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Measurement and evaluation - Evaluation elevating PR
Evaluation elevating PR
By Craig N Pearce MPRIA, of Craig Pearce Strategic Communication
As the central strategic tenet of public relations is to enhance the quality of relationships between an organisation and its stakeholders, evaluation is a critical and fundamental element of the profession's practice.
Without evaluation - and its tactical sibling measurement - public relations, like any business discipline, can simply not know:
- the direction in which in which it should travel
- the opportunities or impediments it faces in its journey
- benchmarks against which the effectiveness of its strategies, tactics and practice can be measured against.
Without serious, scientifically rigorous measurement and evaluation, public relations will find it difficult to prove its worth to an organisation.
Information that measurement and evaluation generates:
- provides information that allows practitioners to be creative in their strategic formulation
- can prove assumptions being made about target audiences are well founded or, conversely, disprove assumptions, thereby saving time, money and practitioners' credibility.
Undertaking measurement and evaluation, then, surely helps to enhance public relations professionals' personal satisfaction in their role and career.
Some key points to remember about measurement and evaluation follow.
Why do it?
It is critical to know why an evaluation program is being undertaken before instigating it. The evaluation might be to determine:
- what are the most effective communication mechanisms to reach target audiences
- what are the issues or topics that are of most concern to target audiences
- what is the current status of target audiences' knowledge, perceptions and behaviour in regard to relevant issues and/or the organisation
- who or what currently influences the knowledge, perceptions and behaviour of target audiences in relevant areas and/or what has influenced any changes in their knowledge, perceptions and behaviour since last evaluated.
A deeper level of evaluation comes with thorough analysis of the data that is generated through the measurement/research process. This includes exploring the ramifications of the findings and looking for trends or emerging issues that future communication needs to incorporate to remain effective or become more effective.
Rationality vs. creativity
The generation of cold, hard data through the measurement process is not antithetical to creativity.
Creativity is one of public relations' greatest strengths. This manifests itself through lateral thinking that is used in strategy and tactical formulation.
Data that is made apparent through measurement will provide a depth of information that simply allows professionals to be creative in a manner that is likely to have more impact. The data should inspire, not constrain.
Cost
Measurement does not need to cost a lot. Even a cheap/free online mechanism or dissemination/collection of feedback forms at an event/speaking engagement can provide insights as well as useful quantitative benchmarking information.
Qual vs. quant
There is seemingly a much stronger focus on the utility of qualitative research these days than there was five years ago. Quantitative research is still incredibly valuable, and the two work best hand in hand, but intelligent application of qual research can:
- Generate profound insights through exploration and interaction with the interviewee(s)
- Be undertaken by non-professional (but still intelligent) public relations professionals, thus potentially saving on organisational resources.
Who to evaluate
In most cases, it will be the relevant primary target audiences of an organisation that should be researched. They are the ones that will probably be impacting most on an organisation's operations and/or reputation.
It may just be, however, that researching key influencers on target audiences, instead of the target audiences themselves, makes more sense. This may be:
- for cost reasons
- due to the nature of the communication campaign the research is relevant to
- as it is known, obvious and accepted what the target audience factors are, so it makes more sense to get greater insights into those who most influence target audiences.
The purse strings
Getting the budget required to do extensive evaluation (or market research, to use its prosaic name) is often difficult. All sorts of justifications can be needed.
- Without it, communication strategy is being undertaken in a less than fully educated, professional manner, which may compromise its effectiveness and impact negatively on the organisation's reputation
- Money and other resources invested in communication cannot be allocated as effectively and prudently as possible without evaluation-driven target audience insights
- Identifying key issues/concerns of the 'dominant coalition' (those who will decide or significantly influence whether funds are allocated to market research) in regard to target audience behaviours, then ensuring the research covers those issues, is a smart move to get budget sign off.
Craig Pearce is a freelance public relations professional with 14 years business communication experience. He offers strategic and tactical support to PR agencies and in-house teams that need an extra 'pair of hands' on deck. He can be contacted at craig@craigpearce.info + 0438 003 430 + www.craigpearce.info