About 4 in 5 public relations (PR) professionals measure their PR efforts, but several roadblocks challenge their effectiveness, according to [download page] a new Ragan/NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions survey. Lack of manpower and lack of time (each at 56%) are the chief hurdles to measuring PR, but a significant proportion also say they don’t know which tools to use (52%) or that they simply don’t know how to measure PR (36%).
Those challenges are leaving many PR professionals only mildly satisfied with the job their organizations are doing. A plurality 47% report being “somewhat” satisfied with how their organization measures PR. 30% are either somewhat unsatisfied (20%) or not at all satisfied (10%), while less than one-quarter are satisfied or very satisfied.
Additionally, just 6% describe their measurement program as “advanced,” with the majority describing it as “intermediate” (58%) and the remainder saying they’re still getting their feet wet.
Interestingly, while two-thirds of respondents believe that lack of standardization is a key problem with PR measurement, 62% believe that it’s impossible for there to be one, widely accepted standard to measure PR.
Other Findings:
- PR professionals most commonly measure media mentions (traditional and blog mentions – 86%) and web traffic/page views (79%).
- Asked if big data is a part of their measurement strategy, only 14% said yes, while 54% said they don’t know what big data is.
About the Data: The data is derived from an online survey of 1,467 PR professionals. In size, their organizations varied from one-person consultancies to global brands with more than 1,000 employees (these constituted 28%). Some 26% had fewer than 25 employees, and another 10% were self-employed. In annual revenue, those reporting less than $1 million amounted to 20 %. More than $1 billion totaled 13%.
Survey respondents were scattered globally, with the largest concentration – 63% – in the U.S.
