The Importance of Being Earnest

‘Earnest’ is defined in the Oxford English dictionary as being “sincere and serious in intention” which I am very sorry to say I find sorely lacking in the communications industry today.

Instead we have a lot of generally well-dressed PR practitioners rushing around hoping to look V.I.B. (very important and busy) by having lots of meetings which generate nothing but brain farts and maybe a badly written, misguided press release for a ‘PR campaign’. Therein lies the problem - insincere people with vacuous intentions.

No such thing as a PR campaign

There can never be a successful “PR campaign” because the word ‘campaign’ implies a short-term initiative. Any successful communications outcome is always a long-term thing. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that if you ask them what good looks like they’ll either sell you a heavily weighted advertising value equivalent (AVE) score or they’ll spout out a bunch of excuses about how poor a measure AVE is without actually offering any alternative.

The bottom line is that there is only one way to measure an outcome – did you achieve what you wanted to achieve? And in order to measure that you need to know what you want to achieve. Which isn’t always as simple as it sounds… Are you trying to sell a product? Are you trying to make government aware of your new CSR initiative? Or aren’t you actually trying to build a long-term positive reputation for your brand? More importantly, how do you know if you’ve done your job?

Focus on the ROI

I believe it is irresponsible to focus only on the short-term. Best is to measure the return on investment by constructing a matrix of measures that track both long- and short-term objectives. To do that you have to, I am afraid, sacrifice some of your budget for research. This isn’t always easy because I have yet to meet a communications team that has as much budget as a marketing team – or in fact, even a tenth of it – but if you don’t have some sort on ongoing reputation tracking in place you can never really say whether or not you are meeting your long-term objectives.

Not that the perfect reputation tracker has been developed and the debate amongst the academics on the topic rages on, but consistent application of an imperfect measure is better than no measure at all. I have great hopes for big data and AI to solve this perennial problem, but that’s a topic for another day.

Which I suppose is the perfect entrée into the debate on AVE. Yes, I know, it’s not accurate. Everyone seems to measure it differently. And adding a PR weighting to it is tantamount to fudging the numbers. However, if you can use this number to measure did this message get more or less coverage than that message, or did our company get more or less coverage than their company, then at least you have something. But use it as your only measure at your peril…

Consistent application of an imperfect measure is better than no measure at all.

You also need to measure: was this coverage more or less positive than that? And was this coverage more or less credible? And now that we are in the digital age, we also get to use some really useful measures like: What reach did I get on that message? How many of my stakeholders were exposed to my message? Did they engage with my message? Was it a positive or negative engagement? And was it a cost-effective engagement?

Fall in love with the spreadsheet

What this really means is that as communicators – people who are generally more literate than numerate – we need to develop a new skill. We need to own the spreadsheet in the same way that the finance people do. I know the creatives like to ignore it, but sorry, you need to live and die by the spreadsheet.

On those spreadsheets you need ALL the relevant metrics - you can’t just focus on one or two. You have to track the online and the offline metrics. You have to track the traditional and the digital or social PR metrics. You have to look at the short-term and the long-term objectives.

You have to see the big picture.

There are a lot of measures you could use and some you should at least use. There are also a lot of different tools. I’m not sure that there is a right and a wrong in this – I think you have to find what really works for you.

The secret sauce

So, now that we agree that it’s all about the numbers… how do you get those numbers? What makes A company’s communications better than B’s?

You need:

• A long-term communications strategy which is intricately linked to the business strategy

• Applied consistently, using an integrated approach over multiple channels using various disciplines

• With clear and cut through messages to a defined target audience

• That is executed innovatively and creatively with relevance

• At the appropriate time, in an authentic and transparent way.

Or more simply – you need a good story and you need to tell it well. You need to be earnest.

P.S.: If you looking for communication support, contact me to discuss your requirements.