We were recently asked to explore the relationship between a client’s media coverage and the traffic to their consumer facing web site, to see how effective their PR efforts were in driving revenue-producing traffic. We also looked at their closest competitors to benchmark the results.
We used web analytics data (such as # of monthly visitors) and combined that with data on product-related coverage we already analyze for the client on a quarterly basis. We repeated this process for each of their competitors, and found the following:
- Our client was the only company amongst the competitive set to have a significant relationship between media volume and web visits. This meant that they were the most successful in using communications to drive traffic. Part of the explanation for this was the fact that the client obtained better quality press – our metrics showed higher message penetration and better tonality for key product attributes than the competition.
- 1 product-focused article in the media resulted in approximately 10,000 visits to the website. In other words, there was a tangible ROI to their efforts.
We were also able to provide insight into their SEO and search term strategy, that could be implemented in future messaging strategy for the client.
This case study is a good illustration of the fact that PR and Communication investments can be measured by not only how much press coverage was earned, but also in how the investments ultimately contribute to business outcome metrics across the organization.