So your boss or your board is asking, “What is PR worth? What’s the value of doing all this PR (or social media or events or internal comms)? How do I know what we are getting for our money? What the hell good is all this communications, anyway?”
And our answer to you is, “Do good communications measurement.”
What can we say? We’ve been writing about this for 30 years, and most of the point of all that writing is how to show the value of your work. By doing good communications measurement.
Not to sound like the smarty pants in middle school, but, if you had heeded the advice in our article from last January:
The Measurement Revolution Manifesto: Use Business Metrics, Not Bad Metrics!
then you and your boss (or board) would already know what your PR and comms are worth.
OK, OK, thanks for letting us vent… Most of us have, at least once in our career, struggled to put a business value on the work we do. In part, it’s because some of our most significant efforts — like establishing relationships, building trust, and changing a narrative — take years to bear fruit. Attribution is always a challenge. Other more visible achievements may have short term impact but, again, claiming attribution can put you on shaky ground.
So here is a roundup of the tips and techniques you need to demonstrate your value to your boss, the c-suite, and your board of directors — whoever needs to understand and appreciate the impact your efforts have on the organization. Here are the keys to answer “What is PR worth?”:
- How To Show PR’s Contribution to the Bottom Line: 5 Steps to Demonstrate Your Value
- 6 Quick Steps to Connect Communications Efforts to the Bottom Line
- A 5-Step Program to Measure Your Value — Without Being Ridiculed by Your CFO
- How to Get a Seat at the Table in 5 Easy Steps
- How to Break Up With Impressions: 4 Steps to Start Measuring What’s Really Valuable
- Katie Paine’s 8 Tips for Producing Charts Your Boss or Client will Take to the Board
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