Are KPIs in the PR Sector Really Meaningful?
Almost 90% of PR professionals surveyed in our latest market study titled "The Future of PR" use the diverse services of a media monitor. This prompted us to speak with Uwe Mommert, one of the founders of Landau Media, about the development of this industry over the past 24 years since the establishment of Germany's largest media monitor. He shared insights on the early days of media monitoring, future trends he sees potential in, and how to measure PR work results effectively. Here are the most exciting insights we gathered:
You founded Landau Media 24 years ago with your two co-founders. What did media monitoring look like back then? How did it work technically?
At that time, there were no online magazines. This meant that all printed newspapers had to be read by researchers to find the desired mentions. We supported this process with very advanced technology. Researchers could check in a database whether an article they found was relevant for media monitoring. Our software listed all the clients for whom researchers were supposed to find clippings. This replaced customer lists or index cards with relevant keywords.
Once a researcher found a relevant media mention in a newspaper, it was marked. The newspaper was then forwarded for clipping, where the clipping was glued onto a media sheet and sent by mail.
The process was still very manual. However, this simple measure made the processes significantly more efficient.
Did PR managers also measure the value of their work with relevant KPIs back then?
Of course, media analyses with various KPIs were conducted over 20 years ago. The found article was forwarded to a coder who examined the text for specific keywords. It was checked whether, for example, products or people were mentioned. These results were then recorded in a database along with reach and ad prices to be made available to the client later.
At that time, media analyses were much slower than today because there were only print media, which appeared at most daily. Therefore, shitstorms, for example, developed much more slowly, giving companies more time to react to such negative news. Thus, the corresponding KPIs did not need to be available as quickly as they do today.
Essentially, media analyses were created primarily for justification purposes, so PR managers could show their clients how many consumers were reached through their work.
Steering media analyses, which show whether the desired messages were actually conveyed, are used much more today.
Do you feel that PR today is much more data-driven than it was 20 years ago?
Not in all areas. In traditional PR for print, there has been little change in terms of data, as there is not significantly more data available today than 20 years ago.
In the areas of online and social media, however, public relations have become much more data-driven because enormous amounts of data are available in these areas, which can be used to optimize communication.
Although the number of metrics in print has not increased, they are used by more companies today because their generation has become more efficient and cheaper. This is mainly due to the increasing technological support in media monitoring. Computers can search for defined keywords or assess the tone of an article. These evaluations are not perfect but still provide significant relief.
I don't think machines alone could take over media monitoring. They can support humans in their tasks, such as summarizing identical articles or searching the internet for mentions of specific topics. However, a human eye is always needed in the end – especially when, for example, the fashion brand "Mango" places a search order. Here, the machine can hardly filter out relevant content.
The KPIs available today for evaluating online PR are largely based on estimates and projections. Do you think these are meaningful, or do you see potential for development?
There is definitely potential for development in this area because website operators could provide much more data than they currently do. However, this is also related to the level of advertising prices. No provider wants to admit that, for example, only a fraction of users land in the science section. Therefore, I think we will have to rely on certain mechanisms for a long time to make the numbers at least comparable.
The overall reach can be broken down to the average readership of an article, considering that a post is usually only read two to three days after its publication. However, one must always keep in mind that the data in this area is not exact.
To truly measure the success of PR work, media analysis would have to be combined with media resonance and opinion research, which is very expensive.
Still, it can generally be assumed that a brand in high-reach media is more likely to be noticed. Media analysis will never be an exact science, but this keeps PR work creative, as new ways must always be found to reach consumers.
What has changed the most in media monitoring over the past 24 years?
These are probably the same factors that have also changed PR itself: the multitude of channels that can be served today. The abundance of content types, from photos to videos to pure audio formats, is now all possible in communication work. The challenge is mainly to find out where the desired target group is located and with which formats they can be best addressed.
How might media monitoring look in the future? What trends are there, and where do you think the journey is headed?
I think the print sector will significantly reduce overall, leaving us with less paper to evaluate. Printed newspapers and magazines are not the right medium for spreading daily news in the long run. By the time they are read, the news is already old and has been distributed online throughout the population.
It is simply anachronistic to try to print current news on paper and deliver it to people promptly through any kind of logistics. This is no longer sensible.
However, weekly or monthly issues and specialist journals will continue to exist, in my opinion. Here, journalists can delve deeper into certain topics and provide background stories. These do not need to be up-to-date and will therefore continue to be consumed in the future.
As an expert in media monitoring, you always have all channels and content in view. Are there any current trends? Which channels will be important in the future? Which PR content particularly appeals to readers?
A trend that I find very exciting personally is the move towards audio formats.
This development is happening very slowly. Podcasts are almost as old as I am and were one of the first formats that were also very well transferable digitally. But it is only now that these formats have had a real breakthrough. However, it is hard to say which further channels and apps will emerge around this topic. An example was Clubhouse: they picked up on the audio trend. However, the hype around it was only very short-lived.
A second trend is increasingly shorter videos. This is also not a new trend. TikTok or Instagram introduced this feature successfully some time ago. Additionally, the format is being adopted by more and more social platforms.
Content is increasingly being consumed digitally together. For example, football matches can be watched in groups, even though everyone is at home. This is a trend that probably emerged from the Corona pandemic when we got used to having social interaction only online. However, how to use this trend for PR work is something PR professionals still need to figure out.
Find more interesting insights into the work of PR managers in the DACH region, the current digitalization, and promising future trends in our latest market study. You can download it for free here:
Uwe Mommert
Managing Partner of Landau Media
Together with his partners Michael Busch and Lothar Landau, Uwe Mommert founded Landau Media in 1997. Today, Landau Media is one of the leading providers of media monitoring and media intelligence services in the DACH region. Within the company, he is responsible for consulting, sales and marketing and generates enthusiasm for new projects.