Más contenido relacionado Más de Demand Metric (20) Analyzing Competitive Ad vs PR Spending1. Executive Summary
Analyzing Competitive Ad vs. PR Spending
Measuring the effectiveness of your PR process is not a simple task, especially if you
don't have the budget for PR-coverage subscriptions. It is just as challenging to
demonstrate that your organization is better than the competition with leveraging PR
to save on ad spending. Following is real-world method to handle these chores. Use
Demand Metric's Competitive Ad vs. PR Analysis Tool to start tracking your media
coverage and benchmark your ad/PR-spending ratio against your competitors.
Benefits of Analyzing Competitive Ad vs. PR Spending:
Competitive Insight - tracking ad placements and PR coverage provides a
framework for discovering ad spending benchmarks within your competitive
environment, and allows you to examine how PR is being leveraged. You may
discover that one competitor is heavily pushing a certain message, or that another is
deploying a pull strategy based on product-feature benefits.
Save Money - organizations that effectively use public relations can save volumes of
money that would otherwise be spent on advertisements.
Better Leverage Public Relations - by determining how your competitors are
leveraging public relations in their media mix, you can learn how to become more
proficient in this area of demand generation.
Measure Ad/PR Effectiveness - the first step in measuring a marketing program
is to document the activities that are involved. Proactively monitoring your most
important industry publications will provide a basis for tracking leads and sales that
results from advertisements and press releases.
Action Plan:
Assess Value - consider the value that a focused advertising/PR tracking initiative
would provide your organization. If you are being asked to conduct competitive
analysis, this is one section not to be missed.
Assign a Task Leader - it will become someone's job to flip through each trade
publication upon delivery to identify which competitors are placing ads or generating
solid PR. Try to leverage an inexpensive resource for this task.
Customize a Reporting Tool - use our downloadable Competitive Ad vs. PR
Analysis Tool to kick-start this process internally.
© 2009 Demand Metric Research Corporation
2. Executive Summary
Select Relevant Publications - narrow the scope on your measurement process to
only those publications considered core to your industry. Add your list of publications
to the 'Instructions' tab of the analysis tool.
Determine Starting Point - you may wish to backdate your analysis to previous
issues, especially if you are trying to assess competitive ad spending benchmarks.
Use the same start date for each 'Competitor' tab to ensure you are comparing
apples to apples.
Document, Document, Document - list the publication, page reference, ad or
article size (pages), article/ad topic area, journalist, Ad or PR, and estimated value of
the piece. Use standard pricing for PR mentions, and discounted pricing for ads, if
and only if, you identify a repeated pattern.
Analyze the Data - visit this analysis tool on a quarterly basis and total up the
estimated value (or spending) that is being done industry-wide, and determine the
ratio of ad spending to PR for you and your competitors.
Discuss with Senior Management - share your insights in a management meeting
and discuss strategies that you can use to improve your ad/PR spend ratio. Focus on
ad/PR content to get a gut-feel for competitive strategies.
Bottom-Line:
Not all organizations are effectively using PR to save money on advertising costs.
Start tracking your ad/PR spending in relation to your competitors to demonstrate
the effectiveness of your PR capabilities. If you aren't using PR at all, strongly
consider reading our report Building Successful PR Campaigns to get started.
© 2009 Demand Metric Research Corporation