September is AMEC’s Global Measurement Month with many events around the world focused on PR measurement. The kick-off event was held in Hong Kong and addressed the touchy subject of AVE’s. (Advertising Equivalency Values, where you measure the value of your media coverage by calculating how much an equivalent advertisement would cost.) The event promised tips and tricks on how to manage clients and stakeholders who still demand those pesky AVEs.
Why is measuring AVE’s a waste of time? They don’t measure what matters.
We’ve evolved from just counting what we do and how many inches/minutes of media we get, to being able to measure real results – outcomes rather than outputs. Before you set up a measurement framework or plan, ask yourself what value your content provides. Why does anyone read your blog posts or articles? What are they looking for?
Figure out what that one metric is that shows the value your most loyal customers/readers/viewers get from your content. If you are tracking blog readers, you should go go beyond the number of visitors and where they came from. You need to know what they did after they arrived.
Do they read the whole post or just a few lines? Do they bounce off or go to other pages? Do they sign up for your newsletter or watch a video?
The big question here is: Are you providing your visitors with options or just “flying blind?”
Do you have a content strategy, so that each item of content leads your visitors to the result you desire?
Statistics and Math
Yes, I know we PR folk are not math nerds. But it’s past time we learned enough to figure out how to measure our work. Measurement and analytics are now a requirement in many PR jobs advertised. Give yourself that edge – be the applicant who can talk numbers and results.
New PR Measurement Course
If this interests you, I’m launching a measurement course – along with the free Google Analytics PR Dashboard course as a bonus – on October 10, 2017.
If you have not yet signed up for the 15 Digital Skills free email course, do that now. By time you’re done with that the new course will be ready. It will be released to the people on that list first, with several extra bonuses. So get yourself on that list now.
REGISTER NOW