When using a press release service, it’s important that you track the important key performance indicators of your press release. If not, you’re just wasting your time, effort, and investment.
The inability to measure the performance of your campaign is like throwing your money in the water. Without monitoring reports, your money is likely to be wasted. You don’t know what works and not, and what you need to avoid in your next campaign.
Prior to the internet days, PR professionals and marketers can skip this step. It is difficult to quantify the engagement or mention you’re getting. However, the advent of the internet makes it possible for them to measure the impact of your content.
Why tracking results of distribution is important?
Before choosing any press release distribution service, make sure that you check whether monitoring reports are included in its plan. If they can’t provide you, it’s better to find a service that can provide it.
When your PR team can track results, they are able to do three important things:
- Set a standard.
Without knowing the result of your previous campaign, it’s impossible to set a basis or a standard to which you will base your next campaign. Setting standards is very critical in any aspect even in the business.
You need to know the standing of your business and your target clients before planning any business tactic. Once you know the results of your PR campaign, you can plan your future campaigns better based on past campaigns.
- Enhance the outcome.
When you know the result, you can handle things properly like leveraging the strengths and addressing the weaknesses of your campaign. When your PR team knows what works and not for your campaigns, you can improve the results of your future campaigns.
You can make adjustments the moment you already know your mistakes. Of course, you’re not going to repeat it. You can see trends that can help you in making the right decisions for your activities.
- Announce the success.
One loophole that marketers make is forgetting to announce the success of their campaign to their internal team, customers, and stakeholders. You can also share it on social media.
Let’s check out the Key Performance Indicators for your PR campaign:
- Social engagement.
These days, it is critical to know the social impact of your release. You must know the actual number of your audience, shares, interactions, and engagement not only with the audience but with key influencers.
Does your distribution service publish your content with social sharing button? Social media integration can improve the engagement rates of your brand.
- Website traffic.
Organic site traffic is affected by your PR. Successful releases impact your site traffic. It increases the number of visitors to your site.
A well written and optimized release appears on top of the search engine result pages (SERPs). Your distribution platform must be able to provide you a tracking report that shows how much traffic is driven to your site from your release.
Choose a wire service that allows the inclusion of links that encourage readers to learn more. The links point towards your site where they can read more information about your business and announcement.
Are you aware of the use of relevant keywords to make you more visible and searchable on the internet? Use relevant keywords in the headline, subheading, and body of the release.
Do not include too many keywords because it may get you into trouble with the search engines. Instead, use it only when needed. It’s more natural.
When you use relevant keywords that your audience use when searching, they are more likely to find you. Using relevant keywords can drive people to your site.
- Lead volume and quality.
Visitors to your site must move to the sales funnel. The moment they become interested in your product or service, the more likely they will buy from you.
At this point, you need to know how you can convert people to the buying process. Make sure that your release has effective call-to-action (CTA). Tell them what they must do to encourage them to move into the purchasing process.
You need to know how much was converted from visitors to leads. You also need to know the number of quality leads. It refers to the number of people who are actually more likely to buy your offer.
Ask your press release service provider on how they can help in increasing the conversion rates. Do they have editorial staff who can assist you in checking your release? Sometimes, it’s not only the way you distribute it but how you write it.
- Press coverage.
Identify the media outlets or journalists who picked your story. Where was your story published? Was it covered by popular or local publications?
You can ask your press release platform the report that indicates your media coverage. Popular press release sites usually provide the information or the list of media outlets that covered a story.
You need to know if the media outlet belongs to your niche. Was it picked up by outlet under your niche?
Knowing your press coverage is significant so you can analyze what factors brought to your coverage. It’s not enough also that you just learned that you were covered. You need to replicate it by sharing it on social media or blog.
Assess the points that brought you coverage. Repeat it.
- Revenue
You conduct campaigns to get more sales and profit. How much is your revenue?
This is why knowing you have quality leads matter. It equates to your revenue. When you know your revenue, you’ll know your return-on-investment (ROI).
You’ll be able to track if your campaign is successful or not. At the end of the day, you’ll see that your company is selling a good amount of products or services. And whether more people appreciate your offer.
- Mentions
Your tracking report must include the number of mentions that your company was mentioned in articles or blogs. Was your brand mentioned many times this month or the previous month?
Were you mentioned by a popular newspaper, blog, or site? It is important that you track your mentions because it reflects your earned media. The more earned media you have, the more likely your audience trust you.
After knowing the result, you need to analyze what brought the changes. What do you think is the reason why you received more mentions this month than last month? Analyzing this metric can provide insights into how you can improve your future campaigns.
- Share of Voice (SOV).
SOV is the comparison of your mentions to your rivals in the business. It is an indication that you were mentioned and used as a comparison with other business related to your niche.
If you have more mentions than them, it means that you’re doing well. You just have to maintain and think of ways of improving your campaigns.
However, if they were mentioned more than you, it should give you an indication that you must check your strategies. Know what makes them more popular for the media. What type of earned media do they receive?
For example, if you and your rival were mentioned 100 times, and you were mentioned 65 times, your SOV is 65 percent. However, it includes all publicity whether it is positive or negative.
- Message resonance.
It depicts that your key message is in your media coverage. Identify one or two key messages. Carefully find out how many coverages included these key messages.
This is important because it tells if the media really understand the key message of a story, whether it is a simple book launch, webinar, awarding, or grand opening of a business.
- Audience
Who is your audience? They can be your site visitors, email subscribers, social media followers, or those who are interested in your niche.
Your audience is the person who has an interest in your business and is more likely to receive your message. Knowing if your audience is growing or not reflects how effective your PR effort is.
When you know who you are dealing with, you can customize your content for them. You can write a story that resonates with them.
- Domain authority.
It signals how a site ranks on search engines on the scale of 100. if other sites link to you, it provides you a high domain authority. It makes you an authority that places you on top of the SERPs.
These are important metrics that must be included in your tracking report. Before dealing with any distribution service, ask them if they provide a report that measures your campaign’s performance.
If ever a service doesn’t provide it, it’s better to move on and find one that provides it. Analytics report is important to know how effective your campaign.
Knowing metrics such as sentiments, total shares, total reach, and virality assessment are important to make proper adjustments. It can also become a basis to improve your PR effort.
When you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can better plan your strategies. You know what to avoid in order to increase your success.
Although your provider can give you an analytics report, you can do your own tracking. Use different tools to track your campaign in order for you to have a comparison and become more aware of the performance of your campaign.