Outputs v. Outcomes – Hits are the new AVEs
by TomToronto
Last night in PR class was the finale of our RACE series, Evaluation. I was looking forward to this class, since I find PR measurement fascinating. Unfortunately, we didn’t discuss measurement and evaluation extensively; instead we focused on the importance of writing objectives that are identifiable and measurable, which is an important lesson in its own right.
One key theme we did touch on is the importance of measuring outcomes instead of outputs. In my opinion, this seems to be a recurring theme in PR measurement, and a common problem.
Many PR metrics focus on the quantity of what is produced, and who may or may not see it. For example, how many clips did our press release generate? How many successful pitches did we have? What was the reach of our publicity? These are great to measure within a communication plan, but fail to evaluate the success of a plan.
In the past, Ad Value Equivalencies were a common metric for PR success. How much “free” press did we generate, and how much would that have cost us if it were an ad? Add a few multipliers to beef it up, show it to management, then ask for an increased budget. This has widely been discredited as a flawed measurement system. It doesn’t correlate to any impact on the audience, and eyeballs do not equate to action from targeted stakeholders.
AVEs are a measurement of output. To me, it’s basically a measurement of what the PR staff has been up to. It measures what you’re doing, but not how you’re doing. In a sports analogy, you’re measuring the shots taken, not the points on the board.
The trouble is that this type of measurement seems to be returning when it comes to social media. There is a lot of talk about how many hits are generated. How many subscribers are on the corporate blog, how many views did our viral video get, how big is our facebook group? These are convenient metrics, because like AVEs, they are easy to measure. In actuality, they’re not going to measure any success; they will only measure the distribution of your tactics.
Hits, subscribers, friends and tags are all the same as AVEs from a measurement standpoint. They measure dissemination, not change in opinion, impact or action. They measure outputs, not outcomes.
PR needs to be very critical of its own work. If we hope to be effective counselors, we need to demonstrate substantial impact in our audiences, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Measurement should be about improving reputation and/or increasing ROI, rather than tallying eyeballs.
Comments
you make some great points Tom.
I like to think of it like this:
Metrics: Counting how many subscribers, how many clicks, how many whatever. Anyone can do this.
Analytics: As you stated, “change in opinion, impact or action,” basically making sense of the value those numbers have on your strategy. This takes much more insight than counting.
z
Interesting comparison. And an accurate, too. There are many a measurement maven out there that espouse the “say no to eyeballs and yes to (among many others) like engagement and influence” and, more importantly but more problematically, the impact that they have on whatever your objective / outcome is.
Thank you Zoe and Alan for your input. It seems measurement, like most of PR, doesn’t have a one size fits all solution, only guidelines and principles to stick to.
Thanks again for your comments!
Absolutely. Best practices and guiding principles. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who does measurement or one form or another using the word ’standard.’ You just don’t can’t measure a PA campaign to propose or discourage a piece of legislation the way you can the launch of a new chocolate bar. VERY different.
Perhaps the leading proponent / publisher of said best practices and guiding principles is the Institute for Public Relations and its Measurement Commission:
http://www.instituteforpr.org/about/measurement_commission
Great post. I just came across this post after having seen a tremendous increase in our own site traffic. Unfortunately, even though I knew much of the increase was attributed to the generated press release, we can not tell the direct impact of the PR efforts. We can only look at correlations.
I agree that a more representative measurement is needed.