A better way to measure the value of earned media

Earned media is perfectly positioned to solve the biggest challenges senior marketers face. It generates qualified prospects, identifies potential leads and engages customers at the right place and time.

By rights, communications should play a far more prominent role in the marketing mix. The reason it doesn’t can be summed up in just three words: lack of measurement.

Marketing execs want to know their investments are achieving tangible business goals. But old calculations like Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) simply aren’t up to the job. Today, technology is helping communicators measure the performance of their campaigns with far greater accuracy.

Why communicators need a new way to measure earned media

You’d be hard-pressed to find a marketing director who considers AVE a meaningful metric. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that some major PR organisations are calling for it to be abandoned altogether.

AVE ascribes the same value to both positive and negative media coverage. It doesn’t account for when coverage reaches the wrong audience for your brand. And it does a bad job of measuring the impact of coverage received through social media.

“AVE is a lazy way of persuading marketers schooled in old ad ways that PR counts,” says Robert Phillips, Edelman’s former CEO. “The model of the future must be able to analyse the depth, resonance, importance and influence of the conversation.”

Other common measures like Opportunities to See (OTS) and reach also fall short of this standard. But new innovations are helping communicators assess the impact their campaigns are having on tangible metrics like conversions, lead generation and ROI.

Armed with these insights, not only will you be able to demonstrate the success of your campaigns to senior stakeholders. You’ll also have the tools to optimise them for maximum impact.

Better tools mean better measurement – and better results

Great PR measurement is about showing you the future, not just measuring the past. Only then can you use smart insights to develop a content strategy that leverages the best combination of earned media tactics for your business.

“The entire industry needs to change its mindset,” explains Sean O’Driscoll (pictured), Cision’s chief strategy and insights officer. “At the moment, we use data retrospectively to assess what’s already happened. But we should be using it as a guide to doing things better in the future.”

Cision created its brand new white paper, Driving growth with PR measurement, to help communicators do exactly that.

Comms teams sight “complexity” as one of the main reasons for skipping this vital step in the planning process. But, as this white paper reveals, this kind of forward thinking approach is now accessible to everyone.

With latest tools and techniques, you can turn the masses of data your campaigns generate into clear insights that help you optimise your campaigns. Then, you can use these same insights to make the case for greater investment in earned media and comms.

So, download Driving growth with PR measurement today using the form below – and discover the analysis breakthroughs set to transform earned media’s place the marketing mix.