The true value of PR

Seven years after PR Week quoted my view on AVE’s (if you don’t know this means Advertising Value Equivalent you’re already halfway to recognising the true value of PR!), it’s refreshing once again to hear our clients talking about the value of PR.

Just last month, a financial services client spoke to a leading trade publication about the marketing activities of their business. When commenting on the six channels the business uses for client acquisition (1. direct mail, 2. web, 3. professional connections, 4. referrals, 5. previously ‘lost’ opportunities, and 6. PR), he highlighted PR as the most successful channel for delivering high quality convertible leads. As this client knows the average true cost of acquisition across all marketing channels, they can simply calculate the PR value = the number of new clients via this channel x average cost of acquisition. Simple.

Then at the start of December when catching up with another client that operates globally, we were shown a chart that detailed worldwide sales by region. The client commented that the biggest sales were recorded in a region much smaller than others that they operate in, but last year this region benefited from a huge amount of PR. Value of PR = the value of the number of sales in this region above the global average. Once again. Simple.

These calculations do miss some of the other benefits of PR – such as profile raising, credibility, trust, reputation (and of course PR’s influence on sales in other regions or on other marketing channels), but it does provide a much closer, and more accurate, understanding of the value of PR rather than a fluffy comparison to advertising – a very different discipline.

It’s also really refreshing that these clients have internal monitoring systems which can accurately attribute sales to the marketing channels that they invest in. Coincidently both are very innovative SMEs.

What a good way to end 2016…