Measuring the Success of a PR Campaign

It is that time of year again for PRowl Public Relations when we begin working on evaluating the work we have done for our clients. Evaluating a PR campaign is an important final step and can provide valuable information for both the client and PR professional. With today’s technology and increasing social media platforms, there is also an increasing need to know what companies are doing right and where they can improve. Companies are going to rely on their PR professionals to give them this information.

Even though this step is a vital part of a campaign, it is often forgotten or skipped over. If this part of the campaign is missed, how can you tell if the hard work you did was a success or not? Without this evaluation, you would not improve your work moving forward. Below is alist that highlights what I think are some of the most important outcomes an evaluation can provide:

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    Learn your strengths: Through a final evaluation, you can assess the success of your team’s strengths based off of what areas the data shows that you did well.

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   Determine what was effective: Whether it is an event, a written analysis or a rebranding of a company, it is important to know if what you did accomplished the goals and objectives that you had laid out originally.

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   Hard numbers for future reference: A campaign evaluation utilizes many hard facts and statistics to show what was accomplished for the duration of the campaign. For instance, was there a percentage increase in the number of Facebook “likes” or how many people actually attended an event in comparison to the number that was invited?

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   Suggestions for improvement/future work: If you do not stop and asses the success of a campaign, you will never learn how to improve and will just continue to implement the same plans over and over. An evaluation can help you determine which areas need improvement and help you grow as a companyand as a professional.

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   Learn from your mistakes: Along with the good things that an evaluation will tell you, there are also areas where you went wrong. You can then take this information and learn from it moving forward.

Do you think there are any other positive outcomes of evaluating a PR campaign? Share your experiences in the comments section below!

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Staff Member Kaitlyn Mashack.