Few keep track of PR effect on profits

By SIMON HENDERY marketing writer

Only a third of organisations measure how their public relations work affects financial profitability, according to a survey of PR professionals.

The poll of 284 Public Relations Institute (Prinz) members was co-ordinated by president Tim Marshall, who presented the results to the Strategic Communications and Public Relations forum last month.

One of the questions asked of the PR practitioners was whether their organisation (in the case of those working in-house) or their biggest client (for consultants) measured the value of PR and communications activities to the bottom line.

Ten per cent said that level of measurement happened all the time. A further 23 per cent said it happened most of the time, 25 per cent said occasionally, 27 per cent said rarely and 15 per cent never.

But most respondents believed their organisation did a good job of linking PR to its core objectives - 32 per cent said it did fairly well at this and 33 per cent said very well.

Marshall said the results showed it was important to link PR to organisational objectives, but it could be "a long stretch" to link communication work to the company's revenue or bottom-line result.

"It's interesting to see and quite heartening - that a reasonable number of organisations are linking back to organisational objectives.

"But on the other hand, it should be 100 per cent, shouldn't it?"

The survey also asked whether organisations were linking their PR and communications work to triple-bottom-line objectives. Seventy per cent of respondents said they were compared all or most of the time.

Marshall said this suggested practitioners were linking their work to some triple-bottom-line aims rather than to its full methodology.

"My feeling is what people have done is said their organisations are concerned about more than just the economic equation - they're interested in the social and environmental side of things and they're pegging some of their activities against those social and environmental goals."

The survey asked for comments on the relevance of measurement in PR, drawing diverse opinions.

"I'd rather be doing than measuring," said one respondent, but another said that without yardsticks, "the PR profession is never going to convince the public how effective it can be".

Marshall came down in the middle, saying PR practitioners were dealing with issues where it was "often a matter of judgment rather than a matter of measurement".

"To say hard and fast we should be measuring everything we do is not right. We've got to consider that being a good PR practitioner is an art as well as a science."

The survey found almost all organisations spent less than 10 per cent of their communications budget on measurement, and most spent less than 5 per cent.

"This is a challenge for PR and communications people," said Marshall. "Their budgets aren't huge so to allocate a small amount to do some meaningful measurement is tricky."

The Prinz survey

Does your organisation/client measure:

The value of PR to the bottom line?

* All/most of the time 33 per cent

* Occasionally 25pc

* Rarely/never 42pc.

PR outputs (eg, media coverage, attendance at events)?

* All/most of the time 32pc

* Occasionally 26pc

* Rarely/never 42pc.

PR outcomes (eg, change in product sales or voting patterns)?

* All/most of the time 46pc

* Occasionally 30pc

* Rarely/never 24pc.

Shattock Communications & Research survey