Well the number of PR blogs continues to (thankfully) grow…
If there are any I’ve missed (not on the blogroll) let me know.
There’s fantastic news that New York PR Pro Shari Kurzrok who was critically ill and in need of a liver transplant, had a successful operation last weekend, and while she is still in ICU, she is making good progress.
Our thoughts are with her on her road to recovery.
You can keep up to date on Shari’s progress on the blog.
Posting has been slow as I was away for a couple of days boating on the River Shannon in Ireland, which was very relaxing. Normal service should resume tomorrow.
Now I have always believed that successful communication requires engagement. I think this is a larger theme than “conversation” particularly among large corporations.
If someone is negative about your organization, if they have expressed views that you believe are untrue or incorrect, then effective communications is all about engaging with that individual or group to try and understand their issues or provide an alternative viewpoint – and in the case of factual errors correct any errors.
Of course there will always be occasions when someone is unwilling to participate or listen to reason, and you have to know the right time to withdraw. However, it has always made sense to me, that in the first instance, you should reach out and try to communicate rather than ignore it.
In the past, I have always questioned the practice of simply ignoring third parties you perceive to be negative to your organization. That’s a simplistic approach to communication, which does nothing to address what may often be misunderstandings or actual problems you can learn from. However, I am not naive enough to think that this approach will be taken by everyone. The current wave of people promoting the beauty of conversation and the death of corporate communications, fail to take into account the demands of the corporate organism.
Take two recent examples. First of all look at Altera‘s decision to completely freeze out Wells Fargo Security analyst Tad LaFountain, because, it seems, he wrote negative analysis on the company.
Then look at Cisco‘s strong arm attempts at preventing an analyst presentation on some new security flaws that have been found in their products.
This is the reality. Companies aren’t even ready to fully engage with people at this point, don’t mind create conversations with them. I believe conversation will become more important for successful companies, but it will take time, leadership and bravery, and we are nowhere near that nirvana at this point.
That’s the reality.
[Thanks to Duncan Chapple for the link.]
OK, take a deep breath, I’ve had a lot of catching up to do.
The subject of measurement is something marketers face on a regular basis. How do you specifically justify your spend and how does specific tactical spend contribute to the bottom line?
I say marketers, because although this is an acute problem for PR practitioners, it’s also something of a black art in most marketing disciplines.
According to the New York Times, a recent Forrester survey found that :
“73 percent of respondents were not confident that they understood the effects that an advertising or marketing campaign could have on sales.”
However, whereas you can measure the contribution of some marketing activities in terms of the number of prospects it delivers, PR has been grappling with this issue for as long as I can remember. Without finding an answer, we have cobbled together various nebulous quantative or qualitative metrics without actually addressing the question. In fact I often think we don’t know or even understand the question!
That’s not to say there isn’t work underway on looking at how to address PR measurement. People like KD Paine have a long track record of helping companies to try and map PR spend/activity to the bottom line. I also know many agencies (including my alma mater Text 100) have developed reasonably sophisticated measurement tools. But are these different approaches causing more confusion? Do we need to agree a framework or frameworks for measurement that can be used across the business?
Todd Defren outlines SHIFT Communications measurement model which is focused on how PR impacts lead generation. Andy Lark believes a commoditized approach to media measurement is required.
My personal view is that while it’s great that agencies (and in-house folks) are building more sophisticated measurement tools, if one of the objectives of these “services” is competitive differentiation, then they have failed. What’s required is a relatively standard means of measurement that can enable clients and employers to get a clearer understanding on the success of their PR spend – whether it be media, internal etc. If clients cannot understand the differences between how agencies measure success then confusion will set in. And remember the first thing that gets cut from the marketing budget is the line item with no tangible link to the bottom line…
Some more new PR-related blogs for your perusal:
Murphy's Law 