Carla Horvath | Source | Director at HM&M PR

Market reports show that the media environment is more fragmented than ever and it’s becoming increasingly challenging to reach audiences. This change is driving many businesses to direct a larger proportion of their marketing budgets to PR over traditional media advertising. Online reach is heavily controlled by the algorithms of only a few conglomerates – Google and Facebook – which influences the attainability of organic reach.

One other driver of change lies with consumer habits moving away from traditional formats toward hand-held devices. Deloitte reports that mobile devices are so entrenched that at least 90% of the population in most developed countries own one. The potential of hand-held devices has not yet been fully realised and the technology of the future in the near future should be kept in mind today.

PR is no longer the vague and unmeasurable beast it used to be. While there are no metrics to measure the act of winning hearts and minds, the realm of web analytics, subscriber numbers, SEO and sales conversions, media placements and more provide plenty of numbers with which to set targets against.

Whatever the particulars of your business or campaign there is data out there for collection that will help monitor performance and plot out campaigns of the future. PR professionals have access to media monitoring systems and will provide reports that identify the strengths and weaknesses of a campaign in real-time, taking much of the guesswork away.

By watching the numbers more closely, businesses will come to understand the nuances of the niche they occupy, gaining valuable insights that can give them a much-needed competitive edge.

Whether your overarching goal is to increase brand awareness for a new product or capture the attention of a key demographic, it helps to consider the who, what, when, where, and why. By determining the scope of the project, you’ll be able to strip away all non-essential activities from your budget.