Whether you have an internal PR team or are working with an agency, you will want to see a regular recap of past campaigns and projects to know what you are spending your money on and what you are getting for it. A monthly or quarterly report can be a great way to get this information. However, depending on how it is compiled it will be more or less difficult for you to actually get the data you need. Keep reading to find out what to look for in a good PR report.
Brief summary of past and ongoing campaigns
With many things on your plate, it can be hard to keep track of everything you are doing to promote your company. Especially things that happened at the beginning of the quarter and have long since been wrapped up are easily overlooked. A brief recap of each project in chronological order will help you with this. The summary for each campaign should highlight its goals and what was done to achieve them.
Results of past and ongoing campaigns
Of course, you want to know your campaigns’ results. But depending on how they are reported, you will have an easier or harder time understanding them. Look for a clean layout that will give you all the information you need on one page, possibly in a table. Metrics you should be asking for could include the number and PR value of the clippings obtained, the reach of these clippings, trackable sales increases from specific promotion codes or links, social media shares, the amount of traffic increase on your website or anything else previously determined as a KPI. Depending on the nature of your campaign, the metrics you should be interested in will vary, so make sure to ask about them if they are not already included in the report.
Collection of Clippings
On the results page, you already saw the number of clippings you got and where they were published. But of course, you also want to know what those clippings actually looked like. That’s why a good PR report will contain a copy of every single clipping obtained for your campaign. This will give you an idea of how the media writes about your company. In some instances, it might make you want to reconsider the way you communicate information to them, in order to get the media to focus on one angle rather than another.
Seeing a large collection of clippings, both long and short, also shows that your PR team did their homework. They sent your information out to many media outlets, followed up with them to make sure it got published and then diligently collected the clippings for you.
Analysis and Outlook
A good PR and marketing agency will not just present the results of your campaigns but also give you feedback. You can probably tell by yourself whether or not a campaign was successful. Understanding the reasons is another story. It can help to have a professional evaluation of the situation since it can let you better grasp why things worked out the way they did. Real PR professionals will honestly tell you if something did not work and give suggestions on what could be done better or differently next time.
A final point that can be of great value to you, is when your agency highlights how external circumstances might have effected your promotional initiatives. Unforeseen political or economic developments or natural disasters can have negative impacts on even the best campaigns.