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Communicators face a challenge when it comes to showing results. This is a long-standing challenge in PR. Many of the “standard” measurements really aren’t of value, but somehow along the way – they became what we did.

Counting clippings used to be one way of measurement. It showed how much ink, airtime or online coverage you generated. Even when you dig deeper and review key messages, placement, tone and style, images and other factors, you still aren’t getting the whole picture. What else happened that day? Were there world events that distracted people from paying attention? What context was the coverage in?

There is so much more to measuring the effectiveness of a PR initiative.

Today, we see the world differently. We talk about “influencers” and what they mean. We track how we measure influence as well as looking at the hard and fast facts of which media outlet or blogger mentioned our organization, product, service or event. There may be more depth in how we measure, but it’s important to keep it in context and to understand the bigger picture. What was the overall objective of the campaign? Where were you before you started – do you have a measurement of that? Did you want to move individuals or groups to action, to change behaviors, to inform and educate? It is more complicated than just looking at how many followers you have on Twitter or how many people visited your website.

Katie Delahaye Paine has an excellent blog post on this topic that’s worth a read.

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Nothing gets our juices flowing in the AHA PR office more than the opportunity to pitch media and bloggers. Coming up with the right idea that will get a journalist or blogger to learn more about a client’s organization or their product or service takes more effort than most people outside of PR realize. It is part art, part science and part magic – I think.

While we still believe that there is value in a news release, more and more these days, we find ourselves developing pitches for a specific journalist or blogger. We write the pitch as if we were writing it for an editor – with stats, facts and why this story idea is relevant to the readership or audience of that journalist. It is an interesting process and one that takes the effort of several of the AHA crew. We put the pitch through its paces, reviewing it through the eyes of a busy journalist who receives a lot of pitches in a day. We look at it with the “who cares” lens – and ask why anyone would care about this information?  If we can’t confidently explain who would care and why – the pitch needs to be reworked. And if we keep hitting the who cares phase and we can’t get past it – sometimes, we need to go back and speak with our client about taking a different angle or, perhaps, coming to terms with the fact that while this information is of value to a specific audience relevant to their organization, that it may not be of value to a larger, more public audience.

Ragan.com has a great piece written by tech journalist David Pogue of the New York Times. We’re big fans of Pogue’s work – not only does he know his stuff, he is a genuinely nice guy and he’s really funny. (Several years ago, he was a speaker at the Ragan Social Media Conference and there was a technical glitch with his presentation. Pogue sat down at the grand piano on the stage and performed a fun, lively little number taking a poke at communicators and reporters for us while the challenges were being fixed.)

In this piece Pogue shows two pitches that got his attention. Getting the attention of the New York Times tech journalist is a pretty great thing – this is worth a read.

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While AHA is a Canadian communications agency, we have clients, friends and family in the U.S. On this day of American Thanksgiving – inspired by a Crenshaw Communications blog post “Things We’re Thankful For As PR Professionals” – we have created our own list of thankfuls. You should read Crenshaw’s post, it’s very good and we are thankful for many of the items on their list too.

Like the team at Crenshaw, we decided to write about some of the little things we’re grateful for, the big things like our health, family and friends are written in our hearts.

Some of the things that AHA Creative Strategies Is Thankful For…

  • Deadlines. Without them nothing would ever get finished.
  • Clients who understand that without their input, we can’t meet our deadlines.
  • The AHA espresso machine and a never ending supply of caffeine.
  • The shift in perception that a small Vancouver PR agency (that’s AHA) can deliver world-class excellence throughout Canada.
  • The shift in perception that a small Vancouver PR agency (that’s AHA) can provide U.S. clients with world-class service.
  • The shift in perception that now allows a range of clients to see the value in a virtual agency (that’s AHA).
  • Our AHA Crew in Gibsons, Vancouver, Calgary, Peterborough, Toronto, and Halifax, NS. They deliver that world-class excellence we mentioned above – every time.
  • The fact that the partners will get up at 2 a.m. to work on urgent client issues or crises. (We need to live on East Coast time zones.)
  • Social media – it has re-energized the industry, AHA and our clients!
  • Our dog-friendly office.
  • The Naked Cowboy, AHA’s recreation room – a two-car garage turned into part Texas honky tonk and part beach bar. (The name was inspired by New York’s PR wonder – The Naked Cowboy.)
  • Our client partners. Not only are we proud to work with them, there isn’t one of them that we wouldn’t invite over to The Naked Cowboy to hang out with after hours. That says something.

Happy American Thanksgiving!

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Kristen Ridley, a communicator who is a regular contributor on Ragan.com, has an excellent (and amusing) blog post entitled: “How to make a communicator violent in one easy step!”  If you are a communicator, you will find yourself nodding your head and grinning. You will recognize several scenarios here. If you work with a communicator – in-house, at an agency like AHA or with a freelancer, see if you recognize yourself in this post. And if you do, have a respectful and open conversation with your communicator. It will make the relationship better and it will make the work you do together better.

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