The challenge always arises during budget season when the pointy headed types ask the inevitable question:

“So, what did we get for that $120K we spent on PR last year besides some glossy reprints?”

As always it comes back to measurement.  In a perfect world, one could connect the prospect who read the product review in a magazine and then bought your product.  In reality it is much more complex.  Different stakeholders learn about you through different media, leaving you with a series of indirect measures.

So what is the marketing metric of last resort?

When in doubt, I’ve seen people use a measure called “advertising equivalents”.  This is defined as the cost to purchase an equal amount of advertising in the publication where you received PR coverage.  If you get a half page editorial, then this is worth a half page of advertising.  You get the idea.  This is certainly better than nothing but here are the problems:

• This metric is more about activity than results
• It assumes you would actually buy media in that publication if you had a choice
• It has no reflection of the quality of the coverage

So, how do you measure those hard to measure programs?