You’ve taken the deep dive and designed a PR campaign that you hope will advance your goals. You’ve planned, organized the team and rallied stakeholders.
That’s a lot of work. For what? That’s right. Begin with the end in mind!
Here are five outcomes you should expect from any well-designed PR campaign:
1. Hitting your metrics.
What? You don’t have metrics? Oh, my. While your campaign might be the most creative in the history of PR, unless you’re going to measure its effectiveness, why are you doing all this work in the first place? Make sure to line up your goals (brand awareness, lead generation, fundraising, etc.) and then measure before and after your campaign.
2. “Tough to measure” wins.
Tough to measure wins can sometimes become the best outcome. Data is great and all, but that giant sale that came through because of the article in Trade Weekly? That’s a win. Make sure you create a reporting vehicle for gathering that information – it can be as simple as a “how did you hear about us?” customer service script.
3. Team goals.
Test and learn how well a team works by putting together a campaign and then survey those involved afterward. Was the work inspiring? Insipid? Infuriating?
4. Actionable next steps.
You’ve launched your new service to the world, and those (measured) leads are coming in! Now what? Any good PR campaign will have branches that inspire your next big push.
5. Happy stakeholders.
What makes management happy? How did your campaign support a vital strategy? Illustrate how your campaign supported those efforts and take a victory lap.
Don’t just rely on gross impressions or vague feedback to assess campaign success. Employ these strategies and let me know how it goes. Remember to begin with the end in mind!
Note: This blog post originally appeared on the Landis Communications Inc.’s website.
