Last month, PR News conducted a survey of communications professionals to gauge their media relations practices, from measurement to the outsider partners they use. With over 700
respondents, the results uncovered a few key findings:
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The majority (61%) track and quantify public relations practices internally, but a troubling 12% don't measure PR at all. The number may seem small, but it reflects a portion of the
community that still isn't on board, be it for lack of financial support, management buy-in or general understanding;
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While nearly 90% of respondents believe that reaching the right journalist is very important to their success as PR executives, only 63% feel that measuring and analyzing their PR initiatives
are equally important; and,
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In terms of the trends with the most impact on the way their organization conducts PR, equal percentages (23%) cited the emergence of blogs and other social media, and increasing the
importance of PR in the overall marketing mix.
For the complete media relations survey results, please visit http://www.prnewsonline.com.
PR News Survey Exclusive: Media Relations In Practice
1. How does your organization measure the success of its PR efforts?
We internally track and quantify our public relations 60.8%
We use outside services to track and quantify our PR 16.6%
We don't measure our PR 11.8%
Other: 10.8%
2. Please rank the following activities in terms of them being critical to your success as a PR professional.
a. Reaching the right journalist:
• very important 89.1%
• somewhat important 10.2%
• not important at all 0.7%
b. Tracking news about ?my organization:
• very important 75.1%
• somewhat important 23.5%
• not important at all 1.4%
c. Tracking competitor news:
• somewhat important 56.3%
• very important 27.4%
• not important at all 15.9%
• No Response 0.4%
d. Measuring and analyzing my PR initiatives:
• very important 62.8%
• somewhat important 35.3%
• not important at all 1.8%
• No response 0.1%
e. Tracking conversations with the media:
• very important 49.5%
• somewhat important 44.7%
• not important at all 5.7%
• No response 0.1%
f. Producing clip books ?and reports:
somewhat important 49.5%
very important 44.7%
not important at all 5.7%
No response 0.1%
3. What tools, if any, do you use to track and manage your media relations?
Excel and/or Outlook 34.3%
Web-based Media Directory 28.5%
Media Directory (Phone book style) 17.7%
Rolodex 14.5%
Manage media contact relationships? What's that? 5.0%
4. Which of the following trends are having/will have an impact on the way your organization conducts Public Relations? (check all that apply)
Emergence of blogs and other social media 22.9%
Increasing importance of public relations in the overall marketing mix 22.8%
Impact of the internet on the news cycle 20.3%
Blurring lines between PR and marketing (e.g. search engine optimized press
releases) 19.3%
Increased pressure from management to measure impact of public relations 14.7%
5. What tools, if any, do you use to manage news coverage? (check all that apply)
Google and/or Yahoo 32.1%
Outsourced clipping service 18.7%
Web-based news monitoring service 17.4%
Scissors and the local paper 17.1%
6. How often do you track news coverage on your ?company?
Daily 54.9%
Hourly/real-time 17.8%
Weekly 14.9%
Monthly 6.4%
Never 2.8%
Quarterly 2.1%
No Response 1.0%
Annual Report 0.1%
7. How often do you track news coverage on your competitors?
Daily 31.1%
Hourly/real-time 22.1%
Weekly 17.4%
Monthly 14.7%
Never 6.5%
Quarterly 5.5%
No Response 1.5%
Annual Report 1.1%
A Survey of PR News • 713 total respondents