Beyond Buzz: Your All-In-One Guide to Evaluating PR Campaign Performance

Businesses engage in public relations campaigns to help accomplish a variety of business goals, from increasing online engagement to expanding audiences to fostering positive public perception to driving donations. But beyond the initial buzz, how can you know if your PR efforts are truly resonating and inspiring action? Tracking the success of a PR campaign is the only way to understand the impact and effectiveness you’ve had. 

Evaluating your campaign performance allows you to be more effective, see the return on investment your efforts produce, and focus on strategies that work. 

So, where do you start? In this guide, we’ll explore the essential metrics and tools you need to evaluate your PR campaign so that you can improve your strategies and make informed decisions. 

Setting Clear Objectives for Your PR Campaign

Setting clear objectives is the foundation for measuring your PR campaign’s success. Without clear goals, you can’t evaluate what’s working or what needs improvement. Your objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

1. Specific: Clearly define what you aim to achieve with your campaign. Instead of a vague goal like "increase awareness," specify "increase awareness of our new program by driving a 10% increase in landing page visits within three months."

2. Measurable: Ensure your objectives can be quantified. Use metrics such as the number of media mentions, social media engagement, or website visits.

3. Achievable: Your goals should be realistic. Setting overly ambitious objectives can skew your understanding of the campaign’s effectiveness.

4. Relevant: Align your objectives with your organization’s mission and overall goals. Each objective should contribute directly to your broader strategy.

5. Time-Bound: Set a clear timeframe for achieving your goals. This will help you stay focused and allow for periodic assessment. 

Setting clear goals creates a roadmap for your PR campaign, allowing the objectives to serve as benchmarks and measure your progress. 

6 Key Metrics to Track in PR Campaigns

Tracking the right metrics helps you understand your PR campaign’s performance and impact. Here are some key metrics to track:

1. Earned Media Coverage: Measure the number and quality of media mentions. Evaluate each story’s reach, tone, and relevance to gauge your campaign’s reach and effectiveness.

2. Social Media Engagement: Track likes, shares, comments, and followers on social media platforms. High engagement indicates that your content is inspiring action with your audience.

3. Website Traffic: Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor changes in website visits. Pay attention to referral sources to see which channels drive the most traffic.

4. Audience Sentiment: Analyze the tone of social media comments, media coverage, and reviews. Positive sentiment suggests that your message is well-received.

5. Event Attendance: If your campaign includes events, track registrations and include a spot to ask how they learned of the event. This helps track the direct impact of your efforts.

6. Lead Generation: Assess the number of leads or inquiries generated by the campaign. This is particularly important for campaigns focusing on driving donations or volunteer sign-ups.

Focusing on these metrics can help you gain real-time insights into the effectiveness of your PR campaign, allowing you to pivot strategy or optimize for better results. 

3 Must-Have Tools for Measuring PR Success

Measuring PR success requires the right tools to help you gather and analyze data effectively. Here are the three essential tools you need:

1. Media Monitoring Tools: Cision and MuckRack help you track media mentions across various platforms. They provide insights into the reach and tone of your coverage.

2. Social Media Analytics: Platforms like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, and Instagram Analytics offer detailed information about your social media performance. These tools help you track engagement, reach, and audience demographics.

3. Google Analytics: Use Google Analytics to understand how PR drives traffic to your website. Start by monitoring website traffic, user behavior, and referral sources. 

With just these three tools, you can gather valuable insights to make informed decisions and optimize your strategies for better results. 

Analyzing and Interpreting PR Results

So, your campaign has closed, and you’ve collected the data you need — how do you analyze those insights to get a picture of the effectiveness of your campaign? Here are some steps to help you get started:

• Compare Metrics to Objectives: Start by comparing the metrics you’ve gathered to the objectives you set at the beginning of your campaign. Determine if you’ve met, exceeded, or fallen short of your goals.

• Identify Trends and Patterns: Look for trends and patterns in your data. Are there certain types of content or channels that performed better than others? Noticing these patterns can help you understand what resonates with your audience or where they are most active.

• Assess Audience Engagement: Evaluate the level of engagement your campaign generated. High engagement indicates that your content effectively captured and maintained your audience’s interest.

• Analyze Sentiment: Examine the sentiment of the mentions and comments about your campaign. Positive sentiment suggests that your message was well-received, while negative sentiment may indicate areas for improvement.

• Calculate ROI: Assess your campaign’s return on investment (ROI). Compare the resources spent on the project to the benefits gained, such as increased awareness, donations, or volunteer sign-ups.

While public relations campaigns can create immediate buzz and generate excitement, the key to long-term success is understanding their true impact. By tracking the right metrics and evaluating your campaign’s performance, you can gain valuable insights into what resonates with your audience and inspires action. This helps you refine your strategies for future efforts and ensures you’re seeing a return on investment. 

Use this guide to measure the effectiveness of your PR campaigns, and you’ll be on your way to leveraging data to create impactful campaigns that drive lasting results. 

Are you ready to share your story and communicate with impact? Contact Kristen today to learn how K.E.Baker Public Relations’ comprehensive creative PR services can help you expand your reach and attract stakeholders. 

Case Study: How Strategic Planning Drove a 56% Coverage Increase for a National Nonprofit

About Warrior-Scholar Project

Warrior-Scholar Project (WSP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to ensure that every degree-seeking enlisted veteran succeeds in their pursuit of higher education. Since its founding in 2011, more than 2,000 student veterans have participated in a WSP Academic Boot Camp, its flagship program, and 90% of program alumni have earned or are on track to earn a college degree.

About K.E.Baker Public Relations

Kristen Baker-Geczy uses strategic planning and compelling storytelling to help businesses and nonprofits amplify their reach and inspire stakeholders to take action. Kristen’s nearly 20-year career in communications has taught her that meaningful coverage comes from curated and cumulative efforts. To achieve that, she relies on data-driven outreach strategies supported by high-quality media assets.

Amplifying an Important Cause

Every summer, WSP holds its immersive academic boot camp programs at leading universities nationwide to help enlisted service members prepare for the cultural transition from the military to academia. Initially, WSP's media strategy involved promoting individual boot camp events within each university's local media market to its three primary audiences: future participants, potential donors, and media members. 

The initial strategy brought impressive results, earning coverage in 39 media outlets during the summer of 2022. However, as Kristen reviewed past campaign data, she saw trends emerge that she thought could drive even stronger media coverage in 2023.   

Implementing a Focused PR Strategy

While WSP's original strategy was successful, yielding high-quality placements in outlets like public radio's The American Homefront, it had one significant drawback: with more than 20 universities hosting boot camps each summer, there were limited resources to dedicate personal attention to each program, leading to detached media relations and an overburdened client.  

With three summers' worth of data in hand, Kristen better understood the local media markets. She pursued a new strategy that promoted boot camp events in nine strategic areas selected based on several factors, including media viability and target audience saturation.  

Because she decided to focus her efforts on fewer markets, she now had time to collaborate with university partners to create higher-quality content, which included valuable assets like vetted interviews and media call times. WSP also had the bandwidth to work with Kristen to train a point person at each campus who could immediately help coordinate on-the-ground logistics and collect PR collateral for post-event media outreach. 

Reaching Target Audiences with Earned Media

Kristen's new strategy generated 61 stories published across print, broadcast and digital media outlets — a 56% increase over 2022. Those stories reached over 333 million unique viewers at an estimated ad value of more than $3 million. Coverage highlights include:

• KABC in Southern California produced a story syndicated across its ABC affiliates, generating 7.5 million unique views.

• Stars and Stripes picked up a story from The Virginian-Pilot, earning simultaneous coverage within one of the largest military communities in the U.S. and in one of the leading military publications. 

• WSP was also featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the preeminent publication in the higher education industry, and the client's dream story. Not only did the reporter shadow a full day of academic boot camp activities, she also chronicled the impact WSP has on transitioning military and college campuses nationwide — showcasing the value that both the program and veterans bring to higher education institutions and beyond.  

The stories generated by Kristen's new strategy were thoughtful, in-depth features, which was a testament to the infrastructure she and WSP created that made it easy for the media to produce high-quality coverage. 

Takeaways for Your Organization

The results achieved during WSP’s 2023 academic boot camp season underscore the power of an optimized PR strategy. By utilizing data to choose markets more effectively, Kristen helped WSP more than double program coverage without doubling the budget. And by dedicating time to create comprehensive packages, she helped the media deliver quality stories to their audiences. The result was an improved return on investment and more impactful storytelling.

*Photo courtesy of Warrior-Scholar Project