SKIRT. Have you never heard or seen this term before, but haven't thought about it? Then this blog is for you. ROI stands for Return on Investment. You can read what it is and why ROI in PR is important in this blog. I'm also going to talk about the principles that are used for ROI in PR. Because when do you have a reliable ROI in PR?
As just mentioned, ROI stands for Return on Investment: the return on investment. It is a way of determining the success of an investment, i.e. whether the investment in a project has paid off. This is determined on the basis of a calculation. The basic ROI calculation is:
(Return on investment — Cost of investment)/Cost of investment x 100
= ROI in%
By calculating the ROI for projects as a percentage, you can compare what turnover the investments are worth. Whether the outcome is successful depends on the goals you have set for a project or strategy.
In pr it is not always easy to express the revenue in euros. Pr is more about publishing in the media and increasing trust and brand awareness. Proving ROI in PR can be challenging. Keeping track of the number of impressions of your publication is interesting, but not immediately a “Return on Investment”. This requires more information. Depending on the goals you've set, choose the information that's valuable to your calculation.
Organizations want to see tangible results. In other words: profit. The challenge here is that PR is about getting into the media in the right way and building trust with your target group. So it's not just about direct, tangible profit, as is the case with sales, for example. ROI in PR is therefore slightly different.
Databases such as Lexis Nexis can provide useful insights. They collect all media publications that mention your organization and provide various valuable data. For example, they can also negative news recognize and calculate the newsworthiness of your press release. There are also organizations that can assess the PR value for you. Using this data, you can find out if your investment in a project is successful. There is no fixed way to measure ROI in PR. However, there are different types of ROI in PR.
This is the almost immediate increase in turnover of a PR strategy. For example, a successful PR event that has resulted in new customers. Here you can calculate the ROI in PR with the math I mentioned at the beginning of this blog.
When you emerge as an expert in the media, you generate more brand awareness and visibility. There is also interest among potential customers. This can occur at any stage of the buyer journey. This is a form of long-term ROI in PR. It may not generate leads right away, but it is equally valuable. The more often your organization comes forward as expert in the media, the more likely they are to enter into a relationship with your organization.
ROI in PR can provide insight into the short- and long-term profitability of your PR strategy. The short-term profit will sound the most attractive, but the long term may be more profitable. Of course, this depends on your goal. It's important to set SMART goals when you're going to use a PR strategy. This way, you also know which figures are relevant to calculate your ROI.
The AMEC has the Barcelona Principles developed. It lists 7 principles for measuring, among other things, the ROI in PR. You can use these principles to achieve a reliable and valuable outcome. So not just for the ROI in PR. These principles are intended to deliver inclusive, impactful, and honest results.
Setting SMART goals is the basic principle for measuring ROI in PR. It encourages and forces you to measure and evaluate.
By also identifying the potential impact, you include the long-term effects in the results. After all, this can also have an impact on your ROI in PR, as mentioned earlier.
This principle is about the impact that your outcome has for everyone, besides yourself. So here you identify the consequences for, for example, your target group.
It's also important to understand how your messages are interpreted. So apart from the hard statistics (also known as quantitative statistics), also the qualitative statistics. How your message is received, i.e. what the responses are, is an example of this.
This principle mainly focuses on which value calculation you should not use. Indeed, the AMEC believes that communication measurements should be nuanced. This is the only way to understand the impact of communication, or the results of your project.
The sixth principle is primarily about embracing social media. These results should count as much as other media.
The title of this principle says it all: transparency and virtue are essential when measuring or evaluating, including when measuring the ROI in PR. In this way, your organization can grow and you can adapt your strategies. By using complete information and including the preconceptions of that information, you remain honest with yourself and with your target group.
After reading this blog, you will hopefully have a better idea of the ROI in PR. You may not have to deal with it every day, but at least you now know what it means and what to look out for.
