http://www.mediacontactcafe.com/measurement

Many professional firms are afraid of giving away solutions before they start billing.  However, an increasing proportion realizes that it’s often their best differentiators in a sales situation.  This applies to marketing as well- If you want people to think that you have unique insights and expertise on a topic, just saying so won’t cut it; you have to publish them.  You shouldn’t be afraid that people will run off and use the ideas without paying you.  Sure, sometime it happens.  But most of the time customers are looking for a partner they can trust to look after their interest; sharing your insights is a good way to start a partnership.

Incorporate this philosophy into your next five opportunities and let me know how it goes.

Editorial opportunities allow organizations and PR professionals to provide media outlets with information they need for planned, upcoming stories.  Editorial opportunities generate ink by providing editors and writers with messages at the time they need this information the most.  Keep in mind, editorial opportunities leverage your expertise and keeps your company visible in key target media outlets, generating the interest we all desire.  Some will cringe by the term “editorial opportunity” but call it what you may it truly is an opportunity.

download your free social media editorial opportunities here

Overall digital marketing spending will increase 17% this year and two out of three marketers surveyed say they plan to increase their digital marketing budget in 2010.

The shift from offline to online is in full swing as marketers look to measure direct increases in top-line sales and site traffic and improve overall marketing ROI.

Social media is the fastest growing digital channel, according to the survey.  More than 70% of responding companies are increasing their budgets for marketing on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as online blogs and forums.

This research shows a healthy outlook for the digital marketing industry.

In managing an effective communications program, one of the most important tasks is in choosing performance measures to determine your success. The things that you measure are the things you and your staff will give the most energy to. By closely aligning your measures to your goal, you can increase the odds of actually achieving your goals.

Here are some suggested measures that you could evaluate for use in achieving your communication goals.

Reach & Penetration

A basic measure of the success of your communications program is the number of people who see the media you produce. There are a number of metrics to determine if you are actually reaching the audiences you are trying to communicate with. The following measures provide information on your audience to determine reach (how broad) and penetration (how deep):

• Cable television subscribers (if you have a PEG channel),
• Number of your channel’s viewers (using a survey),
• Online video views (your website, YouTube analytics),
• RSS subscribers (your website),
• Blog/newsroom visits (your website),
• Traffic source (location of visitors/viewers),
• Raw author contribution to blogs (posts per month, characters per post, videos, photos),
• Document downloads from your website or hosted locations like Docstoc.com,
• Unique website visitors,
• Duration of website visits,
• Incoming links,
• Website transaction volume,
• Call center contact volumes, and
• In-kind value of ad and PSA placements (ad equivalency).

Level of Engagement

One way to measure engagement is to measure the reach of particular messages about engagement opportunities though individual communication channels and measure the actual participation, and then compare the media and message mixes to the participation outcomes. Most of the time you won’t want to experiment with live issues or events, so the opportunity for a rigorous approach is limited.

So while you may not be able to isolate the most effective communications mix, you can describe the overall success by collecting the following data:

• Attendance at events, forums, and meetings,
• Participation on boards and committees,
• Conversion or “click through” rates on opt-in email broadcasts,
• Participation in online polls and voluntary surveys, and
• “Citations” or shared web resources that you’ve produced.

Experience & Opinion

One of the more challenging aspects of the changes in media is that while there is now more subjective feedback available directly from constituents on issues, this flood of information is difficult to compile and analyze in a way that provides actionable data.

One way is to collect comments and feedback from various sources and conduct an affinity analysis to see what the general tone or direction those comments are taking.

Another area that is evolving and will require some attention in the future is in the realm of online reputation management. This is a type of media tracking that is done through subjective analysis of user comments on blogs, social networking sites, and discussion groups.

Media Tracking

One of the ways to determine the effectiveness of campaigns and other communications programs is to measure the number of times messages appear in earned media.  Clients are able to track programs and their brand with the Media Contact Cafe’ media monitoring solution which is powered by Vocus and Burrelles to bring unparalleled coverage to organizations at an affordable price.

It stood out in the pile like a sore thumb.  Hand-written, imagine that.  Different … That took time.

We went back into the office where we usually toss the mail on the interns desk for opening by 10am orders from accounting lol, but not today.  We stayed together and opened that piece.  We looked at the return address.  How ‘old-fashioned’.  We left all the other mail for later.

It was short, sweet, and thoughtful.  We commented on it and discussed that person and (I assume both) thought  to ourselves, ” Gee, they found this lovely card, sat down, thought of something original to write,  addressed it by hand, put a stamp on it, and took it to the post office.  Imagine that!  They spent time doing that for us.”

Good PR is Like That Because Editors are Real People
Short, sweet and personal.  No one likes to feel they’ve been ‘mass’ mailed.  Avoid what is known as ’spray and pray’.  Each piece of news you send out should have a brief cover note written to that editor or producer, helping them understand how your news applies to their reader or viewer.  This approach to spreading news is always well received.

Perhaps your news doesn’t get used this time.  That’s OK.  You made an impression and will be a welcome guest in their mail box in future.  It’s clear you know what they write about, and that they are not just another email address on your (ugh) ‘media list’.  Remember, editors and writers save stuff for when they can use it.  So pick your target publications or TV/Radio programs, and go after them repeatedly over time with good information, well written, useful, helpful and of course … with your own personal touch.

Speaking of Thank You
Remember that thank you card?  Do you have any idea how many people don’t say thank you to the writer, editor, or producer who made a story happen?

When something editorial happens for you, for heaven’s sake … don’t forget to say thank you.  Believe it or not, you will be in the minority.  Acknowledgment done in a ’special’ way, like that hand-written thank you note, separates you from the pack.  Time well spent.

Beyond a thank you note, what other editorial ‘thank you’ ideas have you used for someone who has gone the extra mile and done a story for you?

“I find that the harder I work, the luckier I get.” – Samuel Goldwyn

But it’s not just hard work, either.
What sets these people apart from the rest is the fact that their “hard work” includes not working so hard on perfectionism.
Maybe the thing that’s holding you back – no matter who you are – is that you think things need to be “more perfect” before you get it going.  Maybe you have conversations in your head like this:

• “I need to come up with a truly killer blog post before I write it.”
• “I need to have a big list before I make a product.”
• “I need to have my website / blog beautiful before I launch it.”
• “I need to have all the pieces of this software in place – with no bugs – before I sell it.
• “I need to learn more before I get started.”

Here’s the thing: All these statements sound reasonable on the surface, but they’re really limiting beliefs. they presuppose that you will fail if everything isn’t perfect and all your ducks are in a row.  But brother (sister!) let me tell you, your ducks ain’t never going be in a row. And if they are, life will just declare duck season.

So what do you do if you’re not 100% ready to roll? You roll with the 60% you have.
Seriously.  Take what you have and start moving.  Don’t try to get things perfect, just get them out there.  Half of your plans are wrong anyway, but you won’t find that out until you start trying.  Get your feet wet, test your ideas and see what works and what doesn’t, what the market wants compared to what you offer, and see where that takes you.

Success isn’t about having the best plans – it’s about execution.

• It’s about getting out there and actually doing some damned thing, getting some result and then deciding what to do next based on what you’ve just experienced.
• It’s about delivering products and services – in all their imperfect glory – to whoever is ready for them, and then letting the rest of the world watch you grow.
• It’s about letting go of the fear of looking stupid in front of people and taking your chances – and knowing that whether you fall on your face or cross the finish line, all the people you worried about failing in front of are wishing they had your guts.
• It’s about saying “This is what I have to offer right now – and if you don’t want it, that’s fine.”  People who aren’t ready for you (or who you aren’t ready to serve) will still be there after you get done serving all the people who need you now.

An “okay” plan executed today beats a perfect plan that you’ll get around to a year from now.

Take action.  As soon as possible.

Part of success comes from not letting fear of failure stand in your way.
Do you want your business to grow?  Then you need to stop worrying about all your imperfections (you can address them later) and start thinking of what you can do with what you have right now.

• Are you most of the way through an ebook and “getting around” to finishing it? Pre-sell the damn thing and tell everyone it’ll be out in 21 days … and then work like hell to finish it.  Send the first half to buyers for feedback as you work on the last half (and when you’re done, you’ll have some reviews you can use in your launch).
• Are you waiting to have a really cool free thing to give away before you start building your list? Get a list set up this week, and spend 2 hours writing a few very short tip-based newsletters, and schedule them for weekly delivery. Now you’re under time pressure to get that free thing made. Or maybe decide the hell with it, you’ll just write a few more newsletters.
• Are you waiting until your blog is prettified before you set up a services page? Spend 30 minutes writing a short, text-only description (no flashy images) of what you do and how much it costs and tell people about it.  You can make a few sales just with that.