Why you must develop your measurement skills to succeed in PR

Measurement. It’s part of the basics: in order to prove how well a campaign or project performed, you need to compare it to a base line. Communicating success — and, where appropriate, changes that need to be made — to clients, executives and other stakeholders is part of the work.

According to the Institute for PR, organizations should aim for “outcome-based, data-informed predictive analysis and insights.” What we refer to as measurement actually breaks down into three elements: measurement, analysis and evaluation. All of these are important, both for day-to-day work and for proving return on investment to stakeholders.

Meanwhile, there is a growing connection between data science and measurement. Data that was once siloed in HR or marketing are flowing together into PR.

PR professionals today “aren’t looking at analysis just at the end of a campaign or year or certain term,” said Johna Burke, global managing director, AMEC. “They really are incorporating data analysis and evaluation, whether that’s campaign analysis, crisis simulation, etc., on a consistent basis. That allows the best practitioners to improve their effectiveness and increase their credibility with the C-Suite.”

Checking the pulse