For public relations professionals, measuring the return on investment (ROI) relating to their efforts has become increasingly critical. Understanding and articulating PR ROI can help justify budgets, refine strategies, and show exactly how valuable PR can be to senior stakeholders.
However, connecting PR efforts to sales outcomes presents a challenge. Unlike paid marketing or advertising, PR’s influence on purchasing decisions is more indirect and occurs over longer periods. Plus, qualitative measurements like brand awareness and reputation further complicate the ability to calculate ROI.
If you think you're alone in feeling this, don't panic – that's not the case. According to the 2024 Global Comms Report, 50% of PR and corporate communications professionals responded "to some extent, but can do much better" when asked if they were able to identify the business impact of their earned media coverage. Another 16% said "not really." That leaves only a third of comms teams who are confident in their ability to connect PR to ROI. What’s their secret? That’s the question this article aims to answer.
Let's examine the importance of the PR-to-sales connection, the key metrics for measuring PR ROI, and give some of the essential do's and don'ts for measuring and proving PR's value to the bottom line.
Understanding the PR-to-Sales Connection
PR’s role in the sales process is a critical one, although often subtle and difficult to quantify. With strong PR campaigns and activity, you can build brand awareness, establish credibility, and shape public perception over time.
All of these can help win the hearts and minds of purchasing decision makers. Ultimately, PR should create a positive feeling around your brand and establish a platform for sales to, well, sell.
To understand the PR-to-sales connection, it’s first useful to look at the concept of a sales funnel. There are various iterations and expansions of the funnel, but for the purposes of PR we’ll keep it to five key stages:
- Awareness: At the top of the funnel, PR is often the first way a potential customer is exposed to a brand or product. PR builds awareness through such efforts as sending press releases, doing media outreach, holding press conferences, and securing earned media coverage.
- Interest: PR helps nurture interest and understanding through thought leadership content such as articles, whitepapers, webinars, or earned media placements.
- Consideration: PR can help nudge prospects closer to a buying decision with case studies and customer testimonials
- Purchase: While a deal will typically be closed by sales, the cumulative efforts of PR on that journey can give the final push needed to secure a contract.
- Loyalty: PR’s involvement should continue with contributions to customer retention and brand advocacy.
With PR involved at each stage of the sales funnel, organizations can make a direct link between its comms efforts and sales. More importantly, it will also enable organizations to better understand PR’s ability to influence financial outcomes.
Measuring PR ROI: 5 Metrics to Track
When measuring PR ROI, a combination of metrics that reflect both the reach and impact of your PR activities will give you the best chance of seeing the fruits of your labor. Here are five key metrics to start with:
- Media mentions and reach: Quantify the number of times your brand is mentioned in the media (such as print, digital, or broadcast media) and the potential audience reached through these placements.
- Share of voice (SoV): Measure your brand's media presence compared to that of your competitors to gauge a relative market position. Viewing SoV over time can demonstrate impact as your profile increases.
- Website traffic and engagement: Track increases in website visits, dwell time on site, and landing page views resulting from PR activities. UTM parameters can track specific placements from owned media (e.g., email links and social media posts).
- Lead generation: Monitor the number of leads generated through PR-driven channels, such as email newsletters or industry event appearances.
- Conversion rates: Tracking conversion rates from earned media sources reveals how effectively your PR efforts translate into outcomes such as sign-ups, purchases, or demo requests.
Combining these metrics, then establishing performance benchmarks and tracking them over time, will paint a fuller picture of how PR efforts are influencing the sales process.
Tracking user journeys and matching their movements to bottom-of-the-funnel content are especially important here. If you can show prospects moving through consideration to purchase, that’s a clear win for your PR strategy.
Tools and Technologies for Tracking PR ROI
Having a plan to track PR ROI metrics means nothing if you don’t have the right technology in place to capture data consistently. There are several tools that can help you measure and prove PR ROI, including:
- Media monitoring software: Platforms like CisionOne help track elements such as earned media mentions, sentiment, and reach across various media such as print, digital, broadcast, and social.
- Social listening platforms: As opposed to social media monitoring, which looks retrospectively at social media mentions, social listening offers real-time insights into social trends. CisionOne and Brandwatch offer these social listening features.
- Web analytics tools: Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and similar platforms provide insights into website traffic sources, user behavior, and paths to conversion.
- CRM systems: Customer Relationship Management tools like Salesforce or HubSpot can help track leads generated through PR efforts and their progression through the sales funnel.
Do's and Don'ts for Measuring ROI
Proving the power of PR is an intimidating task. The lifeline of communication relies on how your strategies and tactics connect to and drive the bottom line.
However, this doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. By setting out some fundamental do’s and don'ts you can begin to shape an effective PR ROI approach.
Do...
- Set clear and measurable PR objectives. Establish specific, quantifiable goals and involve stakeholders from across the organization so that your PR efforts feed into overall business targets.
- Use both quantitative and qualitative information. Combine hard numbers with qualitative insights to provide a clearer view of PR impact. For qualitative data, look at case studies, focus groups and surveys, and sentiment analysis to judge brand perception.
- Merge PR metrics with overall business goals. Are the metrics you’re tracking directly related to key business outcomes? Aligning with key internal stakeholders will ensure you’re all working toward a common goal.
- Track results over time. Be consistent in your measurement practices to identify long-term impact and spot any emerging trends that suggests you need to change your strategy.
Don’t...
- Focus solely on short-term gains: Quick wins can be effective, but don’t prioritize them over PR efforts that take time and effort to yield visible results.
- Rely on vanity metrics. AVE (Advertising Value Equivalency) is still widely used in the PR world, but it doesn’t accurately demonstrate earned media’s true impact. Mix it up with more precise metrics, many of which you can find here.
- Ignore external factors. Everything from market conditions and competitor actions to unexpected events like Covid can influence performance. These variables matter, and should be taken into consideration.
- Expect immediate results. Some PR activities, particularly those focused on reputation-building, may not produce instantly measurable outcomes. Turning around brand perception doesn’t happen overnight. The key is consistent activity and messaging, sustained over time.
Final Thoughts
Establishing and proving the connection between PR efforts and sales outcomes is always going to remain a big challenge for comms teams. However, by adopting a strategic approach, leveraging the right tools, and committing to continuous improvement, PR professionals should be able to effectively demonstrate their impact on the bottom line.
Remember, while proving PR ROI won’t always be straightforward, a clear, strategic approach to measurement will help your organization better understand and appreciate PR's true value in driving business results.
For more advice on PR ROI, check out our tip sheet, 7 Essential PR Metrics to Prove Impact.
To learn how CisionOne can help you track the metrics that matter the most in the PR-to-sales connection, schedule a demo today.
