Imagine you just met someone, and on the first date they propose. It’s a frightening idea, and in most cases you would never say yes. The relationship has not been put to the test, how will you know if this will work? Most people want to make sure their life goals align to those of their partner to guarantee future success. The same concept applies to your PR campaigns. At the end of the day, you want to marry your campaign objectives and results to be able to say “This works.”

Aligning PR and marketing goals and communicating those goals has been a continuous struggle for many companies. The biggest reason for a lack in communication is a lack of measurement. The simple solution to this problem? Any tactic in your campaign deserves reporting.

Before the ultimate commitment, you want to learn about your campaign and audience in order to comfortably say this is a successful relationship. Setting your communications tactics and campaigns up for success begins in the planning process. While PR is largely equated with mentions (an output) and/or brand awareness (an outtake), it is important to remember that PR is also capable of driving lead generation- an outcome. Use the buyer’s cycle to help inform and structure your campaign. By doing this your goals will seamlessly align with the goals of your company, and your specific tactics will help generate leads at the correct stage of the campaign.

In a webinar hosted by PR Newswire titled “How to Drive Demand Generation with PR Tactics,” Meg O’Leary, principal of Inkhouse, expands on treating your campaign like a potential relationship. Here are Meg’s dating the audience tips:

1. Get out and meet people! Using awareness pieces like blog posts, infographics and articles gives the audience a little taste of what is available.
2. Go on a date! It’s time to dive in and give those interested readers something a little more specific about what you have to offer and the thought leadership/expertise you bring to the table. Consider producing whitepapers, case studies and eBooks to give your audience a more in depth look.
3. Pop the question! Sales calls, product tutorials and one-on-one demos will help convert this relationship to a client.

Once you have a solid plan for the tactics that should be used as well as when, where and how they will be used, it is time to start thinking about measurement. What should you measure? That’s easy, if you’ve set out clear goals and objectives in your planning, they’ll inform how you define success. In order to prove you achieved your goals, measure each tactic implemented throughout your campaign against your specific objectives.

When family and friends start to pester about “Is this person THE one?” you want to be able to confirm, “Yes, and this is why.” Similar to how when you express your tactics are successful, you should have good evidence as to why. In a survey conducted by PR Newswire, 51.4% of PR pros said they reported on their efforts to leaders and stakeholders as needed or requested. As needed or requested may not always be enough. More consistent reporting methods will help improve the success of future tactics by providing a baseline and establishing a comprehensive view of your efforts over time.

Seasoned PR veteran, Anthony Hardman, advocates measuring everything you do. Just as in a relationship, there are many variables to determine if you are ready to walk down the aisle. From Facebook likes to click through rates and sales conversions – everything matters, and each is a detail of the larger picture. Here are a few measurement tools Hardman lists to get you started:

1. Your newswire dashboard (in Hardman’s case PR Newswire’s Visibility Reports) is a good view into consumption metrics.
2. Social analytics (like Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics) can give you an accurate measurement of how many people are engaging with your social content.
3. Marketing Automation allows you took take a further look into where your referral traffic is generating from – and can take your outputs and outtakes and tie them to outcomes.
4. Google Analytics can give you the big picture on how awareness and engagement turns into leads.

Reporting not only helps communicate the effectiveness of PR initiatives, but also helps PR professionals understand who is engaging with their content.  Analyzing who your audience is, who is engaging with your content and who is requesting more information allows you to better target your future campaigns. It’s time to say “I do!” and celebrate the marriage of your tactics and results!

Follow the link to view the complete on-demand webinar: http://prn.to/PRdemandgen