PR Measurement Conference Recap

Austin Gaule, PR Measurement Director at Universal Information ServicesSome of public relation's greatest measurement minds were out in force at the PR News Measurement Conference on April 21st at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Among the royalty that attended were Katie Paine and Johna Burke , David Rockland, Richard Bagnall, and so many more.From sessions discussing how to craft the perfect dashboard for your organization to seeing real life examples of measurement in action, this conference was full of valuable information that anyone could apply to their daily work. Whether looking for ways to improve the validity of your media measurement, or understanding some of the hurdles in measurement.Here are a few key points I took away from the conference:1.) Is it just me or is holistic measurement of your communications efforts becoming a thing of the past? Coming out of college a number of years ago (okay, not that long ago) holistic measurement was the drumbeat that every PR professional was marching to. It is one of the rhythms we follow at Universal Information Services, educating our clients on the importance of measuring holistically. One of the most thought provoking presentations of the day came from Jessica Onick, Corporate Public Relations Program Director at Citrix, who discussed how her company uses the 80/20 rule when measuring media coverage. She found that her team was spending too much time focusing on specific media outlets that were not driving revenue for her company. To help drive more business value from her department her team adjusted strategy to only focus on the 20% of media outlets that were driving revenue to her business units. Brilliant plan? Yes. Risky plan? Also, yes. Not measuring 80% of your media coverage sounds like a very dangerous thing to do. However, Jessica did explain that they don’t just flat out ignore the other 80% of their media placements - they simply just don’t include them in their measurement reporting. In my opinion, the key take away here is that PR measurement is not a “one size fits all” approach. For Jessica and her team, this approach works no matter how much some may disagree with the methodology. That said - kudos, Jessica! You answered some hard questions when attendees were pressing you on your approach.2.) The Barcelona Principals are still virtually unknown to the larger PR community and that is an issue. Besides those of us who work specifically in the PR measurement industry, these concepts are still lacking adoption in the rest of the PR community. The company that I work for, Universal Information Services, like many others, has accepted the principles and use them in our everyday work. The International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, (AMEC) has done a great job presenting these principles to the PR community (see Barcelona Principles 2.0.). This presents a great challenge for members of AMEC. We apparently have a lot of work to do as many of the attendees didn’t have the slightest clue about what these principles were. The Barcelona Principles are a great starting point for a best practices approach to measurement. I look forward to facing this problem head on with my colleagues from all over the world and specifically here in North America. Measurement Month, here we come!3.) Now more than ever our fellow public relations professionals see the lines between marketing and PR becoming more blurred. I had at least three conversations with those at my table and around the Press Club on how they were specifically attending this conference to learn how to align their measurement with their marketing department. The encouraging part of this? PESO measurement was discussed during the conference. That’s huge for folks who are trying to fight the lines between their marketing and PR departments. Don’t know what the PESO model is? You’re falling behind. Check it out here.4.) Sadly, impression numbers are still being put into measurement decks and looked at through a single lens. One presenter had mentioned that media coverage surrounding a campaign she was working on had generated “over one billion media impressions.” While normally I agree that impression measures are a critical part of any measurement program (that may be up for debate among some), I can’t say that in the last couple years that I have put together a deck for a client that looks at impressions as a key metric. This isn’t meant to be a shot at the presenter, because the next slide of information she presented was chock full of great metrics that communicated business value to her client. The point being, Impressions do still have a place in measurement, but can't be used as a single key indicator of success... this is where a true measurement service would counsel the client on how to best interpret metrics.5.) Chris Scully, Senior Media Intelligence Analyst at LexisNexis, had my favorite session of the day. I enjoyed his presentation simply because of his smart, simple approach to measurement: create smart goals and consider using functions that are outside of your comfort zone. Chris spoke at length about correlations in media coverage, specifically using the example of Donald Trump’s approval ratings and media coverage directly tied to his presidency. If you left that session confused, don’t worry, correlations aren’t normally something most PR professionals use on a day to day basis. But, it’s critically important that we push ourselves outside of our comfort zones to find that champagne moment for our team, as my new friend Katie Paine mentioned several times yesterday during her session.If you were in attendance, what was your favorite session? Was there an A-ha moment for you? As always, tweet me your thoughts at @austinomaha or @universal_info. I'd love to continue the discussion here, or maybe at the next PR measurement event. [author]About the Author:  Austin Gaule is PR Measurement Director at Universal Information Services and is responsible for leading the media analysis department. [/author]