officerbutwehopethattheindividualsthatwe're interactingwithdohave
thataccessand do get thatpieceofinformation. Itisour responsibilityandIthinkitiswhat
weshouldbeexpectedtosharewithourclientsis ifwe
(11:45):
don'thavethisinformation,wecan'tproceed inanorganized,strategicfashionforyouandgetyou
what youneedtoseeareturnonthisinvestment.Becauseweallagree that
whatwebringtothetableneedstobe seenasaninvestment,
notanexpense.And ifwearen'table toshowthatreturn,itwillbe difficulttovaluewhatwedoand
(12:08):
seealong termplayif wewant tokeepthis relationshipgoing.
Now, there's some interestingdata in this report on page seven.
They dig into the details ondata and analytics. They actually
ask firms participating in thesurvey, are you relying on data and
analytics more than ever? Andspecifically what are you using data
(12:29):
and analytics for? And I think... I could be wrong, but I think
that there's a little bit ofnot walking the talk represented
in these numbers. And let metell you my interpretation and then
tell me if you agree ordisagree. Either one is valid. First
of all, more than 90% saidyes, they are relying on data and
(12:50):
analytics more than ever.Okay, great. So this is important,
and everybody agrees that thisis important when asked to specify
what they're using data andanalytics for. I think we're seeing
the light better under thelamppost phenomenon happening here
because the top three areaudience targeting, ROI measurement,
(13:11):
and media targeting, which arethings, by the way, that happens
in numbers. So those arerepresentative numbers, things that
we can count. We have tools totrack audience and media targeting.
ROI measurement is a littlebit indirect. It goes through the
CFO. But we can put our headstogether and say, okay, are we seeing
a change in revenue as aresult of the campaign? Fine. But
(13:33):
look at what's at the bottomof this list. Strategy formulation
is the lowest one at all.People are not using data and analytics
to formulate the strategy ofthe campaign. They're using it after
to track some things that showup, but they're not using it before.
And the second lowest isproving communications value to the
C suite. Now, I think if youasked most people, why are you? Why
(13:55):
do you do measurement oranalytics? Most of them will say
what you just said. We need toshow to leadership that their investment
matters. But we're not usingdata and analytics to do that, apparently.
So there's a little bit of a disconnect What are your thoughts
on this?
Well, and to the extent that,you know, these numbers then jive
with the other half of thisequation, which is, should we be
(14:18):
measuring? What are wemeasuring? How are we measuring it
is a little bitcounterintuitive. I mean, just look,
I don't think that we...Proving communications value to the
C-suite is our goal. Likethat's what communications professionals
want to use data and analyticsto be able to do. We want to be able
(14:41):
to say, here is what we setout to do, this is how we did it,
this is the analysis behindit, and here's our value. Organizationally,
they may be using data andanalytics to think more about who
are we targeting, are wemaking a good investment here, who
should we be using, what mediaoutlets should we be using? So I
(15:04):
see these in tandem a littlebit that the question is how are
communications professionalsusing data and analytics? And then
how are we helping our clientsuse that information to make good
strategic business decisions?And then that loops back around again
to those business decisionsbeing incorporated into what we're
(15:28):
doing. It's an interestingdevelopment, I think, and over, you
know, I can't really say thatit's, it's never been part of our,
our conversation about, youknow, what, what are your goals and
expectations for yourbusiness? I think we've always asked
that question. I'm not surethat there's always been a direct
connect between why we mightbe in the conversation to impact
(15:55):
those decisions. But if youput out, you know, if you think about
it in a variety of differentcontexts, you know, nonprofit organizations
who are constantly in a funddevelopment mode are looking to raise
awareness, are looking forsupport, providing support in the
community. They needawareness. In order to do that. They
(16:18):
make a direct link from howmuch people know about the organization
to how much they're willing todonate. We can apply some of that.
Similarly, maybe in the retailspace, right? There's that many people
walking through the doorbecause they saw this particular
advertising campaign orpromotion on social, they reacted
(16:38):
and are here. Where it gets alittle bit less direct is in that
business to businessenvironment, brand reputation, where
there's not a product or aservice specifically, but an awareness,
a reputation, a thought,leadership, positioning. And to get
(17:02):
to that stage and figure outhow we will measure it is where the
tricky part comes in. And weall in this role as counselors to
our clients or to our internalaudiences need to regularly be asking
this question is what are welooking at and how are we going to
look at it?
Yeah, I think that's exactlyright. And I have two follow-up thoughts
(17:24):
to my original thought, whichI just thought while you were talking.
And one of them is that thesepercentages would probably look very
different for a different typeof marketing or communications firm.
So performance marketing or anadvertising agency would rely on
these types of data analyticsin a very different way. It's probably
also true that this mayreflect the number of staff positions
(17:50):
assigned to these things, witha larger number of junior staff handling
some of this very sort ofmathematical kind of quantitative
analysis of the audience,targeting the media, targeting and
so on. They can pull thereports, they can, you know, do the,
put together the spreadsheet,etc. Collect it, report it. And there's
(18:10):
a smaller number of teammembers who are having these executive
level conversations. You know,the principal or the account lead
talking directly to theC-suite may be why there's less,
why they're relying on thisless because there's simply less
people doing it. So if youjust looked at the firm through the
(18:30):
lens of, well, how many peopleare we paying to handle data and
analytics? Far fewer of themare talking to the C-suite directly.
So maybe that's one way tointerpret. I'm reading a lot into
the numbers here, but tryingto be generous in doing that. I think
what you said about theunattributable, uncountable, unmeasurable
(18:53):
aspects of this are where someof the most valuable forms of communication
impact actually lie. Andthat's why I personally think sometimes
we get very misguided when weget too caught up in having to create
a graph or a chart to show theimpact of something as opposed to
(19:13):
what we know moves the needlefor human beings. There's a parallel
conversation that's beenhappening in digital marketing around
a phenomenon called "darksocial." And really all that means
is we're seeing revenue thatwe can't attribute weassumenowit'scomingfromthis.
(19:34):
now it's coming from this. Ithink dark social is a reallymeansissomethingwecan'tputonaspreadsheet.Thethingshumansdowhentheytalktoeachother,whentheymakerecommendations,whentheytexteachother,youknow,ontheirphone,asopposedtoclickalink,youknow,thatshowsupinaclick
throughrate, their phone, asopposed to click a link that shows
(19:56):
up in a click through rate,you know, measurement somewhere.
Dark social is just anotherword for human beings recommending
things they like to otherhuman beings in decisionsaswell.Ofcoursepeoplearetalkingoutsideoftherealmofwhat'strackableaboutcampaigns,aboutbrands,abouttheissuesthatmattertothem,aboutproductsthattheylike,etcetera,etcetera,etcetera.Sotoacertainextent,wealsohavetomakepeacewiththefactthatwe'rejustnotgoingtobeabletoshowyouabarchartforsomeoftheseimportantthings.Intheworldof
(20:35):
SEO,it'sreallyquitesimilaraswell.We're seeingincreasingnumberofdirectsearches,meaningsomebodyjustgoestoGoogle,typesinthenameofthecompanyandgoesdirectlytotheirwebsite.Andthequestionis,well,howdotheyevenknowtodothat?Where,wheredidthatcomefrom?Andtheanswerisalltheotherplacesthatyouknow
(20:55):
itdidn't.Inotherwords,itdidn'tcomefromasearchresult.Theydidn'tsaywhat'sthebestPRfirminArizona?Andofcourse,we haveourownopinionsaboutthat.Theydidn'tget
asearchthatledthemtoHMAPublicRelations.TheyliterallyjusttypedHMAPublicRelationsintoGoogle andwentdirectlytothewebsite.Theyknewtodothatbecauseofsomethingthatwecan'tmeasurebecausewecan'tsee.Thelight'snotthatgoodoverhere,butthat'swherethekeysare.
!
(21:22):
You've brought that into theconversation now three times. That's
pretty good. But it's right.And it's why a good campaign strategy
has multiple ways of sharinginformation. Because we don't know
what's going to move thedecision, what's going to trigger
that conversation to happen.We talked about things like trust
(21:47):
and employees as brandambassadors in some previous episodes.
And that fits that samethingisIlearned aboutsomething.Youaskmemyopinion,Ishareitwithyou.
Youdon't with you. You don'task me necessarily where I learned
about it. Youtelltwofriendsandyoutelltwo friends
andmagicallyeveryone knows.Sothatwordofmouth communicationisvaluableregardless
(22:14):
oftheindustry thatyou'rein.Andyou'reright,it'smoredifficulttomeasure.Itisnotbecauseit shouldn'tbe.Itjust
ismoredifficultto measure. Itis not because it shouldn't be. It
just is more difficult to putsome, you know, parameters around
it. I have this conversationwith my SEO consultant all the time
(22:37):
and you know, we'll get mymonthly report callsdidyouget?Okay,well,hesays,doesitreallymatterifIcan'tshowitonthedashboardthatthatcallcamebecausetheyclickedhereandwenthere,orthefactthattheyactuallyreachedouttoyou.Allright,butifI'mlooking
atitfromwellthenwhyamIpayingifIcandoitanother way?Hesays,well,youcould,butunlessyouaskthequestionofthatparticularquery,how
(23:06):
didyoufindoutaboutus?You'llneverknow.Andtheprettygoodchancesthattheywerereferredandtheywerereferredby another
way? He says, well, you could,but unless you ask the question of
that particular query, how didyou find out opposedtolookingupPRfirminPhoenix.Allthisistosayisthatregardlessofwhatyou'remeasuring,weneedtobemeasuring.Weneedtohavecleargoalsandstrategy.Weneedtohavewhattheexpectationofthebusinessisfortheeffortthatthey'reinvestingin.Andwhenwearedeveloping
(23:51):
campaignsandmessagingandimplementationstrategy,wehavetobealignedwiththatandcognizantofthat.Sodowntheline,whenweareasked toreportonsuccess,weknowwhattheclientwillbemeasuringusagainst.Wewillunderstandfromthemthisiswhat'simportant
(24:15):
tous.Thisiswhatwewant.Thisishowwewillknowthatthiswasworthdoing.Anditmaynotalwaysmakesenseanditmaynotalwaysbefeasiblewiththeworkthatwe're doing.Butwhenwearedoingabetterservicetoourclientsandtheinhouseteamsthatwearesupporting,whenweregularlyandconsistentlyaskthequestionaboutkeybusinessgoals,objectives,whatisitthatisgoingtobeyourmeasureofoursuccessandaligntheprogramsthatwe'redevelopingtohelpthemachievethat.Andthen,andonlythen,Ithink,dowebeabletoprove
(24:59):
ourvalue.Weknowwe'revaluable,butweknowwehavetooftentimesdemonstratethatvalue.Anditisonlygoingtobewhenwehavethisopportunitytogobacktowhatwasimportanttothematthe outsetandhowwhatwedidimpactedandmadeachangeinthatorganization.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Copper State of Mind.
(25:21):
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(25:43):
of Mind is brought to you byHMA Public Relations, the oldest
continuously operating PR firmin Arizona. The show is recorded
and produced by the team atSpeed of Story, a B2B communications
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(26:05):
here at Speed of Story andPHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks
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to do so. We hope you'll joinus again for
"What gets measured getsmanaged." So the saying goes, anyway.
Turns out Peter Drucker neveractually said that. And that may
not be the best way of talkingabout measurement, because not everything
that matters can be measuredand not everything that we measure
matters. But for PR firms,communication firms, and internal
comms teams, finding ways tocount and measure the impact of campaigns
(00:30):
remains a critical issue, evenas platforms and the actual metrics
themselves evolve over time.Abbie, what's on your mind?
Well, that's exactly what'sbeen top of mind recently, as we
are always looking at valuingthe role that a communications professional
plays, whether that's with ourclients, with our internal teams.
(00:52):
And how do we measure oursuccess? What are we looking at to
share that this particulareffort is considered successful?
canrememberwhenIwas firststartingoutinthebusinessandwepresented we
presented a clip book. Youknow, outofthenewspaperthearticlesthatweplaced
(01:14):
onbehalfofourclients,andwehadsomemeasurement activity
thatwejustifiedagainstanadvertising rate.Andthehigher
thenumberandthethickertheclickbook, themoresuccessful wewere.
thicker the clip book,withwhat wasactuallyin those articlesor
what wasbeingsaid.Itwasjustthe merefact thatwehadanarticlein
thepaper,lookingback,thatwasarelativelynaivewayofanalyzing ourselves.
(01:40):
Andfortunately,thatphilosophyhas changedovertheyears.ButIthink
thereisstillandwillcontinuetobeaconversationabouthowdo wemeasuresuccess?Whatarewemeasuringinordertodeterminethat?
Anditwillbeatopicofconversationforeverwhenyougeta handful
(02:03):
ofPRprofessionals inaroomaboutprovingourvaluetoourclients and
such.Andin thethirdoftheseriesthatwe'vebeenaddressing, thecision
andPR Weeksurvey,thetheylookedatmeasurement,andwhenthey launchedthe
Surveyback in2017,75% oftherespondentssaid,we cando been addressing,
(02:28):
the Cision And nowTwothirds,or68% nowsaywefinallyhavethetools todothework.I
launched the Survey back in 2017, before.Ithinkitwasmore about
whatwerewelookingatandwhatthebottomline for meis,andIthinkformycolleaguesaswell,isour
(02:48):
successhastodirectly berelatedtowhatthebusiness itselfismeasuringassuccess.Andhow
iswhatwedoincommunicationsstrategy impactingthosebusiness
goals?Becauseif it'snot,nomatterhowamazingthatarticlein thenewspaperis,
itshouldn't be considereda success.
(03:09):
Yeah, I find this fascinatingbecause it's one of these areas where
there's always a bit ofanxiety, perhaps rightly so, because
clients want to know is whatwe're investing in making a difference?
Is it moving the needle? Is itaccomplishing our objectives? And
yet it's one of those areaswhere comms pros always feel like
(03:33):
maybe we're not doing enough,maybe we could do it better even
as the tools to do it evolveand get better and better. And it
reminds me a little bit when,when I was in graduate school I was
deeply immersed in learningArabic. And the thing with Arabic
is you never feel like you'regood enough no matter how advanced
and sophisticated yourknowledge is. It's arichanddeephistoricallanguagethatfluency,ifyoudefinefluencyasbeingabletoreadanything
(04:02):
anywherethatwaseverwritteninthislanguage,it'sgoingtobe very
hardbecausethatspanscenturiesandall thedifferent technicalvocabulariesof
differentdomains,etcetera.Soyounever of
different domains, et cetera.So you never feel fluent even when
that.There'salwayssomethingAnd this seems a little bit like
that. There's always somethingelusive about measurement in part
(04:25):
because the phenomena we aretrying to measure is butsomeofthem.Doesitchangebrandawareness?Well,there'sdifferentwayswemighttrytoget
at thatquestion on, but someof them. Does it change brand awareness?
Well, there's different wayswe might try to get at th
(04:45):
No, no. I had a client severalyears ago who had a pretty significant
budget to run a campaign for avery high level strategy of high
level project. And it was oneof those dream type clients. We had
open space to do whatever wewanted. She was, you know, do what
(05:08):
you need to do. Everything isamazing. We did collateral materials,
we did earned media, we didall these amazing things. We got
the kind of news coverage thatyou only dream about, you know, front
page of the Sunday Daily andthe top story of the, of the nightly
news. I mean it was amazing.We accomplished so much for them.
(05:29):
And we were about the end ofthe campaign and we're talking and
we're so excited and wepresented her with a framed copy
of the article. I mean we wereso happy with it. And said,well yeah,it'sgreatbutnobodycalledand
registered forourworkshopsandworkshops. And learning very big
(05:51):
learning lesson. When shesaid, I mean yes, the article was
allthethingsitneededtodo.Butinher the things it needed to do. But
in her mind the purpose ofthis effort was to get families in
House to come and listen topresentations and such on the topic.
And we didn't do that. Therewas nothing in any of the work that
(06:17):
we did that actually resultedin that particular thing. The awareness
was successful, but hermeasurement of the success would
have said, we failed. Veryimportant learning lesson. Something
I bring up all the time whenwe're talking doforyou,whateveryouarebringingusintomanagefromacommunicationsperspective,hastotiebacktowhatyouaredoingtomeasureyourbusinesssuccess.
(06:49):
Anditwillvaryfromdaytoday.Itwillvaryfromtopictotopic.Andthatshouldbea.Itneedstobeanimportantpartofhow we
developourstrategy.Anditalsoneeds tobesomethingthatwe'recontinuallyasking,arewereachingthoseobjectives?Haveyourbusinessgoalschanged?Howdoeswhatwearedoingnowmatter?Anddoesitneedtobeadjustedormodifiedbecausesomethingelseoutsideof
(07:18):
oureffortsischanging?Andifwe'renotaskingthosequestions,we'redoingadisservicetoourclient,butwe'realsodoingadisservicetoourselvesbecause wewillneverbeabletodemonstrateourvalueifwedon'tknowwhatwe'rebeingmeasuredagainstonanongoingbasis.
Now, in that example, had youknown in advance that that's how
(07:39):
the client was going toevaluate success?
We never asked the question.
Yeah, see, this is where Ithink this gets so important and
so interesting, because it'sreally not about what can we measure,
what do we have the tools tomeasure? We have all kinds of tools.
We can measure all kinds ofthings. I think the critical takeaway
(08:00):
from that example is we haveto know what the client's going to
count.
Right.
And then to the extent that itmakes sense that there's alignment,
sometimes you have to tell theclient, hey, that's the wrong yardstick.
That's, you know, a little bitlike the old joke about the drunk
outside the bar was on hishands and knees, looking under, looking
around, and somebody says,"hey, what are you doing?" He says,
(08:22):
"I'm looking for my keys." Andthe person says, "well, is this where
you dropped them?" "Oh, no, Idropped them over there, but the
light's better over here."Just because the light's better over
here with some of the thingswe can measure directly does not
mean that's where your keysare. Does not whereyou're going toFind
(08:42):
going to find what you'relooking for. So becausethereisatwoway
streetthat'snotreallyaddressedhereinthereport.Everyoneacknowledges in
the report. Everyoneacknowledges measurement is critical
and that we have tools to doit. But in every single client relationship,
there is a coming to terms orunderstanding about what the objectives
(09:05):
are. So havi
Well, sure. And you know,look, there are reasons that a client
will want to engage with apublic relations agency. And know,alot
oftimesit'sassimpleas,youknow,ourcompetitionis gettingalot
of newscoverage. We wanttobe,youknow,inthemediaaswell.Okay,that's great,butwhydo
youwanttobethere?Whatdoyou,youknow,whatdo youperceiveishappening?
(09:28):
Becausethey'regettingnewscoveragethatyouaren'tseeinghappeninyourbusiness.Whatdoyoubelievewillchangeifwedothis?Andthenwhatdoyouwanttobe knownfor?Ifwegetthisdonenow,weknowwecanget
itdoneor wewouldn'tbethatfardownthepathwiththem.But it's really,it
isn'tjustabout wewant tobe inthenewsorwe wanttobeinterviewed.
(09:53):
Itneedstobeaboutwhatdoyouwanttobeknownfor andwhatwillthatdoforyour
organizationandyourbusinessstructure?Ifyougettobeknownforthat, ifyougettoberecognized
forthatparticularareaofexpertise,andthisisaconversationthatshouldbeaddressedateverymeetingand every
(10:14):
timeyou'reabout toembarkonaparticularproject,ifyouarenotaddressingthosekeymarkers ineverythingthatyou'redoing,you
willnotseethatsuccess.Nowthat'snottomeanyouaren'tgoingtobesuccessful.Imean,yes,Icangetthosearticlesplaced,wecangetyouinterviewed,wecan getyouthoughtcontent,
(10:37):
youknow,allthosethingscanhappen.Butiftheclient's needisnotbeing
metinwhatwe'redoing,then wearejustgetting newscoverage forthesakeofnewscoverage.Andthere's
somuchmoretowhatwedothanjust,youknow,earnedmedia.Ofcourse,it'snot alwaysaneasyquestion
togetansweredeither.Anddepending on
(11:02):
whereourrelationshipsitswithinanorganization,ifwe'reworking with
theChiefMarketingofficerorworkingwiththePRdirector, andwe'renotnecessarilya
directlinetotheCEO,whatinformationis theCEOsharingwithhislineofficers?Hisorherlineofficers,aretheygetting
(11:22):
fullinformationinordertothensharethatoutwiththepartners?Thataregoingto helpthemdothat.Wedon't
Chief Marketing Officerbutwehopethattheindividualsthatwe're interactingwithdohave
thataccessand do get thatpieceofinformation. Itisour responsibilityandIthinkitiswhat
weshouldbeexpectedtosharewithourclientsis ifwe
(11:45):
don'thavethisinformation,wecan'tproceed inanorganized,strategicfashionforyouandgetyou
what youneedtoseeareturnonthisinvestment.Becauseweallagree that
whatwebringtothetableneedstobe seenasaninvestment,
notanexpense.And ifwearen'table toshowthatreturn,itwillbe difficulttovaluewhatwedoand
(12:08):
seealong termplayif wewant tokeepthis relationshipgoing.
Now, there's some interestingdata in this report on page seven.
They dig into the details ondata and analytics. They actually
ask firms participating in thesurvey, are you relying on data and
analytics more than ever? Andspecifically what are you using data
(12:29):
and analytics for? And I think... I could be wrong, but I think
that there's a little bit ofnot walking the talk represented
in these numbers. And let metell you my interpretation and then
tell me if you agree ordisagree. Either one is valid. First
of all, more than 90% saidyes, they are relying on data and
(12:50):
analytics more than ever.Okay, great. So this is important,
and everybody agrees that thisis important when asked to specify
what they're using data andanalytics for. I think we're seeing
the light better under thelamppost phenomenon happening here
because the top three areaudience targeting, ROI measurement,
(13:11):
and media targeting, which arethings, by the way, that happens
in numbers. So those arerepresentative numbers, things that
we can count. We have tools totrack audience and media targeting.
ROI measurement is a littlebit indirect. It goes through the
CFO. But we can put our headstogether and say, okay, are we seeing
a change in revenue as aresult of the campaign? Fine. But
(13:33):
look at what's at the bottomof this list. Strategy formulation
is the lowest one at all.People are not using data and analytics
to formulate the strategy ofthe campaign. They're using it after
to track some things that showup, but they're not using it before.
And the second lowest isproving communications value to the
C suite. Now, I think if youasked most people, why are you? Why
(13:55):
do you do measurement oranalytics? Most of them will say
what you just said. We need toshow to leadership that their investment
matters. But we're not usingdata and analytics to do that, apparently.
So there's a little bit of a disconnect What are your thoughts
on this?
Well, and to the extent that,you know, these numbers then jive
with the other half of thisequation, which is, should we be
(14:18):
measuring? What are wemeasuring? How are we measuring it
is a little bitcounterintuitive. I mean, just look,
I don't think that we...Proving communications value to the
C-suite is our goal. Likethat's what communications professionals
want to use data and analyticsto be able to do. We want to be able
(14:41):
to say, here is what we setout to do, this is how we did it,
this is the analysis behindit, and here's our value. Organizationally,
they may be using data andanalytics to think more about who
are we targeting, are wemaking a good investment here, who
should we be using, what mediaoutlets should we be using? So I
(15:04):
see these in tandem a littlebit that the question is how are
communications professionalsusing data and analytics? And then
how are we helping our clientsuse that information to make good
strategic business decisions?And then that loops back around again
to those business decisionsbeing incorporated into what we're
(15:28):
doing. It's an interestingdevelopment, I think, and over, you
know, I can't really say thatit's, it's never been part of our,
our conversation about, youknow, what, what are your goals and
expectations for yourbusiness? I think we've always asked
that question. I'm not surethat there's always been a direct
connect between why we mightbe in the conversation to impact
(15:55):
those decisions. But if youput out, you know, if you think about
it in a variety of differentcontexts, you know, nonprofit organizations
who are constantly in a funddevelopment mode are looking to raise
awareness, are looking forsupport, providing support in the
community. They needawareness. In order to do that. They
(16:18):
make a direct link from howmuch people know about the organization
to how much they're willing todonate. We can apply some of that.
Similarly, maybe in the retailspace, right? There's that many people
walking through the doorbecause they saw this particular
advertising campaign orpromotion on social, they reacted
(16:38):
and are here. Where it gets alittle bit less direct is in that
business to businessenvironment, brand reputation, where
there's not a product or aservice specifically, but an awareness,
a reputation, a thought,leadership, positioning. And to get
(17:02):
to that stage and figure outhow we will measure it is where the
tricky part comes in. And weall in this role as counselors to
our clients or to our internalaudiences need to regularly be asking
this question is what are welooking at and how are we going to
look at it?
Yeah, I think that's exactlyright. And I have two follow-up thoughts
(17:24):
to my original thought, whichI just thought while you were talking.
And one of them is that thesepercentages would probably look very
different for a different typeof marketing or communications firm.
So performance marketing or anadvertising agency would rely on
these types of data analyticsin a very different way. It's probably
also true that this mayreflect the number of staff positions
(17:50):
assigned to these things, witha larger number of junior staff handling
some of this very sort ofmathematical kind of quantitative
analysis of the audience,targeting the media, targeting and
so on. They can pull thereports, they can, you know, do the,
put together the spreadsheet,etc. Collect it, report it. And there's
(18:10):
a smaller number of teammembers who are having these executive
level conversations. You know,the principal or the account lead
talking directly to theC-suite may be why there's less,
why they're relying on thisless because there's simply less
people doing it. So if youjust looked at the firm through the
(18:30):
lens of, well, how many peopleare we paying to handle data and
analytics? Far fewer of themare talking to the C-suite directly.
So maybe that's one way tointerpret. I'm reading a lot into
the numbers here, but tryingto be generous in doing that. I think
what you said about theunattributable, uncountable, unmeasurable
(18:53):
aspects of this are where someof the most valuable forms of communication
impact actually lie. Andthat's why I personally think sometimes
we get very misguided when weget too caught up in having to create
a graph or a chart to show theimpact of something as opposed to
(19:13):
what we know moves the needlefor human beings. There's a parallel
conversation that's beenhappening in digital marketing around
a phenomenon called "darksocial." And really all that means
is we're seeing revenue thatwe can't attribute weassumenowit'scomingfromthis.
(19:34):
now it's coming from this. Ithink dark social is a reallymeansissomethingwecan'tputonaspreadsheet.Thethingshumansdowhentheytalktoeachother,whentheymakerecommendations,whentheytexteachother,youknow,ontheirphone,asopposedtoclickalink,youknow,thatshowsupinaclick
throughrate, their phone, asopposed to click a link that shows
(19:56):
up in a click through rate,you know, measurement somewhere.
Dark social is just anotherword for human beings recommending
things they like to otherhuman beings in decisionsaswell.Ofcoursepeoplearetalkingoutsideoftherealmofwhat'strackableaboutcampaigns,aboutbrands,abouttheissuesthatmattertothem,aboutproductsthattheylike,etcetera,etcetera,etcetera.Sotoacertainextent,wealsohavetomakepeacewiththefactthatwe'rejustnotgoingtobeabletoshowyouabarchartforsomeoftheseimportantthings.Intheworldof
(20:35):
SEO,it'sreallyquitesimilaraswell.We're seeingincreasingnumberofdirectsearches,meaningsomebodyjustgoestoGoogle,typesinthenameofthecompanyandgoesdirectlytotheirwebsite.Andthequestionis,well,howdotheyevenknowtodothat?Where,wheredidthatcomefrom?Andtheanswerisalltheotherplacesthatyouknow
(20:55):
itdidn't.Inotherwords,itdidn'tcomefromasearchresult.Theydidn'tsaywhat'sthebestPRfirminArizona?Andofcourse,we haveourownopinionsaboutthat.Theydidn'tget
asearchthatledthemtoHMAPublicRelations.TheyliterallyjusttypedHMAPublicRelationsintoGoogle andwentdirectlytothewebsite.Theyknewtodothatbecauseofsomethingthatwecan'tmeasurebecausewecan'tsee.Thelight'snotthatgoodoverhere,butthat'swherethekeysare.
!
(21:22):
You've brought that into theconversation now three times. That's
pretty good. But it's right.And it's why a good campaign strategy
has multiple ways of sharinginformation. Because we don't know
what's going to move thedecision, what's going to trigger
that conversation to happen.We talked about things like trust
(21:47):
and employees as brandambassadors in some previous episodes.
And that fits that samethingisIlearned aboutsomething.Youaskmemyopinion,Ishareitwithyou.
Youdon't with you. You don'task me necessarily where I learned
about it. Youtelltwofriendsandyoutelltwo friends
andmagicallyeveryone knows.Sothatwordofmouth communicationisvaluableregardless
(22:14):
oftheindustry thatyou'rein.Andyou'reright,it'smoredifficulttomeasure.Itisnotbecauseit shouldn'tbe.Itjust
ismoredifficultto measure. Itis not because it shouldn't be. It
just is more difficult to putsome, you know, parameters around
it. I have this conversationwith my SEO consultant all the time
(22:37):
and you know, we'll get mymonthly report callsdidyouget?Okay,well,hesays,doesitreallymatterifIcan'tshowitonthedashboardthatthatcallcamebecausetheyclickedhereandwenthere,orthefactthattheyactuallyreachedouttoyou.Allright,butifI'mlooking
atitfromwellthenwhyamIpayingifIcandoitanother way?Hesays,well,youcould,butunlessyouaskthequestionofthatparticularquery,how
(23:06):
didyoufindoutaboutus?You'llneverknow.Andtheprettygoodchancesthattheywerereferredandtheywerereferredby another
way? He says, well, you could,but unless you ask the question of
that particular query, how didyou find out opposedtolookingupPRfirminPhoenix.Allthisistosayisthatregardlessofwhatyou'remeasuring,weneedtobemeasuring.Weneedtohavecleargoalsandstrategy.Weneedtohavewhattheexpectationofthebusinessisfortheeffortthatthey'reinvestingin.Andwhenwearedeveloping
(23:51):
campaignsandmessagingandimplementationstrategy,wehavetobealignedwiththatandcognizantofthat.Sodowntheline,whenweareasked toreportonsuccess,weknowwhattheclientwillbemeasuringusagainst.Wewillunderstandfromthemthisiswhat'simportant
(24:15):
tous.Thisiswhatwewant.Thisishowwewillknowthatthiswasworthdoing.Anditmaynotalwaysmakesenseanditmaynotalwaysbefeasiblewiththeworkthatwe're doing.Butwhenwearedoingabetterservicetoourclientsandtheinhouseteamsthatwearesupporting,whenweregularlyandconsistentlyaskthequestionaboutkeybusinessgoals,objectives,whatisitthatisgoingtobeyourmeasureofoursuccessandaligntheprogramsthatwe'redevelopingtohelpthemachievethat.Andthen,andonlythen,Ithink,dowebeabletoprove
(24:59):
ourvalue.Weknowwe'revaluable,butweknowwehavetooftentimesdemonstratethatvalue.Anditisonlygoingtobewhenwehavethisopportunitytogobacktowhatwasimportanttothematthe outsetandhowwhatwedidimpactedandmadeachangeinthatorganization.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Copper State of Mind.
(25:21):
If you enjoyed theconversation, please share it with
a colleague who might alsofind this podcast valuable. It's
easy to do, just click the"Share" button in the app you're
listening to now to pass italong. You can also follow Copper
State of Mind in ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any other podcast
app. We publish new episodesevery other Friday. Copper State
(25:43):
of Mind is brought to you byHMA Public Relations, the oldest
continuously operating PR firmin Arizona. The show is recorded
and produced by the team atSpeed of Story, a B2B communications
firm in Phoenix, anddistributed by PHX.fm, the leading
independent B2B podcastnetwork in Arizona. For all us us
(26:05):
here at Speed of Story andPHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks
for sharingtheshowwithothers.Ifyouchooseto others if you choose
to do so. We hope you'll joinus again for
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