KEEP YOUR

CLIENTS[ ]

and boost profits by matching agency reporting

to the client’s bottom line

Why are we talking about this?[ ]Better reporting keeps you from being unknowningly at odds with clients

Get more client referrals because you achieved real, measurable goals

Keep clients longer because you haven’t missed larger organizational goals

Let’s talk about…

Figuring out what the real goals are

Setting up reporting to match them

Appropriate benchmarks & baselines

Figuring out the

REAL GOALS

Clients may not always be up front about their real goals.

They don’t trust you yet. (Hurts to hear, doesn’t it? You’ve been nothing but nice to them.)

They think certain things have “nothing to do with PR.” (This one is due to decades of misunderstanding about what PR actually is.)

I’m sure you’re shocked.

Why would they do something this crazy and destructive?

They don’t actually know what their own organizational goals are. (Whoops… This one is usually the scariest.)

What now?You need a plan of action going into your

initial client conversations.

Have SPECIFIC

& MEASURABLE

questions about

goals & KPIs

And demand SPECIFIC

& MEASURABLE

answers even if they have to come

back with them later

Details you need

➡ What is your client being measured on?

➡ What constitutes success to their boss? To their executive team?(does it track back to your client’s goals? if not - time to start asking questions.)

➡ What does their internal reporting include? (is it the same as what you’re reporting on - if not - why?)

You have to know this. If you’re working with someone that doesn’t know and won’t find out, or knows and won’t tell you

- RUN AWAY.

Real goals for real people

➡ Increase revenue from $3M to $4.5M YoY

➡ Increase conversion by 12% in Q3

➡ Increase website traffic from 100,000 new visits per month to 125,000.

Goals need to be measurable with a numeric value. No matter what.

Even if you have to assign a numeric measurement to happiness and sentiment - it’s doable, I’ve done it.

Some NOT-a-goal goals I’ve seen

➡ Increase brand awareness

➡ Generate positive sentiment about our brand

➡ Get more followers / fans / likes

My response to all of these non-goals is usually one of the following: - By how much? 10%? 50,000? I’m gonna need a number.

- With who exactly? Do you have a super specific target? You need one.

- How do we know when we’ve accomplished it?

- Do we stop when people are aware/happy/the best?

- Why do you want to do this? I’m gonna bet it’s revenue - which is a measurable goal - so let’s tie it to that.

Goals

Micro-goals / KPIs

Deliverables

The end game, such as $10M in revenue or 100,000 sign-ups.

The smaller goals you need to meet to make sure you get to the end game.

The things you’re going to do / create to get the KPIs met.

The Goalden Pyramid see what I did there?

SETTING UP REPORTINGMIRROR THE GOALSTO

Discuss with the client*

For each deliverable your agency is

responsible for to help meet goals, ask:

How does each deliverable track back to a specific goal or KPI?

[ ]What does success look like?

What are appropriate benchmarks and baselines?

*and leadership team if possible

How does each deliverable track back to a specific goal?

For each deliverable, make sure there is a way to map it back to the goals of the client and, ultimately, the organization. If you can’t (or they won’t)

track it back to goals - don’t agree to it until you can.

Example: If the goal is to increase revenue, you need to know how getting an editorial placement is going to contribute to that.

$GOAL: REVENUE INCREASE

EDITORIALPLACEMENT

10,000VIEWS

800CLICKS

50BUYS

Increase revenue 20% this quarter

‣ Increase new users from 500/month to 800/month ‣Generate 15,000 pageviews this month

on campaign content ‣ Receive 1200 clicks through to content

✓Editorial placement in tier 1 publication ✓Sponsored content on 3 blogs ✓Interview with industry pundit ✓Speaking opp at XConf

Goal

Micro-goals / KPIs

Deliverables

Look, we can put it on the pyramid!

Appropriate BENCHMARKS

& BASELINES

Common KPIs

‣ Views / pageviews / visits (also broken out by new v. returning visits)

‣ Clicks through to other content / website (clicks per content and aggregate clicks)

‣ Shares / mentions (broken out by channel w/ specific metrics for each)

‣ New users /signups / customers (if there’s a difference between customer or user types - be sure to distinguish how many of each type)

‣ Conversions to [XYZ] (form fills, reads, purchases, signups, etc.)

‣ % positive sentiment change over time* (last quarter 10% of mentions were positive and this quarter 18% were positive)

For the record: I think current attempts at sentiment analysis are crap.

][

Create a spreadsheet of each deliverable and its associated KPI, with high and low benchmarks on each side. KPIs should be set based on:

- Current performance of client’s similar content already in market (other press releases, editorial contributions, etc.)

- Benchmarks from similar types of content around the industry (general baselines from other clients that can help set expectations)

- Additional campaign / resource support that will be given to help meet the KPI (advertising budget, retargeting, additional resources)

- What numbers must be met to meet the overall goal / KPIs (be sure to set KPIs to a threshold capable of meeting the main goals - these can be estimates early on and honed over time)

Measure those KPIs][

But what about when they’re all, “I wanna be in Forbes.”

“Forbes, and only Forbes - or maybe, The New York Times, will satisfy me and reaffirm me as the consumate badass

businessperson that I am. Wave your PR wand!”

It’s time to bring out the matrix.Not the Keanu one… This one:

Name of every publication they

want to be inTier (1-3) Tier Score

Did it happen? If yes, add score

below.

NYT 1 10 NO

Forbes 1 10 10

Entrepreneuer 2 5 5

Inc. 2 5 NO

Social Media Examiner 3 2 NO

Content Weekly 3 2 2

TOTAL 17

The matrix gives a numerical value to coverage and can be measured multiple ways.

HOW IT WORKS Each publication gets a tier (that the client and agency agree on together), and each tier has a

numeric value, for example:

‣ Tier 1 (10 pts) - New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes ‣ Tier 2 (5 pts) - Inc., Entrepreneur, Huffington Post ‣ Tier 3 (2 pts) - Content Weekly, Marketing Profs, Social Media Examiner ‣ Tier 4 (1 pt) - Other pickups - local / niche / not listed

Discuss the total score needed to make the client happy - ask them to be specific. If they say 30 points - is it okay if it comes from one Tier 3 and 28 Tier 4’s, or is there a minimum of at least one

Tier 1 and one Tier 2 expected?

Name of every publication they

want to be inTier (1-3) Tier Score

Did it happen? If yes, add score

below.NYT 1 10 NO

Forbes 1 10 10

Entrepreneuer 2 5 5

Inc. 2 5 NO

Social Media Examiner 3 2 NO

Content Weekly 3 2 2

TOTAL 17

REMEMBER It’s all about setting expectations and baselines that map deliverables

back to client and overall company goals.

This ensures your contributions can be attributed to the metrics and reports that matter at the highest levels.

Baselines and KPIs can be adjusted, and will likely need fine tuning after your first few deliverables together - that’s to be expected and means

you’re increasing accuracy for future campaigns.

][

In conclusion…

If you can’t measure it,

DON’T DO IT[ ]

GinzaMetrics.com erin@ginzametrics.com Twitter @ginzametrics[ ]