Photo credit: Dave Crosby via Flickr cc
Guest blog post by VAAM.com
Before, it seemed impossible to measure the impact of public relations. Even measuring the result of press release distribution seems a daunting process.
Why do you think we need to measure the impact of distributing releases? In the era of digital age, everyone can write a release. It is not only limited to PR professionals.
However, despite the fact that anyone can do it, it doesn’t mean that anyone can do it right. If you know what to measure, you’ll have more successful releases in the future.
In this post, we’ll discuss the important metrics that are important for you to measure the impact of distributing releases:
1. CLICK-THROUGHS
The goal of every release is to incite the media and readers to read your announcement. However, it is not the only thing that you should target.
You should encourage them to take an action. What is your call to action (CTA)? Do you want them to click to your link to visit your site and learn more about your product?
Do you want them to sign up for newsletters, or invite them to download a copy of your e-book? If you can engage them more, the more successful your campaign will be.
You should be able to engage them in your story. It is one factor that you should measure in your campaign. There are many tools that can help you track results.
To measure click-throughs, you can use a URL shortener in your release. Its purpose is to track how many times the link was clicked in your story. It also gives an idea on how it is going.
2. CONVERSIONS
How do you measure the conversion rate of your campaign? If the audience reads your content and clicked on the link, how did they respond to it?
For instance, once they reached your site, did they read the content, make a purchase, download something, or complete a contact form? You can also use Google Analytics to monitor the traffic sources and check where it is coming from.
Your goal in your release determines your conversion rates. Conversions are sign that a prospect or potential customer is actively moving on to the sales funnel.
3. READS
This metric reflects the number of times that an audience read your release. Reads indicates the number of people who consumed your news.
By monitoring the number of reads of your successful releases, you can develop the method of writing releases patterned to successful releases.
4. NUMBER OF YAHOO AND GOOGLE ALERTS
These are tools that gives you an idea when your chosen keywords are found online. Using these tools allow you to monitor your brand mentions and company name and helps manage your reputation. It gives you a hint whether your content is popular or not online.
5. SOCIAL MEDIA MENTIONS
Tracking your social media mentions is a very important metric that tells how well your content is performing. You should be able to monitor the number of Twitter mentions or blog mentions to know that it is going viral on these platforms. You can set Twitter alerts to notify you of these mentions.
It’s significant that you know how many influencers are mentioning you or how many have shared your content. Make sure that you also keep an eye on the hashtags that perform well.
6. POTENTIAL REACH
It measures the total number of people who have seen your release so far. You should be able to track how many people have been exposed to your content. If you are using a press release distribution service, it is expected that you have a high potential reach.
7. ENGAGEMENT
The potential reach of your release may be overwhelming. However, you shouldn’t be satisfied with the value unless you have seen the engagement rate.
A lot of marketers thought that potential reach is enough for them to measure their content’s success. You should be more concerned about the number of people who have seen it, and how many have actually engaged.
There are a number of ways how you can measure the engagement of your audience, including how many have downloaded the copy of your e-book, shared your content, or how many have clicked to your link.
You need to find ways to boost the engagement of your audience to your content. Make sure that you master these tactics.
8. MEDIA COVERAGE
This is perhaps the oldest and first metric used in measuring the impact of releases. You need to know where your news is placed and published. You also need to have an idea about the length of the article, message permeation, assets, placement and more.
9. VISIBILITY
How aware are people about your news? You can determine who shared it, the extent of sharing, or who shared your news. Did you get editorial coverage, or was it shared by an influencer or your employee?
10. INBOUND TRAFFIC
You can track the inbound traffic of your release by adding a URL builder or extension to any URL placed within your content. The link should traffic back to your site. When they clicked the links, you can monitor their actions within your site.
11. GEO-IMPACT
It’s important that you know in which part of the world your news resonated. You can track it per region, locally and globally.
Knowing how your news resonated is useful to continue any conversation online or sales marketing campaigns. You’ll also get the idea which regions or area receive your news positively, so you can target them the next time you issue your release.
12. OVERALL SEARCH RANKINGS
You should see your release on top of the search engines if you have made all the effort in enhancing your copy. Make sure that you also distribute content on a regular basis. Check the tools that you can use to monitor the keywords or search terms you are targeting and your search engine rankings.
13. NUMBER OF INDEXED PICKUPS
Search your release title. Place your headline onto quotation marks. You’ll get the exact number of indexed pickups at the last page of the search results.
Tracking the impact of your distribution is important as knowing its return on investment. With available tracking tools online, measuring its impact has never been easier.
Aside from the mentioned above, it is now easier to measure the success of releases now that it has gone live. Other elements that are important in determining its impact include: identifying online and offline news outlets that published your news, number of backlinks it generated, and if it is gaining popularity on the social media.
If your news story is promoted and shared on social media channels a lot more times, it can spread like a wildfire. Your story can go viral easily that boost its virality.
Backlinks are also an important gauge in measuring your news impact. A back reference refers to the link leading to your website.
Search engines like Google regard backlinks as an important element in determining the ranking of your content. More backlinks lead to a higher ranking on the search engine result pages (SERPs).
In reality, traditional releases have lost their ability to create an impact. If you want your story to generate interest, go viral and widen its reach, you need to personalize it as much as possible.
A personalized pitch is favorable to journalists as it creates an instant traction with them. Boost their interest by making them feel that you are making their job easier.
Follow the format of writing a release, make your news newsworthy, and include assets like surveys, studies and infographics. The more accessible and complete your content is, the more they will have the interest to publish your work.
Build relationships to establish a foundation with the press. Be sure to do this prior to reaching out.
Use different online tools in measuring the success of your releases. If you are using newswire services, know what metrics they use to track the performance of your content.
If they can’t provide you these reports, choose other services that can provide you. Remember that you cannot just distribute content without knowing how well it is performing.
Another applicable tip that you can try is monitoring the profiles of your competitors. Check their content and distribution, and how their stories are covered by the media.
Knowing how your competitors are performing can help you improve your approach in distributing your content. It pays well if you know the market you are in. Study your industry and rivals in the business.
You should be aware of who is leading, and how you can beat them through content distribution. Keep in mind that getting publicity is not easy due to the steep competition.
Your content needs to stand out from the rest. By becoming aware of how to properly write and distribute your content, you have a better chance of getting more positive results for your campaigns.
Again, go back to your goal. Think how you are going to reach your goal. At the end of your campaign, you should be able to measure whether you reach it or not.
The result is important for your future content marketing campaigns. By gaining insights and stats of your content’s performance, you can better improve your content and avoid the mistakes that are hampering you in getting the right outcome.