This Season Don’t Just Count the Home Runs
Fans love the dramatic home run blast, along with the fireworks and slo-mo trot around the bases. But it’s not the only result to count in baseball. A team can easily hit three home runs and still lose the game, 5–3.
All the “little” successes add up. The singles and doubles. The outs. The RBIs and the players’ batting averages, on-base percentages and more.
The same goes for PR measurement.
Technology and digital tools allow today’s marketers to track each step of the communications process leading toward an organization’s goals, not just the grand slam story placement in The New York Times.
See How the Incremental Steps Add Up
Start with the goal of the campaign. What are you trying to accomplish? Now, break it down, looking at the incremental steps that you believe your potential customer should take. Measurable points along that journey could include:
Visits to a website or landing page; length of time spent on a page
Downloads of material such as a white paper
Registrations for an e-newsletter
Shares, retweets and posts on social media
Comments and reviews
Registration for a tour; attendance at an event
Subscription/form completion
Views of a video or stats on a podcast
Visits to a thank you page
Finally, measure the effect of your communications tactics and how your targeted customer reacts (outcomes).
Have they increased understanding? Has the program changed their attitude about the topic? Has it had an impact on the intention to do something? (e.g. trial, subscribe, register).
Caution — using this incremental approach will result in smaller and more realistic numbers. No more reports showing the gazillions of impressions your program yielded.
Yes, fill out the All-Star ballot and high-five those home runs. But with so many tools available, beginning with Google Analytics, it’s time to move past simply counting clips and go deeper along the customer journey.
