This is the second part of a two-part series on how to present to your board. Part One is “How to Get a Seat at the Table in 5 Easy Steps.”
Here are three examples of charts that your board will love – (and they’re all taken from actual board presentations):
1. A chart that shows the impact of specific PR initiatives on overall results
The goal of this particular PR program was to turn around the public image of a tourism destination that had fallen on hard times in recent years. Before the program began, the city had been the subject of erroneous reporting combined with an endless barrage of bad news generated by competing venues. In 2013 a series of PR initiatives were undertaken to get positive messages out to the public and thereby change the city’s image.
This was the chart the PR team showed to the board:
Here’s how they made it:
First of all the team captured all the coverage of both the city and the PR programs. All coverage was coded for the following elements:
- Mention of specific PR-driven programs or events
- Presence of key messages
- Presence of negative messages
- Positive and negative tonality
- Presence of positive or desirable visual(s)
The data was captured into a single Excel spreadsheet that looks like this (the table may be cut off on the right-hand side, but you get the idea):
| Title | Date | Outlet | Source | Tone | Messages | Endorse | Tier | Visual | Program | Total Score | |
| 33 | For the holidays | 10/25/2012 | postonline.com | With PR | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| 46 | It’s time | 4/12/2012 | nj.com | With PR | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| 52 | More than meets | 4/12/2012 | postonline.com | Without PR | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Then in Excel, a pivot table was created. The “legend” was the Source, (with PR or without PR). The values are the average of Tone, average of Messages, Average of Endorsements, etc. You end up with something that looks like this (again, the table may be cut off on the right-hand side):
| Row Labels | Average of Positive Tone with PR |
Average of Positive Tone without PR |
Average of Message Presence with PR |
Average of Message Presence without PR | Average of Endorsement with PR | Average of Endorsement without PR | Average of Desirable Visual with PR | Average of Desirable Visual without PR |
| Jan | 0.7 | 0.0 | 2.5 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Feb | 0.9 | 0.1 | 2.7 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
| Mar | 0.9 | -0.2 | 2.7 | 1.0 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Apr | 0.3 | -0.1 | 2.3 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| May | 0.8 | 0.2 | 2.7 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.2 |
| Jun | 0.7 | 0.2 | 2.6 | 1.6 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| Jul | 0.8 | 0.4 | 2.6 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.2 |
| Aug | 0.6 | 0.3 | 2.7 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.2 |
| Sep | 0.5 | 0.2 | 2.4 | 1.8 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
| Oct | 0.6 | -0.2 | 2.4 | 1.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| Nov | 0.7 | -0.1 | 2.3 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| Dec | 0.4 | -0.5 | 2.1 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.0 |
| Grand Total | 0.64 | 0.06 | 2.51 | 1.33 | 0.24 | 0.03 | 0.34 | 0.11 |
Then create a chart from the results and voila!
2. A chart that shows what worked and what didn’t
This bubble chart (shown here with squares for “bubbles”) requires an agreed-upon definition of success. In this example it’s “engagement,” but it could just as easily be a quality index for your social or traditional media coverage, conversions, leads, messages communicated, or share of hashtags for an event. Just make sure everyone who is going to see this chart has agreed upon the definition of success, i.e., that vertical axis.
Whatever the metric is, rank order all your programs from highest scoring to lowest and place them on the vertical axis. In the example you can see that the programs that resulted in the most engagement are near the top, and the least near the bottom.
The horizontal axis represents the level of resources that each program required. No need get it down to dollars and cents, just categorize them by overall level of resources. And by resources we mean the total cost: Internal as well as external resources. Feel free to add a PITA (Pain in the Ass) factor if you need to.
The size of the boxes should reflect the volume of exposure (impressions, total followers, total likes, or whatever is relevant to your program).
3. A chart that will translate your results into boardspeak
Most board members tend to roll their eyes at typical PR reports because they tend to look pretty, and different from the others they see. If everyone else is getting a budget increase and all you’re getting is rolling eyeballs, it’s a good bet the board who rather have your information in a way that they’re used to seeing.
Try a spider chart, they’re a big favorite with most boards. Spider charts, like the one above, are an easy way to capture a tremendous amount of data in one chart. The data points represent performance against goals, plotted radially from the center. The various quadrants represent the specific groups or areas for which you are reporting data. This is one chart that will make them sit up and take notice. ∞
(image: Club Managers Association of America)
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