One of the biggest concerns companies have with hiring an outside PR or marketing agency is return-on-investment. And in today’s 24/7 digital world, it is more important than ever for agencies and PR professionals to clearly communicate the results of their efforts & the value PR brings to their clients’ bottom-line.
Providing clients with a post-campaign, high-level PR recap that incorporates relevant statistics, examples of media placements, and future recommendations/lessons learned, is a great way to do this. Here are five tips on how to make it happen:
1) Speak their language – Although PR recaps should highlight online, print and broadcast coverage, right-brained clients are much more receptive to reports that also include total PR value (or advertising value equivalents AVEs), number of impressions, and number of articles secured. When you speak their language, it’s easier for them to follow the information and data you’re presenting.
2) Make it look pretty – By using a combination of colorful graphs, screenshots of editorial placements, and a branded layout, you can create a seamless report that is easy to present and walk your client through.
3) Short & sweet – With our attention spans growing shorter every day, a boring 20-page report with no pictures is not going to effectively get your message across. At most, the recap should be 10 pages and include minimal text on each page.
4) Refer back to KPIs – If key performance indicators (KPIs) were established at the start of the campaign, acknowledge those goals to prove your efforts were successful. One KPI we often use is the year-over-year formula, which shows the increase in reach and coverage from one year to the next.
5) Recommendations – What are next steps? Did you learn anything notable from the campaign and should it be referenced when establishing future goals? Moving forward, what can be done to optimize the statistics? Offering recommendations shows you are interested in finding ways to gain more exposure for your client and their business, and that you’re already planning ahead for the next project.
It’s easy to pull together a hodgepodge report that can be sent in an email without a second thought, but creating a branded, all-encompassing recap that depicts the results you have garnered for your client will communicate the value PR brings to their overall marketing initiative, and help you stand out as a communications expert.