web-based communication and measurement tool

© 2006 Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive LLC (trading as Factiva). All rights reserved.

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Tips For Using Web-based Communications and Measurement Tools

by Diane Thieke Director of Global Public RelationsFactiva®, a Dow Jones and Reuters Company

usiness managers and public relations managers inherently understand that public relations is an essential activity for building awareness among potential customers and for influencing their actions.

But ask a CEO for proof of public relations value and see how heresponds. He may provide you with an anecdote or two, cite a good article in a major publication or share the results of customer awareness surveys. But he is unlikely to directly tie public relations results to standard management measures such as revenue.

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Despite this inability to link public relations to sales, companies are continuing to invest. According to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, public relations spending totaled $3.7 billion in 2005 and will grow byalmost 9% a year in the U.S., faster than the overall market foradvertising and marketing. With this kind of investment, making the public relations-to-sales link is critical to sustaining corporate spending on PR.

As public relations professionals, we know that much of what we do is intangible and relies on an indirect correlation between results (press coverage) and outcomes (a change in consumer behavior). This is further complicated because consumers are the target of multiple marketing efforts, like direct mail and advertising, sodirectly tying sales revenues to specific public relations efforts is notoriously difficult.


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While practitioners and academics have been researching and testing various ways to measure the effect of public relations for more than 60 years, today no single measurement methodology stands out as the holy grail – the method that indisputably ties public relations to company success. Instead, the profession relies on a combination of methods, including consumer research and media monitoring, to guide strategy and demonstrate success.

So how can public relations professionals move beyond creating general brand awareness and address the CEO’s mandate of tying public relations to the bottom line?

The Web provides the opportunity for such a direct link to customers and a tangible way of measuring public relations programs.


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The Web Opportunity

Buyer behavior has changed substantially in the last decade. Millions of people begin their search for product information not in a store or by watching television, but by conducting research on the Web. They use a combination of search engines, community sites and Web-based news services, including premium enterprise-class offerings like Factiva and consumer services such as Yahoo! News and Google News.

Whether it’s for their professional endeavors or their personal lives, people start with the search, making the old-line marketing approach of interruption less effective. When people are searching or browsing, marketers have the opportunity to provide meaningful information at the point of need, which is a much more effective sales technique than barraging consumers with fluffy marketing content. By understanding buyers, their issues and how they search, public relations professionals can present relevant information directly to the consumer at the time of purchase consideration.

By combining the deep knowledge we have of our organizations andcustomers, public relations professionals can develop Web strategies for PR initiatives that tie publicity efforts directly to sales.


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Tips for leveraging the Web in PR initiatives

How do you provide relevant and credible just-in-time information for today’s shopper?

It is important to understand that when people are looking for answers, they search and they browse.

You should optimize for both.


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1. Targeting Searchers:

The first way that people use content is to answer questions, primarily through the use of search engines; thus organizations must optimize content to be found by searchers.

Press releases and other PR content must use generic descriptors for products or solutions to attract buyersinto their sales process.

Take advantage of search engine optimization and make sure the Web team has purchased the words you’re using. In fact, sharing your expertise about the market with the Web team can be invaluable in building stronger relationships with a wider range of customers.

Another tactic is to embed links behind the keywords in your press releases to other areas on your Web site. If a buyer clicks on a keyword in a press release and is driven into the sales process, that’s a lead attributable directly to PR.


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2. Targeting Browsers:

The second way that people use content is that they want to be told something they don’t already know. This is why browseability is so important; it allows users to “stumble” across useful information they don’t even know they’re looking for.

Press release pages are among the most popular parts of many Web sites based on visitor counts because many people browse these pages as they research topics.


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2. Targeting Browsers (continued):

Consider organizing your press release section using multiple ways to browse.

Create links to releases based on buyer profile (by vertical market or some other factor appropriate to your organization), by product, by geography, and the like, in addition to providing a prominent homepage link to a media center or newsroom.

You might also divide releases by different “solutions” or target-market landing pages to help users drill down to areas of interest.


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2. Targeting Browsers (continued):

Whether they arrive at your release through searching or browsing, readers may want to present their findings to others in their organization, so consider providing easy ways of printing (in PDF format, as well as HTML).


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3. Work with Marketing:

PR professionals should also look to complement marketing efforts. As an example, if the marketing team is developing a direct mailcampaign, complement it with an online article - offering tips or information about trends or best practices - in your press room, which can then link back to the sales process.

You’ve skipped the media middleman, but you’ve created a measurable link from PR to sales.


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Business-to-business PR: Keyword-rich copy leads to sales

The same thing works in B2B businesses. Consider someone who is charged with researching a major B2B purchase on behalf of her company. In this B2B example, she also frequently starts with a search. Imagine if your company sells corporate networking servers.

A corporate IT manager might enter a search for “networking servers” into Google News. If your company has just issued a press release rich with that particular phrase, you’re virtually guaranteed that the IT executive will find your products.


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Business-to-business PR: Keyword-rich copy leads to sales

So how do you measure this success if you’re the company that issued the press release?

If you have included appropriate links within the press release to landing pages on your site that drive people into and through the sales process, you’ve created a PR program that directly drives sales without relying solely on the media to re-tell your message. You’ve just tied PR efforts to sales revenues.

In the B2B world, offline programs such as trade shows should also work with press release initiatives. Consider creating a show-specific landing page with detailed information about your services, and include the link with your press release.


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Integrate Web measurement into your media measurement

Your Web team can help you understand what can be measured on the Web. Click-throughs, time spent on a site and referral pages are typical Web metrics that can provide invaluable data.

They allow you to benchmark things like the clickable links on your press page and draw conclusions from what’s working. They also allow you to test new landing-page content and to measure how many people are entering the sales process at each point in your PR program.

It is important to measure using the same metrics and sales process as your company uses. If you are driving people to fill out a form to get a white paper, measure the results in terms of leads. If you are pointing people to an online catalog or store, track sales results.


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Media Intelligence for effective corporate communications strategies

Once you’ve established the appropriate Web metrics, you can overlay this data with the data from your media analytics tools. In this way, you can assess the effectiveness of your public relations strategies and use this intelligence to redirect a campaign or modify the next one.

This is especially effective if you use a media-intelligence tool that offers a graphical look at a list of clips. These tools enable you to chart results over time, providing you with trend analyses.

If you then overlay the Web metrics chart with another showing the number of visitors to your site, you can begin to draw a correlation between your news items, awareness and message effectiveness.


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Media Intelligence for effective corporate communications strategies

For example, suppose you issued a press release on trends in kitchen renovations.

The release was picked up by the Associated Press, which ran an article that was republished in dozens of newspapers and Web sites, and your media intelligence tool shows a spike in coverage.

By overlaying the Web metrics graphic and determining the time lag between the appearance of the article and the spike in Web site visitors, you can measure the effect of PR on sales.

As a result, you can quickly see results and change your strategyif necessary, thereby becoming more valuable to your organization.


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Selling PR to management

With a successful PR program for the Web in place, and Web and media-intelligence tools providing raw data and analysis on the influence of public relations on sales revenue, you can now provide your CEO with some solid metrics. And when asked about the value of public relations, the CEO can now say, “It’s generated $xx million in sales!”

For public relations pros, being able to link PR efforts to sales revenue means talking to CEOs about what really matters to them. Demonstrate that you can drive tangible value to the bottom line, and you’ll have one more reason to be sitting at the management table.


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About the author

Diane Thieke is director of Global Public Relations at Factiva. She is responsible for leading Factiva’s public relations strategy worldwide, including management of its media, analyst and community relations initiatives, as well as its speakers’ bureau and events programs, to ensure that the company is positioned for continued growth and success. She has been an advocate of embracing technology to build a dialogue with stakeholders and to drive awareness and understanding of Factiva.

Ms. Thieke has spent more than two decades as a communications and marketing professional in the business information industry. Prior to her current appointment, she was director of Web Programs at Factiva, managing teams responsible for the design, development and distribution of electronic and print marketing materials, and was director of Factiva’s Content Community, spearheading a global community for publishers who make their content available through Factiva products. She has also held positions in competitive intelligence and editorial at Dow Jones & Co.

Ms. Thieke is a member of the Public Relations Society of America. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and English writing from Rider University, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, USA. She is currently a candidate for a Master’s degree in Communications Management from Syracuse University’s S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse, New York, USA (expected 2007).

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