5 Tips for Better Reporting your PR Results

PR reporting—it’s a thorn in your side, the bane of your existence, and generally just a pain in the a$$. However you choose to describe it, it’s inconvenient and time-consuming. And not only do executives expect data to support and legitimize PR efforts, but only the most relevant insights presented in a digestible format will clear the way for successful interpretation.

Media monitoring and web analytics platforms should provide a means to aggregate and analyze your campaign data to help when sharing with your stakeholders. While these technologies may save plenty of time by automating and consolidating your metrics, you still need to create a report that clearly and concisely details your campaign from inception to your successes.

Reporting is a chore—but once you equip executive leadership with a comprehensive analysis of your efforts, proving the value of PR is a cinch. And by doing so, executives can directly correlate PR data to their own organizational KPIs and possibly even reallocate funds in response to positive ROI.

Here are 5 tips to help better report your PR results so that leadership will easily understand your contributions to the organization’s bottom line:

#1 Tell a story

The structure of your report is key. Begin with a compelling introduction that clearly states your campaign’s goals and objectives. By immediately establishing what you hoped to achieve, the data will help guide the narrative.

#2 Section the report by each team’s contributions

Assuming other teams or departments are associated with your campaign (i.e. marketing controlling the paid or lead generation tactics, IT/Dev analyzing proprietary data), structure your report by reviewing each team’s contributions to the overall goals.

#3 Support your results and insights with industry trends

Data and trends applicable to your industry and job role can be very powerful, and legitimize your results by comparing them to set benchmarks and best practices. You’re most likely reporting to executives who do not live and breathe PR, so supporting your results with industry-specific stats and metrics will strengthen results.

#4 Conclude with lessons learned and recommendations for continued success

This may seem like a no brainer, but clearly explaining your conclusions and how they impact your future endeavors will speak volumes to executives. When it comes to building and managing a brand, there is no end point. And since PR success isn’t a one-time achievement, it’s essential to communicate to leadership how you plan to constantly improve upon your efforts.

#5 Present your results in the format that best suits your stakeholders

Tailor your report to your audience in order to provide the most appropriate representation that can be easily consumed. For example, visualize your data in charts and graphs that are intuitive for executives while emphasizing numbers and dollars. When presenting to your own team, leverage the breadth of data provided by media monitoring and web analytics tools (i.e. demographic, geographic insights) to fully analyze your campaign’s performance. While reporting will never be described as fun and exhilarating, it might as well be easier, and these tips will help make that possible.

Now it’s time to get working on your PR strategy so you can show off your new reporting skills during your next campaign.

We recommend you check out our eBook, “The 4 Steps to Achieving PR Success.”

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