PR Metrics, Part I

There was a time when a binder full of press clippings by itself was an acceptable measure of public relations efficacy. Those days are gone. Today it is important to have a comprehensive means of demonstrating the value of a dollar spent on PR.

There are three main reasons for expanding PR metrics: measuring the effectiveness of PR programs, demonstrating that the PR budget is money wisely spent and keeping the PR manager employed.

Success or failure of PR maps to business objectives. To create strong PR metrics, start first with the business goal, such as establishing brand awareness, increasing leads or driving traffic to a company website.

Establishing benchmarks is the first step in measuring PR. To demonstrate the impact of PR, know what is being measured and its value before the PR program begins. For example, know how many people visit the company website before attempting to drive more traffic to it.

Don’t be too quick to give up the clip count, but take this measurement to new levels. With a little more effort, clips can provide strong proof that PR is paying off. Data such as tier of a publication, the positive or negative tone of an article and whether key messages are present, turn a simple clip count into valuable report. Keep track of company executive, analyst and customer quotes. Make these measurements stronger still by tracking the same information for your competitors.

Tips for the cash-strapped:

• Benchmark metrics.
• Website traffic before and after press releases is a simple PR measure.
• Don’t make metrics too complicated or risk spending more time measuring PR than managing it.
• Limit the scope of measurements. Instead of analyzing every clip, analyze only the 10 or 15 publications most important to the business.
• Executives appreciate monetary measurement. The ad-rate equivalency – what it would have cost to buy the same space that PR earned – is one such metric. But so is measuring the impact on leads generation and revenue.

Positioning, Part I

There is usually a lot of hand-wringing over "positioning." There can be lots of meetings inside an agency and as well as inside its client on this subject. So what is the best way to achieve this magic positioning?

Let’s start with the basics. Do you know what "positioning" is?

Since PR is a business practice, my approach is to first distill PR tactics down to the fundamental business impact. In its simplest definition, positioning is the set of messages that makes your product, service, issue or person the affirmative answer to the question that drives the market: Which ketchup should I buy? What company should provide my Internet access? Should the government privatize Social Security? Who should be the next city mayor?

The next step should be to understand how people asking the question are motivated in their choice. Ketchup sales could be motivated by flavor. But sales can also be motivated by price, ingredients, packaging, appearance or simply brand name. Likely it’s a combination of factors, but of those, some factors will be most important to the widest common denominator of consumers.

Your ketchup may taste better, be made with only wholesome, organic ingredients and offer the richest, reddest color. But at the moment when the customer makes his buy decision, when he’s standing in the grocery store facing several shelves of competing brands, will he be reacting to messages on flavor, ingredients and color? Or will he be reacting to price and brand?

It is important to understand this market dynamic because successful positioning isn’t always intuitive. The attributes of a product or service that makes company employees – particularly product marketing employees – the most proud, may not be those attributes that drive market decisions. To be successful, you don’t have to be “the best.” To be successful you have to get the most sales or the most votes.

Why do you think politicians conduct polls and market research firms thrive? It’s all about positioning.

Tips for the cash-strapped:

• Survey existing customers on what motivated the purchase of your product and service.
• Prioritize the different factors involved in the “buy” decision.
• Focus messaging around the top 1 to 3 factors.
• Don’t be different from the competition on these factors, be better (better as defined by customers).
• Be clear, concise and truthful.

PR Lessons Learned From a (Contemporary) High Tech IPO

You say there’s an IPO in your company’s future? It’s a different environment out there from the heady days of the late 1990s tech bubble. The role of public relations in an IPO has changed significantly, as has its practice. Understanding the new role and new rules is essential in building and executing an IPO communications program.

Role of PR in an IPO

In the 1990s when there were literally dozens of technology IPOs each month, public relations played a major role in a stock offering’s success or failure. A company could have a successful stock debut simply on the strength of its concepts and the vision of its managers. In those days, PR was very instrumental in the IPO process. Today this model will prove to be the exception instead of the rule.

The underwriting companies and institutional investors that are the key to an IPO’s success will be looking at your company’s business model, revenue, customers and all the elements that have always made a business successful.

In this new environment – which is merely a return to basics – the success of an IPO will be driven by the CFO and the finance team. Overly aggressive PR can get in the way, or worse, get your company in trouble.

The SEC and New Regulations

Since the burst of the tech bubble and the subsequent bankruptcies of WorldCom, Enron and Global Crossing, new laws and policies have been enacted to protect investors. Even those experienced in running PR during IPOs in the past should take time to understand this new rulebook. It’s probably best to go over these rules together with corporate counsel and your CFO. Become intimately familiar with the IPO lexicon: Sarbanes-Oxley, gun-jumping, Reg FD, effective period.

Without this understanding you will run the risk of becoming frustrated in executing your plans, or worse, having the SEC impose a “cooling off period” on your IPO. A cooling off period can be imposed for something relatively innocuous on your part; the SEC looks at the effects of a communication, not its intent. But in these days of increased corporate scrutiny, why risk the perception that your management did something afoul of SEC regulations? Don’t take chances, become an expert.

Establish Communications Practices Early

The SEC will look back at your communications activities to see if press releases issued closer to the IPO date have the impact of hyping your stock. Your communications practices should be well-established 12 months before your IPO date.

For example, if you’ve never announced a customer win before, then within this twelve month “look back” period, you probably shouldn’t start.

Be Precise in Your Communication

Are you trying to convince a prospect to buy your product or service, or are you trying to convince an investor to buy your stock? In the effective period between filing your S1 with the SEC and your IPO, you should try not to communicate to prospective to investors. Remember, the SEC is looking at the effects of a communication, not its intent.

Make sure you are carefully reviewing press releases. Don’t put out spokespeople who haven’t been media trained. It’s also probably best to keep your media outreach limited to the relevant trade press, forgoing speaking to business publications until after the IPO quiet period ends.

Ironically, the closer you get to the IPO, the more interested the media becomes in your company. Suddenly, reporters you've unsuccessfully courted for two years will want to write that company profile right away. You may experience intense frustration as you turn away opportunities in top tier publications.

After your successful IPO and clearing the quiet period, you'll be set-up for PR success. Keep a list of those reporters you had to turn away, and double back to them with exclusive angles. It's time to ramp the PR machine back up to full speed. There will still be SEC rules that you’ll have to heed, such as Regulation FD, in your post-IPO PR program, but you'll have more wind in your sails and more experienced management and PR teams with which to work.

In the end, your conservatism and determination will pay off. The short term PR pain associated with an IPO will turn in to long term PR gains.

Wireless Internet, the Enterprise’s New Frontier

Silicon Valley’s iPass Inc. makes Wi-Fi technology “Enterprise Ready”

When Nicole needs to work between appointments in the Denver area, she stops at the Embassy Suites hotel on East Hampden Avenue. Not because the hotel provides her a comfortable workspace. In fact, Nicole isn’t even a guest there. The big attraction for Nicole is the hotel’s parking lot.

Why? Nicole uses the enterprise connectivity service of Redwood Shores, California-based iPass Inc., and this Denver-area Embassy Suites hotel offers its guests high-speed wireless Internet connectivity, also known as Wi-Fi, on the iPass virtual network. Even from the parking lot, Nicole is able to quickly open her notebook computer, log on to the iPass service, and create a secure connection to her e-mail and other business applications.

While parking lot Internet access wasn’t what the Embassy Suites had in mind when it deployed its Wi-Fi service last year, Nicole’s use is just another example of how today’s mobile business users are taking advantage of “unwired” high-speed connectivity.

One year ago iPass activated its first Wi-Fi “hotspots” in its enterprise connectivity service, designed to provide mobile employees a secure connection to their company’s network from approximately 150 countries and blend traditional dial-up Internet connectivity with higher speed broadband technologies such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi. Over the past year iPass has been steadily growing a network of Wi-Fi access points at airports, hotels, conference centers and other venues around the world where mobile business users can be more productive.

The iPass network is what the company calls “Enterprise Ready.” Every network provider integrated into the iPass service has been tested to work with numerous network security systems. iPass takes these extra steps because companies like Booz Allen Hamilton and JD Edwards use the iPass service to keep their employees securely connected to their corporate networks while away from the office.

“iPass understands and addresses the security issues facing today’s enterprise user,” said Amy Cravens, industry analyst at In-Stat Group. She believes the iPass Enterprise Ready network gives businesses “the additional comfort level that is absolutely necessary when dealing with mission critical corporate data.”

“The oxygen issue for enterprise connectivity is security,” says Ken Denman, iPass’ CEO. “If it isn’t secure, by definition it isn’t for the enterprise. All our work on the back-end is to make the service ready for enterprise use.”

Denman says iPass exists to make the enterprise worker both more mobile and more productive. With that goal in mind, iPass is collaborating with a number of companies to enhance its service and Wi-Fi in general.

Recently iPass was selected by Intel to collaborate on improving the wireless experience for future notebook PCs based on Intel’s new Centrino mobile technology. iPass and Intel are working together with the aim of providing mobile users the benefit of the same simple interface for dial-up, wired and public wireless access worldwide.

According to Anand Chandrasekher, vice president of Intel’s Mobile Platforms Group, Intel believes “the collaboration with iPass should make [Centrino]-based notebooks a powerful business tool.”

Although the growing sales in wireless home network devices and the availability of consumer-oriented Wi-Fi providers such as Boingo suggests Wi-Fi is a consumer technology, that is not the case. The ability of mobile workers to connect to their company’s networks through Wi-Fi is growing increasingly important. The iPass service and its growing network of Wi-Fi access points make such connections easy and secure.

This month Cometa Networks and iPass announced an agreement to pursue the inclusion of Cometa’s planned Wi-Fi hotspots into the iPass Global Broadband Roaming Service for enterprise users.

Cometa and iPass noted the natural synergies between their offerings, as Cometa’s vision for covering the United States with a network of Wi-Fi hotspots fits perfectly with the iPass vision of simple, convenient and secure connectivity for enterprise users. “The Cometa service is being designed to provide wireless network access to enable providers such as iPass to meet convenience and ease-of-use requirements for large enterprise customers,” said Lawrence Brilliant, co-founder and Interim CEO of Cometa.

iPass is working with dozens of Wi-Fi providers around the world, including Wayport and StayOnline (which provide Wi-Fi services to hotels in the United States), Concourse Communications (which focuses on Wi-Fi services at airports), and Toshiba, Pronto Networks and Surf & Sip (which bring Wi-Fi to smaller venues).

Today iPass customers can easily access their networks through Wi-Fi services at business travel venues such as the Narita International Airport in Tokyo, the Carlton Hotel in Madrid, or any of many hotels, airports and other locations around the world where the iPass service is currently available.

The iPass service works on both Windows and Mac-based notebooks. For the business user who prefers to travel lighter, iPass is also available for Pocket PC-based Personal Data Assistants (PDAs). According to Oscar Koenders, of Toshiba’s Computer Systems Group, combining a PDA like the Toshiba e740 with the iPass service allows business users to “easily and affordably connect to their e-mail or other network-based applications while waiting at an airport gate for a flight or even standing in line to check in at a hotel.”

“Simplicity and convenience leads to productivity,” added Denman. “The vast majority of enterprise end-users are not techies. Therefore we build our service to be easy-to-use and broadly available. If we accomplish these things, being productive becomes more appealing, even fun. The new mobility allows today’s technology users to be as productive inside their office and out.”

Even if their office is a car.