When promoting your business it's rare to carry out one type of marketing activity at a time. You often have several activities running simultaneously, such as a website that promotes the business, social media posts, customer engagement and newsletters. With all these messages running at once, how can you really determine which is having the biggest impact for your business?

Was your spike in website traffic because of your social media campaign or newspaper coverage? Are you paying for marketing that you don’t need? How can you really be sure each campaign is giving you maximum results?

PR and marketing should always feature a mixture of techniques which complement one another. Measuring the success of that campaign can use lots of different techniques and it is important that you understand how to measure and evaluate each project to make sure you get maximum impact.

• Let your data do the talking. Data driven analytics will help you to see how your PR and marketing is working. Make sure that you use Google Analytics on your website and monitor your data for spikes in activity. Don’t forget to keep an eye on how backlinks in media coverage are boosting your SEO rating, as news websites deliver high-ranking backlinks.
  

• Customer surveys. Customer surveys are a great way to gather information for your business, but remember individuals often see your messaging in several locations. Just because they claim to be buying today because of a social post, it doesn’t mean they weren’t also influenced by the media coverage. Ask customers all the places they have seen your business, rather than why they chose to buy today. This will give you a much more in depth picture of what is working for your business.
  

• Share of voice. Share of voice simply means looking at all the news about your industry and analysing how much of it features your company. Is your coverage larger or smaller than that of a competitor, do you regularly get featured more than your competitors or are their messages dominating the media? If you are struggling to be heard above your competitors, it might be time to improve your position in the market and grow your share of voice.
  

• Content of PR gained. When measuring the success of a PR campaign one of the most important things you should look at is not just where your message has been published but what that message actually looks like. Too often people see coverage and simply count the number of headlines. However, quality messaging and content is far more valuable than multiple pieces that don’t deliver your intended call to action or show your business in the best light.
  

• Engagement after sharing PR. When you gain PR coverage that should only be the start of your journey. To maximise impact from that coverage, make sure you share it as much as possible. Post it on social media and in your customer newsletters, share with staff and upload to your website and blogs. Track your engagement on social media posts about media coverage.

PR isn’t about just the people who see your news article, hear you on the radio or see the television coverage it is about its wider impact in growing the business as well.

PR’s success lies in getting as many people as possible talking about your brand and understanding what you do. As they see your other sales campaigns this understanding of the brand will then help to convert your sales.

This means that PR shouldn’t be measured purely in sales figures but also in how it adds to your other marketing activities.

It is there to raise brand awareness so that when your products or services are needed you are seen as the trusted, successful brand to choose in your area and industry.

If this feature has heightened your interest in all things measurement, take a look at PRmoment's next PR Masterclass: The Intersection of Data, Planning and Measurement.