Metrics to help tell the story of your placement success.
If you’re still just counting media placements, you’re missing out on opportunities to tell a narrative of public relations success.
During Ragan’s PR Daily Conference, Michael Lopardi, senior manager of media relations at Spirit Airlines, shared how data and media monitoring tools are helping his team gauge the successes of their efforts.
Tracking metrics like advertising value, sentiment and media placements allow his team to focus on the opportunities where they’re most likely to succeed, he said.
“We pivot based on what’s working and drop what isn’t. It saves time and keeps us efficient,” Lopardi said.
Here’s how his team tackles the process:
- Calculate the advertising value equivalent: This formula measures the estimated monetary value of media coverage, Lopardi said. The formula is size multiplied by rate, he said. In other words, if your content is 10 columns long and the rate for one column is $10 dollars, then the advertising value equivalency equals $100. “By tracking advertising value… we can see which stories are likely to attract coverage, enabling teams to focus on high-impact opportunities.”
- Sentiment: This helps track whether media coverage is positive, negative or neutral, helping teams understand public perception, he said. This can be done through surveys, examining engagement rates, social media feedback or conversational pulse checks, Lopardi said.
- Media placements: Media placements are still an important metric, especially when used in conjunction with other metrics. Spirit Airlines separately tracks its “proactive (and) earned efforts,” he said. Doing this helps inform his team where people are seeing their content and how they’re interacting with it. Use a baseline from past outreach or media placements for comparison, he said. A baseline helps compares overall media coverage against PR team efforts to measure impact and efficiency. “Tracking what we proactively send out shows our actual influence,” Lopardi said.
Using data and media monitoring is a necessity for efficiency and impact, Lopardi said.
By understanding what works, tracking results and refining their approach, teams can ensure that every pitch has the best chance of success while avoiding time-consuming efforts that yield little return.
“It’s about working smarter,” he said. “You want to invest your time where it counts, not everywhere.”
To learn even more tips about finetuning your media outreach, head over to view this presentation and more at Ragan Training here.
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at courtneyb@ragan.com.
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