A Practioner's Guide to Public Relations Research, Measurement and Evaluation

Chapter 10

Best Practices in Public Relations Research, Measurement, and Evaluation¹

Companies specializing in public relations measurement and evaluation have traditionally focused on evaluating only the outcomes of public relations. These outcomes are most commonly the media or press coverage that is a direct result of media relations activities (outputs). The primary limitation of these companies is their limited focus on an intermediary in the public relations process—the media—rather than on the target audience for these communications activities.

Relying strictly on evaluations of intermediaries in the communications process fails to create effective measurement and evaluation systems that provide a diagnostic appraisal of communications ...