Why PR and Comms Need Measurement More Than Ever: Surviving (and Thriving) in Times of Uncertainty

NPR’s Marketplace’s headline yesterday read: Stress-Googling “recession”? You’re not alone” They’re right. Above is the chart of Google searches for “recession” in the last 90 days.

In yesterday’s Federal Reserve Beige Book report, the most frequently used word to describe these economic times was “uncertainty.”?

Clearly fears of an economic downturn are on people’s minds. Not that I’m predicting one, but the economists and the stock market definitely seem to be concerned about our economic future.

But that might be very good news for all of your measurement mavens out there.

Downturns can be good for the bottom line and your reputation.

I’ve been running a measurement company of one sort or another for 35 years. In the process, I’ve survived at least four economic downturns. In the early 90s there was the crash caused by the Savings and Loan crisis. 2000 brought us the “Dot-Com Crash.” Then there was the post-9/11 recession, and of course in 2008 we had “the Great Recession,” and in 2020 there was Covid.

Prior to every period of predicted economic peril, I would go through the usual hand wringing, cost cutting and sleepless nights. I remember one awful day, where I was being interviewed for a cover story on me for a local business magazine that was highlighting successful female entrepreneurs in New Hampshire. Right after they took the cover shot, we had to ask all of our employees to take a temporary pay cut in order to keep the company going.

But then something weird and unexpected happened. New business starting pouring in. It was a pattern that would repeat during every downturn.

New clients would call us needing measurement RIGHT NOW! In one unforgettable moment, just as the sub-prime mortgage bubble was about to burst, one of the largest social media companies called us the week before Christmas and demanded that we get them a measurement dashboard “by the first week in January”! It wasn’t much of a holiday, but we delivered.

Invariably during these downturns, our business would grow, new clients would come on board, and existing clients renewed. At the time I didn’t really see a correlation, but looking back it was pretty obvious that economic uncertainty increased demand for the kind of data, metrics, and accountability we were helping them deliver. ?Also not surprisingly, those clients that launched or expanded their measurement programs in uncertain times not only kept their budgets but went on to some pretty stellar careers.

My favorite data-to-riches story was my client, a lowly research assistant for a semiconductor company in the early 2000s. Every time we sent her a report; she’d take it to her boss and point out the programs that weren’t working and ask if she could move some money around to the projects that were clearly working. The boss would inevitably say yes, and their investment in measurement would grow. Last I knew she was VP of Communications for one of the largest semiconductors companies on the planet.

Another client was facing budget cuts, so he called to assure me that our measurement program was safe because “cutting off the rest was like losing a pinkie, cutting measurement is like cutting off your right arm. He didn’t just preserve the PR measurement program, he expanded it to include measurement of his Events and Trade Shows. He later went on to run all of IBM’s worldwide events.

Then there was my client at Atlantic City, the late great Jeff Guaracino. I’d been delivering monthly team reports that showed the correlation between the high-quality coverage his team had been producing and downloads of their visitor guide indicating an intent to visit the city. ?He called me late on a Friday afternoon after a particularly tough round of bad press and said “Katie, I wanted you to be the first to know…”? I braced for the worst.

Then he went on to tell me that they had just fired their VP, canned the ad agency, and slashed the budget. The only thing that survived was the PR team and Jeff’s budget. “That was all due to your charts,” Jeff said. Not only did he and his team survive. He brought his measurement chops to Visit Philadelphia, which became one of the most lauded destination marketing branding efforts in recent years.

Comms should be seen as the REAL Department of Efficiency

I know, from 35 years of measuring it, that PR is efficient and effective at achieving corporate goals. I also believe that when you have data to prove that effectiveness, you will look like heroes. So when we face as much economic uncertainty as we do right now, communications professionals need to be investing in measurement, collecting more data and proving their value at every turn.

I?don’t mean buying another expensive platform to spew out more data that you can throw into your monthly report. I’m talking about investing the time and effort to sit down with leadership, get a good understanding of their pain points and priorities and then make sure that your metrics address those pain points and align with those priorities.

When we do that, we’re not saying we are “cheaper than advertising,” (as AVEs purport to report,) we are showing that we make data-driven decisions, and can make all programs more effective, including the ones they pay for.

A dozen things you should measure to show your value in a downturn:

1. Are your efforts driving traffic to the right pages on your website?
2. Are your employees helping to amplify your messages?
3. Do your employees understand the priorities and are they acting to implement them? If not, why not?
4. In terms of achieving your priorities, what is the most (and least) cost effective program/campaign?
5. What percentage of your content or coverage reaches your target audience with information they care about and trust?
6. What programs, products, messages, or behaviors drive that trust?
7. Who are the most trusted sources (individuals, media outlets, platforms, influencers etc.) for your target markets?
8. To what extent are your messages appearing in those sources?
9. Of all the content about your organization, your industry, and/or your peers, are you getting enough of the good stuff and the least amount of the bad stuff (aka share of desirable voice)?
10. Which efforts are most successful in driving engagement, building credibility, expanding awareness or increasing preference among your targeted markets?
11. Is the media amplifying your messages or positioning?
12. If appropriate, are your leadership/experts getting sufficient visibility to get your messages and positioning across?

If you don’t know the answers to those questions, call me. Been there, measured that.