Working in marketing for the last 18+ years (whoa… that makes me feel old) has been full of triumphs and challenges.  One of the challenges that has arisen over and over is how to measure a ROI on my marketing initiatives.  Often so much of what we do falls into that squishy area of ‘brand building’ or ‘raising awareness’.  Both of which are hard to quantify in dollars and cents.  Also, often times initiatives are running concurrently so it can be really muddy to figure out which sales were due to which initiative or was it the combination of them all?  I have stood in front of company executives and boards numerous times trying to pitch the marketing budget only to be asked that dreaded question (usually from the finance guy), “What’s the pay-out?” One area of marketing that can be particularly hard to measure is public relations.

I have been blessed to work with some fantastic PR agencies in my career, folks who are passionate about what they do and incredibly good at it.  We all know how important our PR agency is when something goes wrong and you need an expert to help you handle the fall-out or to get your side of the story out there or to manage the persistent media.  But I think sometimes we forgot how impactful ongoing, positive PR can also be.  It’s one thing to pay for an advertisement on TV or in a newspaper it’s another thing to secure unpaid coverage that promotes your company, your brand or your product.  Consumers know that this story is organic and it is real.  It is being run because the media – print or radio or TV – was convinced that it was worthwhile. This adds a sense of trust – plus they also get to see their favorite anchor or personality saying they love the product and that might inspire them to want to try the product too.

Let me give a specific example…. last fall we worked with our partner Precision PR to find holiday stories about our client Crystal Creamery’s products. We did a couple of pitches one of which was about eggnog.  We reached out to the local media and we were able to get Alan Sanchez from Good Day Sacramento to come down and do multiple stories about Crystal Eggnog.  One story took place in the plant and revolved around how they make Crystal Eggnog while another took place in a conference room and revolved around different recipes featuring Crystal Eggnog.  Both stories were fun and secured close to 100,000 impressions.  The recipes were featured on the Crystal website and on the Good Day Sacramento site.

And the punchline? Yes! Eggnog sales ended the year up versus the prior year.  Now, was that all because of Alan Sanchez and the great PR? Hard to say, but it certainly played a role even if we can give an exact ROI.

Learn more about some of our other PR efforts on the Crystal brand in our Project Focus – Sales Growth from Great PR. This piece was featured in our monthly newsletter, sign-up on our Contact Us page.

– Britta Foster