A perfect storm has erupted over the issue of whether PR should, partially at least, be measured on its ability to drive sales and/or generate profits. Public relations is about building mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its stakeholders. Its contribution to business-related outcomes is significant. Better: stakeholder relationships, organisational reputation, awareness of and trust towards or of the organisation and/or its products/services.

Over the 14 month existence of this blog I, and you the readers and participants, have been fortunate to be entertained and informed by a number of intelligent, insightful guest blogger posts, as well as by interviews with public relations, marketing and other business communication professionals that have covered topics as diverse as market research and setting KPIs, visual communication, getting the best out of annual reports and what it takes to be successful in a PR career. This post revisits some of these memorable posts that have each provided highly useful advice.

The excellent reasons for undertaking market research, and including it in any public relations strategic process, include that it generates information to create the best possible comms strategy, it helps determine appropriate benchmarks against which communication activity can be measured and it uncovers a range of issues that can be leveraged in PR programs.

For Angela Sinickas, measuring business communication is all about creating a “chain of evidence”, linking the tactical activities we do on a daily basis to the financial bottom line of the organisation. This is chain is created by looking at: communication activities, audience perceptions, audience actions and the financial impact on organisational goals. Paul Cheal analyses a ‘Measuring ROI on Communications’ workshop.

“Relationships are a means to getting more of the behaviors companies want. I think most PR people don’t realize this and therefore don’t build the right relationships or build them in ways that will directly benefit the organization tangibly, not just intangibly,” said renowned public relations exponent, and a passionate advocate for the setting of objectives, Angela Sinickas, in a this interview. She also purported that behavioral change is the ultimate form of impact for PR programs.

Setting public relations objectives that are directly related to an organisation’s mission and operating or business plan is, so it seems, one of PR’s great challenges. It simply does not occur with any consistently applied methodology. But there are ways to create objectives – or KPIs – that are inherently and profoundly relevant to what an organisation is actually trying to achieve – let’s learn some ’secrets’…with internationally renowned public relations exponent and a passionate advocate for the setting of objectives, Angela Sinickas.