Marijane Funess March 22, 2011 | 10:21:55

How Do You Measure Up?

The Barcelona Principles is not the name of the next installment in the Jason Bourne series. It’s a 7-step recommendation for overhauling the way PR professionals measure results. Industry leaders representing companies and clients in more than a dozen different countries have agreed to these new global standards for measuring and evaluating the results of their work.

In the “old” days, it was enough to share a stack of clips with a client without examining the tone or the outlets all that carefully. It was impressive to rattle off advertising equivalencies without taking into consideration who was absorbing the information and what their likelihood to act might be.

The Barcelona Principles make the case that PR practitioners should make a renewed commitment to measurement as “Job 1.” My contention is before you implement the principles, you need to know your audience.

Ask yourself these questions first:
1)      Is your client comfortable with an existing measurement metric that works for both of you?
2)      Is your client willing to invest the recommended 5% of pr spend in overhauling the existing results measurement method?
3)      Are you willing to take the time to educate your client in the newer measurement systems available?

Every client will be different, and ultimately a customized approach to measurement may well be the answer. What do you think?