Numbers speak louder than words. It’s a simple fact that has changed the way public relations practitioners focus their objectives and strategy. While public relations has traditionally been known for generating awareness, it is now a means of directly connecting with customers and generating revenue. In order to maximize on this, PR can no longer be an afterthought and should be strategically planned in the early stages of your overall brand communications program to drive traffic, leads and conversions. However, you have to prove the value of PR first, and to do this, you need to gather data on all of your efforts and demonstrate how your initiatives directly correlate with reaching your audience and guiding them along each step of the buyer’s journey.Social ActivityWith social media, it is helpful to not just track the growth of your social following, but also report on engagement metrics. Likes, shares and followers are good ways to track the quality of the content you are promoting and how engaged your customers are with your brand. Most importantly, though, you should keep track of social media referrals to your website to make a strong case for the direct connection the social promotion of your PR content has on your business.Website TrafficSocial media isn’t the only place where your PR efforts can have an impact on website traffic. You can monitor how many unique visitors and page views your website receives from press releases, media pitches and content syndication by using techniques like trackable links. If you dive even deeper, you can analyze how qualified these leads are by reporting on how much a specific lead engages with your content. Knowing which promotion channels, media outlets and influencers are bringing in the most qualified leads will help you optimize future outreach.

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