- Case Study # 1– Southwest Airlines: A couple of decades ago, Southwest Airlines launched a new route into Philadelphia. Wanting to test the effectiveness of working SEO into their press releases, they launched in carefully planned phases, with earned media and PR (embedded with unique links) leading the way. They held off on any paid ads for at least a month so they could see what impact PR was having on ticket sales. As a result of those unique tags, Southwest was able to track the number of tickets sold during that “PR-Only” time frame when the only promotion running was attributable to PR.
- At the end of the test, they calculated that they sold more than $1 million worth of tickets from the PR activities – more than enough to offset the PR budget at the time. You can read the entire award-winning case study here:
- Case Study # 2–Procter & Gamble Thanks to years of well-researched advertising data, they knew that to sell shampoo, a paid ad had to contain a desirable visual, a quote from a respected stylist, and at least three brand benefits. We had been analyzing their earned media for a host of components like sentiment and topic, as well as the same three elements that the paid and folks were tracking. As a result, we were able to report exactly how much of their coverage contained those three key elements and which media outlets they’d appeared in. They were then able to use that data in their analytics and thus calculate how much the earned media contributed to shampoo sales. That program became the foundation for Mark Weiner’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Unleashing-Power-Contrarians-Marketing-Communication/dp/0787982792
- Case Study # 3– PBS: The folks at PBS already had data that showed that increased online engagement with their website showed was strongly correlated with viewership and ultimately membership revenue. So, when Anne Bentley, VP and head of Corporate Communications wanted to make a connection between her earned media efforts and impact on revenue, she had the data. They concluded that mentions of key programs, specific personalities that were written by the most influential TV critics, were most likely to drive engagement. They then provided their Google Analytics data so we could correlate the engagement data to connect the media coverage and increased engagement, which ultimately resulted in increased viewers and members.A year into the program, one of their shows “The Great American Read” was mocked on a late-night comedy show. While PBS considered it a negative article, further analysis of the engagement data indicated a dramatic increase in web traffic to the Great American Read link in the week following the show.If you want more information on how to calculate impact and/or revenue from your PR program, email me: measurementqueen@gmail.com. If you have a good story to tell and want to add it to the list, let me know!
