Ms. Dietrich

Social Media & PR

Measuring Public Relations Success - A Guide to Understanding the Return-on-Investment

By Gini Dietrich, Founder & CEO, Arment Dietrich Inc.

Raising awareness of and gaining additional exposure for your property is one thing. Being able to prove the efforts behind such an increase in market visibility and occupancy is a direct result of a public relations campaign is quite another. The difference lies in identifying and tracking the effect of a public relations campaign on your business, and the biggest factor is measurement.

Public relations is a powerful tool in the hospitality industry. From establishing or repositioning a brand to drawing attention to a hotel opening or the addition of a new amenity, public relations can be one of the most value and credible communications tools around. Not only can a well-executed public relations program raise awareness, but it also can be a highly influential force with current and potential guests. These efforts contribute to and ensure the success of a hotel.

The first step in this process, however, is for hoteliers to understand what they should expect in terms of return-on-investment (ROI) for a public relations campaign. There was a time when displaying placements was enough to demonstrate the effectiveness of a public relations campaign. The old adage of "any publicity is good publicity," however, went out the window a long, long time ago - with good reason, too; it just is not sound business.

The key to understanding the real ROI for a public relations program lies in establishing mutually agreed upon, quantifiable results. The bottom line is king and placing monetary values and concrete measurements against a public relations campaign is influential for an hotelier. Public relations professionals need to translate successes into a form that every hotelier understands, appreciates, and values.

One of the best ways for public relations practitioners to demonstrate the legitimacy of their efforts is to calculate a current advertising equivalency for each placement. Very simply put, advertising equivalency is the amount of money a client would pay to place an advertisement in the media outlet in which a story runs.

For example, let's say a story runs in a local paper with an advertising rate of $100 per column inch. Say the story spans three columns and is 10 inches long, for 30 column inches. Multiplying this number by 100 would result an advertising equivalency of $3,000. Similarly, if a story airs on radio or television station for 30 seconds, the advertising equivalency equals the cost of running an advertisement for 30 seconds during that same broadcast.

By assigning a monetary value to each placement, the public relations practitioner is able to convey the ROI for its efforts to the hotelier. If you set a $10,000 a month budget for public relations, and these efforts result in stories similar to the one mentioned above, then your public relations professional has covered the cost of the service and provided positive results.

While advertising equivalency is one of the most widely used forms for demonstrating ROI, hoteliers need to consider additional measurements when determining the bang for their buck. Generally, public relations professionals recommend a more comprehensive combination of methods to fully measure the success of a public relations program. Following are a few additional considerations for developing a complete measurement model to determine campaign effectiveness:

• Establish objectives - Defining what success looks like from the outset of the public relations program is key to analyzing ROI. If you don't establish what you want, you can't figure out if you've achieved it once the program is over. The best way to nail down objectives is to make sure they are measurable. Work with your public relations practitioner to develop quantifiable objectives that you can measure against at the end of the contract.
• Set metrics - Make sure both you and your public relations practitioner agree upon, and understand, the metrics by which you measure success and the value of a placement. Addressing this issue up front keeps confusion to a minimum and makes the actual measurement process easier.
• Track impressions - Impressions are the number of people who read, see, or hear a placement in a media outlet. Very literally, impressions estimate the effect of a story. When looking at ROI, analyzing impressions and understanding the reach of public relations efforts is vital to success. These numbers tell a story in themselves. If you're hitting a million potential travelers with one well-placed story, you've reached a million potential guests who have your property on their mind when making plans. Also, don't forget it's not all New York Times and USA Today placements either. Depending upon your target demographic, smaller city papers and magazines carry influence, and hefty impressions, as well.
• Analyze the link to finances - A placement in a top-tier consumer publication or a targeted trade means big things for you and your property. This type of exposure can prove more influential than advertising, leading to increased sales and a full house. Look at sales immediately after a big placement hits the newsstands and analyze the correlation between the two - you'll be pleasantly surprised at what a little ink in the right spot does for hotel traffic. Another option is to select two similar markets and conduct a public relations program in one market while leaving the other market as a control group. After the program ends, comparing the sales in the two markets highlights the effect public relations had and quantifies the campaign.
• Recognize that success can be more than monetary - Financial performance easily can reflect ROI, but if your goal is to re-brand your chain, an annual report cannot show the results of a public relations campaign designed to change the way guests and prospects perceive your hotel. Reading guest reviews and putting an ear on the street can connect you to the mindset of your guests, and that is how you tell if your effort to change the perception of your property is effective.
• Look at technological components - Tracking an increase in Web site traffic is becoming more commonplace among public relations professionals these days. If a goal is to increase the number of guests walking through the door, getting them to check the Web site is an ideal first step. One of the best ways to concretely tie Web site visits to public relations efforts is with distinct URLs. If a particular piece of media material has its own URL, it is apparent how many people visited the Web site as a direct result of viewing that particular piece of collateral.
• Remember to employ a variety of public relations services - Public relations encompasses a lot more than just interacting with the media. Whether it's crisis management and developing speaking opportunities for hotel executives or community outreach and interacting with social media, public relations involves several different facets an hotelier can use to his or her advantage. Each public relations practice that your business engages with benefits the property - and in turn, produces a ROI.

Greater exposure, increased sales, more guests walking through the front door - public relations can have an immense effect on your property. Take advantage of what a public relations efforts offer and engage in a relationship that improves your business. As a property owner, your focus is on the numbers. Following these suggestions for developing measurement tools for public relations efforts takes the chance out of the campaign and shows you just how valuable it can be for your hotel.

Gini Dietrich is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Arment Dietrich, Inc., a firm that uses non-traditional marketing. The author of Spin Sucks, Gini has delivered numerous keynotes, panel discussions, coaching sessions, and workshops across North America on the subject of digital marketing tools. One of the top rated communication professionals on the social networks, Gini was recently named the number one PR person, according to Klout and TechCrunch, on the channels, and number one on Twitter, according to TweetLevel. Ms. Dietrich can be contacted at 312-787-7249 or gini.dietrich@armentdietrich.com Extended Bio...

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