The Obsession with Tracking, ROI & Measuring...

This week I saw an article from someone in marketing who talked about the importance of tracking, figures, reach etc when it comes to marketing or, in my world, public relations.

At the end of the article I still was no wiser as to what was being measured or tracked. It all sounded like complete jargon and BS creating the smoke and mirrors effect of having graphs, tables and KPIs over and over again. Numbers equal success. Everyone is happy. They are, aren't they? Are you a business owner who likes a load of figures and numbers to feel happy?

Now, I fully admit I'm not a numbers person but frankly if you are going to measure everything by numbers as your only outcome then I'd be surprised if you find any marketing of value. Or you'll flip flop between different strategies over and over again because you aren't giving any strategy enough time to take effect. A good media strategy for example can take between two and five years to get you from a standing start to really becoming an embedded part of the business landscape unless you have a huge budget (anyone telling you differently is not being honest).

Why? Well public relations is very hard to quantify and I cannot say that enough. Most outcomes are not tangible in that you can relate one activity directly to one sale. It's simply not sales and focussing on numbers alone you are only getting half the story. For example, you may find a PR company or a marketing company talks about 'reach' and that 'reach' of that particular small campaign went out to 50,000 people - however no one can tell you what those 50,000 people thought about your article, did they take any further action? are they going to buy now, next week or in the future? Or not at all? Or will they have forgotten you by next week?

If you just rely on numbers you forget one key thing in public relations - it's not sales, it's reputation built upon positive stories told often in several places in a consistent manner. The 'places' are up to you based upon your business type - as your business grows you may increase those 'places' or your commitment to one of those 'places'. What you cannot know is the impact on one individual who sees your stories and at what point that might tip someone into making contact, making a purchase or deciding to watch you for a while to see if you are right for them at some future point.

Measurement, for me, should come after about a year when it comes to media relations and is more likely to show impact around overall turnover of the business - as sales can come in sideways, left ways, right ways and all ways when your public relations mix is strong - however it can be almost impossible to point to a particular sale and say it came from a particular activity. I personally look for organic growth, more inquiries and more connections and an overall feeling of being visible, being tip of the tongue. In 2020, I've been looking for survival and maintenance for a business like mine - and worked with my retained clients with that in mind, depending on the nature of their businesses. We've been realistic, invested when we can and we've done all we can to be positive.

You can find any number of numbers, or measurements etc to show that you are becoming more visible. However that visibility can rarely be anchored directly to sales figures. Sales is a whole different discipline which kicks in when you start to be more visible - and a public relations consultant will not do that bit for you (however they should be able to tell you all about that discipline and perhaps educate your sales staff around it).

For example, I may do a great PR campaign for you around an event you are putting on and we may get three pieces of on and offline coverage for it. However you are frustrated because you've got no sales, no interest in that event which you know is high end. I've done my bit with the PR however have you done your bit? Are you answering your phone? Is your website set up to take bookings easily? Or is your website so un-user friendly that it's difficult to book tickets? Have you talked about it often on your social media? PR is not the answer to everything, it's the start of something! In a case like this, I can then give you chapter and verse about reach and coverage and prove I've done my bit - but have you made it easy for people to buy from you, have you amplified that coverage and made it even more visible?

The truth is numbers don't often show the true picture and have to be taken with a pinch of salt. I could pay a social media influencer with a following of over 100K to write about my widget - and they do exactly what they are being asked to do and I get no immediate sales. Not one. I could ask another blogger to do something in return for a free widget with a tiny audience and I get five sales. Then six months down the line, I could have a month with ten extra sales and I've no idea where they came from and why. Often if you ask a customer they say something like 'I remembered seeing something about you somewhere..." because who remembers what they read six months ago?

Take email marketing (something I do myself and I find it very valuable as part of my PR mix) as an example. I can email about a webinar I'm doing to my audience on my list and I'll probably get a few people book - that's very direct. However I could buy in lists of 1000s of names and send that same opportunity out to those people and not get one sale. I know someone who has done this recently for a project I have some small involvement with (all compliant but not my favourite tactic). To my knowledge that has not generated a single sale. Not one. Why? because those people are being spammed because they've signed up to something somewhere that they've forgotten about. Do you like being spammed? So saying the reach is 3000 people is only part of the story. It's 3,000 people who don't know me, didn't ask to be sent my stuff, and aren't interested...the true value is far less.

When you focus just on numbers in business to make yourself feel that you are getting ROI, you are often not going deep enough, you are often mistaking PR for sales, and you are often not valuing the intangibles of marketing and you are often totally unrealistic about time scales and the real investment required. I've spoken in other posts about the outcomes you should expect from PR and sales is only a small part of the story.

For you, the numbers people, the only true measure of any kind public relations activity is to stop. STOP. STOP ALL OF IT.

This means take down your website, do no social media, no blogging anywhere, don't attend any networking, forget any trade shows (mostly virtual for 2021), don't do any advertising or advertorial online or offline, don't wear branded clothing, or using branded vehicles. Forget any printed marketing material, take down any office signage, no video marketing or Facebook lives, no talking to any journalists, no taking up of that offer of a radio interview. Just sit at your desk and wait for the phone to ring. For a time you may get some calls due to ongoing work and established contacts but you will see that very gradually those calls will dry up, and your visibility will disappear and you will become irrelevant. How quickly that happens will depend on how many clients and contacts you have who are proactive and who are willing to do all of the running to you. If this works for you, then fill your boots. True public relations is where you do the running in order that you can be found easily, not that your customers find you randomly out of the ether.

Public relations is more about putting you and your business into a position for people to buy from you when they want what you offer. It's about personality of your business and you and your team. It's far more holistic than numbers, KPIs and tracking. I'm not saying you should not look at your numbers ever - I'm saying do so alongside the other outcomes you were looking to achieve and you need to give it a decent amount of time.

The truth is whatever measurements you take - or insist upon - you have to be visible somewhere to someone to succeed in business and number-crunching is not all that it's cracked up to be. Great numbers may make you feel great, may satisfy a board, or make good reading in a glossy report, but will it convert into real business or real opportunity? I've found that by just focusing the numbers, you might miss an opportunity which isn't a sale now, but could be a sale later or a collaboration which brings you many sales down the line. Open your mind to the reality that not everything can be measured or is part of a table of results...accept the fact that much of business is intangible and intangibles can have very tangible outcomes.

Don't believe me? Then look at the behaviour of business owners in general. How many times have you heard the phrase 'business needs certainty' or 'business needs confidence' - what does that have to do with numbers? It has a lot to do, in fact, with creating numbers. The Stock Exchange will go up and down dramatically based upon feelings of confidence, the words said by that world leader or this world leader. Not based upon figures and numbers. The feelings, words, or stories come first - and then the numbers are affected.

To all of you number crunchers out there - business is about people and their relationships - it's not about how full of numbers your spreadsheet is today...