Control over an advertising campaign, analysis of its current results and evaluation of their effectiveness is an integral stage of the entire planning process. promotional activities. Control over an advertising campaign is not a mandatory procedure, and in most cases, companies do not control the course of the process itself. Instead, managers analyze sales performance prior to and throughout advertising campaign and then conclude whether the ad works or not. However, about half of all advertising campaigns do not lead to a clear (measurable) increase in sales.

If you do not follow the course of the campaign, then you can quite unexpectedly get such a result, when it is too late to take measures to correct the situation. Large firms monitor and evaluate their advertising campaigns even when all market factors indicate that advertising (incentive measures, intensive marketing communications) achieves sales targets.

The head of the advertising and marketing department, interested in success, must always be sure that the sale of products is provided precisely by advertising, and not by other marketing factors, "misses" from competitors or the market itself (when general economic conditions change). In addition, he is interested in the possible impact of advertising on future sales.

Studies by various authors show that: at least 30% of campaigns conducted in the United States had a negative effect, 20% at least did no harm, 20% had a small positive effect and 30% had a pronounced positive effect.

Data for European countries look more modest: only 20% of campaigns had a pronounced positive effect. Expecting 100% advertising effectiveness is generally not worth it at all. However, to predict or evaluate advertising expenses and at least an approximate result obtained is certainly necessary. Advertising costs in developed civilized countries have long been a kind of tribute to the market, so as not to get lost among competitors.

Tracking an advertising campaign requires a significant amount of financial resources. To begin with, it is required to conduct a preliminary, or control, study, if it was not carried out during development advertising strategy. Then, already during the campaign, one or more "waves" of research are carried out, the results of which are compared with the control ones. Thus, the effectiveness of advertising is monitored. The cost of each interim study depends on the objectives of the survey, the size of the sample of respondents, the size of the questionnaire or questionnaire, the probability of making a purchase, but in any case, it remains quite high.

• 1) contact with advertising;
• 2) assimilation of information;
• 3) the effects of communication and brand positioning;
• 4) actions of target buyers;
• 5) sales volume or market share;
• 6) profits.

It is customary to call a contact the opportunity to see or hear an advertising message at least once. It happened, i.e. contact occurs when an ad is placed in one or more media that reaches the target consumer. The degree of attention of consumers (whether they noticed or did not notice advertising) is usually assessed at the next stage - the stage of assimilation of information.

It should be noted that the study of contacts is associated with measurements of the advertising power of the advertising medium, which can then be correlated with sales volumes or other advertising effects. You can measure the power of a tool in different ways: from the total estimate of advertising costs, its placement in monetary terms and the total amount advertisements necessary to achieve the desired level of awareness (GRP) to a more accurate reach estimate at the lowest effective repetition rate of an ad (effective reach).

The cumulative number of ads placed over a given period of time is also the gross estimate of ad exposure. Index CRP does not take into account the number of contacts of individual consumers and is a simple calculation of the required number of contacts (often repeated) of the audience with advertising.

Index GRP can be compared with the total amount of advertising costs (GRP per currency unit for a given period of time). Their ratio shows whether financial resources are spent effectively. The higher the value, the cheaper each contact with an advertising message is.

GRP can also be directly related to sales volumes. The result is a rough estimate of the effectiveness of the media plan. Rough for the reason that the indicator itself can be estimated in different ways.

An important indicator in the study of contact with advertising is effective reach. It's reach target audience with the minimum effective frequency of advertising and the most accurate assessment of contacts with advertising. To measure effective reach, the number of contacts with different advertising media is directly estimated (direct overlap) or the frequency of recognition of advertising is measured. The minimum effective frequency is calculated for each advertising cycle, however, coverage at a given minimum frequency is a figure that can be recalculated for any period used for other control measurements.

If at the end of the measurements it turns out that effective coverage is not related to sales volumes, then in the work advertising communications something was left out. And this is not about the use of advertising media, but about the advertising strategy or its creative execution.

The concept of advertising effectiveness contains at the same time such heterogeneous concepts as economic effect, psychological impact on representatives of target groups (psychological effect), social effect, expressed in a certain impact on the whole society as a whole (in particular, the impact on the formation of people's taste preferences). , their views and concepts about various moral and material life values etc.). Based on this, comparing and linking together the monetary costs of promotional activities, profits, consumer preferences, the prestige of goods and the favorable opinion of the public about the activities of the advertiser organization is an extremely difficult, often almost impossible task.

Therefore, despite the fact that leading experts in many countries of the world have been working on the problems of determining the effectiveness of advertising for a long time, this issue is one of the most intractable, and today there is not a single perfect formula or methodology that allows you to accurately measure the efforts expended and cash with results.

Economic and psychological efficiency are interconnected, but the criteria for evaluating their effectiveness are different (Fig. 12.1).

Ch. Sandage, W. Freiburger and K. Rotzol compare the decision-making process by an advertiser with a "black box", which symbolically includes a large number of existing factors (socio-economic conditions, advertising, competition, sales promotion, packaging, distribution, price), and only one outgoing factor comes out in the form of a specific action of this advertiser.

It should be especially noted that, contrary to popular belief, advertising is far from being the only “engine of commerce”, but only one of many. In the general system of extensive

Rice. 12.1.

a complex of marketing activities, advertising is, as a rule, by no means the dominant element. In particular, according to the estimates of some marketing scientists, in the total amount of factors influencing the adoption of positive purchasing decisions, advertising belongs to.

Practice shows that the most significant factors determining the increase or decrease in the sale of any product are, first of all, the quality and consumer properties of the goods themselves, their price, the general market situation, the actions of competitors, etc. That is why evaluating the effectiveness of advertising campaigns based on the results of the sale of the advertised products can give very serious errors.

Distinguish economic efficiency advertising and effectiveness of psychological impact individual means of advertising on the human mind (attracting attention to advertising, fixing in memory, etc.). Moreover, the psychological impact is most effective if it leads potential consumers to make a purchase. Thus, the economic efficiency of advertising depends on its psychological impact.

The economic efficiency of advertising is most often determined by measuring its impact on the development of trade. The most accurate way to determine the effect of advertising is only if the increase in sales of goods occurs in cases of advertising new consumer goods.

At the same time, the purchase of an expensive durable product usually comes with a lot of deliberation. In this case, the effect of advertising may not appear immediately. First of all, the buyer learns about the release of the goods, then he is interested in detailed information about its quality and properties. After that, the buyer can give preference to the advertised product and establish a desire to purchase it, and only in the end does he acquire it.

To identify the extent to which advertising has influenced the growth of turnover, they carefully analyze operational and accounting data. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that in addition to advertising, the sale of goods is affected by its quality and consumer properties, price, appearance, as well as the location of the trading enterprise, the level of customer service culture, the availability of similar products or products for sale.

In this regard, when determining the effectiveness of advertising, it is necessary to establish which of the listed or other factors could have influenced the increase in turnover along with advertising.

Additional turnover under the influence of advertising is determined by the formula:

where Тр - additional turnover under the influence of advertising, rub.; T - average daily turnover before the advertising period, rub.; P - increase in the average daily turnover for the advertising and post-advertising periods,%; D - the number of days of accounting for trade in the advertising and post-advertising periods.

The economic result is determined by the ratio between the profit from the additional turnover received under the influence of advertising, and the cost of it.

To calculate the economic effect, you can use the following formula:

where E is the economic effect of advertising, rub.; T - additional turnover under the influence of advertising, rub.; H - trade markup for goods, % of the selling price; 11r - advertising expenses, rub.; And - additional costs for the increase in turnover, rub.

In this case, we compare the effect obtained from the promotional event with the costs of its implementation. The results of this ratio can be expressed in three ways.

• 1. The effect of a promotional event is equal to the cost of its implementation.
• 2. The effect of the promotional event is greater than the cost (profitable).
• 3. The effect of the promotional event is less than the cost (unprofitable).

However, the data obtained is still insufficient to compare the cost-effectiveness of spending on various promotional activities. More accurately, the cost effectiveness of advertising characterizes its profitability.

The effectiveness of the psychological impact of advertising media is characterized by the number of consumer coverage, the brightness and depth of the impression that these media leave in a person’s memory, and the degree of attention.

The effectiveness of the psychological impact of advertising on the consumer can be determined through observations, experiments, and surveys.

Observation method used in the study of the impact on consumers of individual advertising media. This method is passive in nature, since the observer does not influence the buyer in any way, but, on the contrary, conducts observations unnoticed by him. According to a predetermined scheme, the observer registers the received data, which are then comprehensively analyzed. The observer, for example, notes which stand of the fair or exhibition-sale attracts the most attention of buyers, how long pedestrians linger at one or another showcase, how many people enter the store after familiarizing themselves with the showcase, which product in the showcase is of greater interest and what demand it is in .

The method of observation allows you to evaluate the psychological impact of advertising in natural conditions, in the direct communication of the consumer with a certain advertising medium.

Evaluating the effectiveness of individual advertising media, first of all, it is established whether this medium achieves its goal. Yes, for determining the degree of attracting the attention of buyers to outdoor advertising(showcase) you can use the following formula:

where B is the degree of attracting the attention of passers-by; O is the number of people who paid attention to outdoor advertising(showcase) for a certain period; P is the total number of people who passed by the shop window in the same period.

where D - the effectiveness of the publication of the announcement; K - the number of visitors who bought the advertised product; C is the total number of customers who made a purchase in the store.

Such data can be obtained from the readings of checks punched on the summing cash registers and by registering the facts of the acquisition of the advertised goods by cashier controllers.

An indicator of the effectiveness of the means that advertise the retail enterprise itself is the ratio of the number of visitors to the store during the period of application of these funds to the number of visitors per day on average. These data can be obtained by observers or with the help of a photocell.

Using observation method in all cases, the following conditions must be observed: observation should be carried out on weekdays that are not characterized by an increased intensity of customer flows (preferably in the middle of the week); the duration of observations depends on the nature of the advertising medium whose effectiveness is to be established.

Along with the observation method, it is widely used experiment Method, which is active. The study of the psychological impact of advertising here takes place in conditions artificially created by the experimenter. If the observation only fixes how the consumer relates, for example, to a certain display of goods, then the experimenter can rearrange the goods, and then observe the change in the reaction of buyers.

In the same way, the experimenter can create a variety of combinations of advertising media and, by comparing the reactions of buyers, choose the most successful of them.

Especially wide development received a study of the effectiveness of the psychological impact of advertising media through experiments in foreign countries Oh. This method is used to determine the impact on buyers of a showcase display, packaging, press ads, radio and television advertising. So, if you need to assess the psychological impact on the buyer of the product packaging, then the same product (for example, washing powder) is placed in different packages.

The psychological effectiveness of such an advertising medium as an advertisement in a newspaper or magazine is determined by the following experiment. The advertisement includes a coupon with the text of a request to send a prospectus, catalog or sample. The buyer must cut and send this coupon trading company, the address of which is indicated in the text of the ad. By the number of coupons received from readers, the advertiser judges whether his ad was noticed in the periodical press and whether the text of this ad turned out to be sufficiently convincing and interesting. However, it should be noted that the small number of requests received may not be the result of the poor quality of the ads, but the fact that the advertised product itself, for some reason, was not needed by buyers. That is why this method of determining the psychological effectiveness of advertisements in the periodical press is acceptable only if it is already known in advance that the advertised product is in demand.

The polling method refers to active methods determining the psychological impact of advertising. This method is time-consuming, but much more reliable than others, as it allows you to identify directly from the buyer himself his attitude not only to the advertising medium as a whole, but also to the individual constituent elements of this medium. Using the survey method, you can evaluate the impact of an advertising medium on buyers and determine which elements of its design attract the most attention and are better remembered.

To determine the effectiveness of a particular advertising medium, questionnaires are drawn up, which, according to a previously developed program, are brought to the attention of consumers in writing, in personal conversations, on radio or television. An analysis of the responses received allows us to draw appropriate generalizations and conclusions.

By questioning, it is possible to determine which advertising medium has the greatest impact on the buyer when he purchases a certain product (poster, promotional film, advertisement, display of goods, etc.). For example, to identify which of the advertising media attracted the attention of the buyer to a new product, you can use the following questionnaire.

How did you hear about the new product?

• a) from acquaintances;
• b) from an ad on the radio, in a newspaper;
• c) seen in a shop window;
• d) in the process of inspecting goods in a store;
• e) from a TV show.

Conducting surveys requires a significant investment of time and the involvement of a large number of people in this work. However, the results obtained may not be sufficiently complete. Indeed, sometimes even for the buyer himself it is not clear whether he bought the goods under the influence of advertising or on the advice of a friend, or was guided by some other considerations. In addition, sometimes verbal questioning of buyers can make them wary. Therefore, it is more expedient to invite them to fill out a questionnaire, outlining the objectives of the survey, so that the buyer knows one hundred goals and tries to answer the questions more accurately.

In some cases, surveys are combined with experiments. So, the study of the psychological effectiveness of radio and television advertising is carried out as follows. A group of people is invited to the studio, who are invited to fill out a short questionnaire, indicating in it data on age, profession, etc. After that, the group listens to or watches the commercials and everyone writes down their comments and impressions on special sheets. All comments are properly motivated. Then a discussion of the program is organized. Sometimes the effectiveness of advertising is evaluated on the basis of voting data. Such listening and discussion of advertising programs make it possible to more or less accurately establish the positive and negative aspects in their preparation, as well as to identify which form of presentation is the most intelligible for a particular contingent of radio listeners or TV viewers.

The effectiveness of an advertising event or an individual advertising medium can be expressed by the number of consumers covered by advertising, as well as by the amount of costs per viewer, reader, etc. Thus, the expediency of publishing a newspaper advertisement in one or another printed organ is determined by determining the total number of people who can read it (this number depends mainly on the circulation of the newspaper), or the cost of the advertisement per reader. The more readers will be covered by advertising, the less will be the cost of it per person.

Data on the effectiveness of the psychological impact of advertising make it possible to predict its effectiveness.

In developed foreign countries, to study the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising, it is widely used various methods preliminary testing of representatives of the target groups (they provide an opportunity to simulate the approximate results of future promotions, make the necessary adjustments to their creative strategy and thereby significantly increase their effectiveness); different sizes of the performance of individual promotions during advertising campaigns using special surveys, questionnaires, return coupons, etc. (provide an opportunity to analyze and, if necessary, improve and increase the effectiveness of these promotional activities); detailed studies of the results of advertising campaigns based on the processing of incoming requests, organizing special conversations with new customers, business partners and consumers.

One of the widely practiced methods for assessing the economic effectiveness of advertising is the method of identifying the approximate monetary value of one advertising contact as a result of ongoing advertising events or advertising campaigns.

If 3,100 rubles were spent on organizing and conducting direct mail advertising. (of which 1000 rubles is the production of an advertising and information letter with a circulation of 2000 copies, 2000 rubles is the purchase of 2000 postal addresses of representatives of the target groups; 100 rubles are postage costs) and as a result 500 requests were received, then the cost of one advertising contact equal to 6 rubles. 20 kop.

Summing up the results of this small advertising campaign, which includes three events with a total cost of 46,100 rubles, as a result of which 2800 requests were received, we can conclude that the average cost of one advertising contact in this case is about 16 rubles. 46 kop.

This technique is widely used by many advertisers to comparative analysis the effectiveness of individual advertising media that they use in advertising work. However, this technique is also imperfect, since some requests (contacts) turn out to be ultimately more productive, others less productive or not productive at all. In addition, this technique does not make it possible to evaluate various promising business contacts, which can only give good results after a certain, sometimes quite long period.

The method proposed by V. Glazunova is of the greatest practical interest in determining the effectiveness of advertising activities. Based on this, the effectiveness of the advertising activities carried out can be conditionally assessed by the following concepts:

• o goal achieved;
• o the goal is partially achieved;
• o the goal is not achieved at all.

Despite the very conditional nature of such assessments, this fairly simple technique can give each advertiser an idea of ​​the degree of effectiveness of the advertising campaigns carried out, if their goal is formulated quite clearly.

There are several main reasons low efficiency advertising.

• 1. Lack of specific goals and objectives of the advertising campaign.
• 2. Incompatibility of the goals and objectives of the advertising campaign with the goals marketing activities and corporate strategy.
• 3. Lack of information about the target consumer and sources of obtaining information by him (channels of access to the consumer).
• 4. Absence feedback with the consumer.
• 5. Segmentation errors.
• 6. Low qualification of employees responsible for advertising, as well as employees of advertising agencies.
• 7. Lack of systematization and consistency in the conduct of promotions.

It should be noted that the field of activity also leaves a certain imprint on the effectiveness of advertising as a method of promotion.

• o increase in turnover from 10 to 15%;
• o preparing consumers for the opening of a new store;
• o reminding consumers of the availability of a product in trading network etc.

• o reach at least 40% of the target audience;
• o increase the level of active fame to 25%;
• o optimization of the advertising budget - reducing its size by 10% due to the redistribution of information sources.

Economic efficiency advertising campaign is determined by the ratio between the result obtained from advertising and the invested funds for its implementation for a certain period of time. True, it is precisely with such a calculation of the effectiveness of advertising that the question arises: "Where did the advertising "shoot" and where is the influence of other factors?" Here we can advise you to analyze the influence of the above factors on the change in trade. For example, the study of trends in sales volume based on the seasonal factor for several periods (months, years); study of consumer sentiment in connection with inflationary expectations; identifying price elasticity for your product when using sales promotion methods, etc.

Another way to determine economic efficiency can be the method when several comparable markets are taken and, other things being equal, they have different advertising effects. Then financial results are compared, the difference in which is compared with the difference in advertising budgets and a conclusion is made about the contribution of advertising to the company's turnover.

where (2і and (22) are the sales volumes of the 1st and 2nd firms, respectively, for the period of time; V] And Y->- the amount of advertising spending by these firms over the same period.

It is clear that financial indicators and advertising costs are compared and, according to the above scheme, they look at the contribution of advertising to the dynamics of turnover.

The information (communicative) effectiveness of advertising shows how effectively a particular advertising message conveys the necessary information to the target audience and (or) forms the desired point of view.

Evaluation of the communicative effect begins at the stage of advertising development. There are many methods for evaluating advertising before its large-scale implementation: these are associative tests, visualization tests, etc. Samos, the main thing is that advertising reaches and is deposited in the minds of the target consumer. There is a method for measuring the memorability of advertising (M. Pikuleva), which is based on three components: "spontaneous memory" advertising is remembered at the mention of the product category (for example, the category "washing powder", the product - "Tide"); "remembrance upon presentation of goods" - advertising is remembered after pronouncing the name of a particular product or its demonstration; "memories after the retelling of advertising." The sum of these three indicators is the share of the target audience that remembered the advertising message. And look at how the indicators correlate with each other.

Where hu,- the number of consumers who remembered advertising spontaneously, %; X -21 - the number of consumers who remembered advertising after presenting the advertised brand, %; X#- the number of consumers who remembered the advertisement after retelling its content,%; Kts, K .2b Ky - are used when a consumer names several competitive brands at the same time and it is necessary to determine their weight in terms of consumer preferences.

This coefficient allows you to quite accurately determine the effect of advertising campaigns and it can be used both to evaluate the advertising of your own company and to evaluate the advertising of competitors.

Also, the effectiveness of advertising is strongly influenced by the type of access channel to the target audience (television, radio, newspapers, etc.). For example, for consumer goods, it is advisable to use television advertising, and for promotion banking services It is best to post information in magazines. That's why right choice distribution channel is one of the stages in the development of an effective advertising campaign. Moreover, it is necessary to determine the source in which the advertisement will be directly placed (for example, the channel - television, the source - the ORT channel, the program - "In the world of animals").

Everything in business is quantifiable and measurable. We can accurately calculate the return on investment in contextual advertising, evaluate the effectiveness of the sales department. But in the field of PR, it is almost impossible to accurately determine the effect rendered, to reflect it in numbers (in USD) and graphs. However, methods do exist. Upon request, experts from the media research agency Ex Libris give a master class on how to conduct a PR analysis and evaluate the impact of a PR campaign on business results.

PR-analysis in money:Adoor-raisingValueEequivalent

Modern InstrumentsPR analysis

All considered indicators have disadvantages and limitations. However, there is a need to quantify the impact of PR campaigns and calculate ROI (return on investment).

The most rational and affordable solution to this problem today is to build correlation models, in which media-analytical indicators correlate with financial results.

One of the most successful and promising media analytic indicators is Perfection Rate(factor of approximation to the ideal), abbreviated as PRT. Its main advantage is that it adapts to the specifics of each specific case.

PRT takes into account indicators related to:

• with the source (type and influence of the media, target audience, etc.)
• material (genre, visibility of the material),
• the object of the study (density of brand mentions, tone, the presence of quotes from speakers).

Each of the indicators is assigned one or another coefficient of significance, which affects the values ​​of the final index. The PRT formula is adjusted not only by the number of qualitative parameters taken into account, but also by the way they are combined. Thus, one can not only choose which qualitative characteristics should be included in the calculation of the final index, but also choose which mathematical operations should be performed with the selected variables.

How it works: the case of the Coffee and the City coffee shop chain

In our case, the reference criteria are:

• Mass media with high penetration into the target audience,
• positive tone of the news;
• brand headline;
• the presence of a logo in the article;
• conveying a key message about the convenience of the “Coffee to go” format (“coffee to go”).

If a publication initiated by the PR department meets all of these characteristics, the PRT is equal to one.

Given that an ideal publication (“Top story”) is considered a publication with a PRT of 0.75, you can set KPI by the number of “Top stories” in the reporting period and / or KPI by the average PRT value for the period.

Linking PRT to business results: the Vimpelcom caseLtd

To track how media analysis data affects business results, let's take the case of one well-known international company VimpelCom Ltd. Let's compare the value of its shares on NASDAQ with the change in PRT and Media Presence over the course of six months in the leading and most influential international media.

Such a comparison is quite justified, since everyone knows the automatic algorithms that are quite widely used on financial exchanges and take into account the media field that has formed around the company. This helps traders to quickly make decisions about the value of assets. In this regard, we will take for analysis all references to Vimpelcom Ltd and its subsidiaries in the international and most influential national media, which have the greatest influence on the decision-making process to buy or sell shares.

Data-driven build a two-factor non-linear regression model and we get the correlation coefficient R = 0.9397. The model demonstrates a strong relationship between the growth of the company's shares and the average monthly indicators of PRT (M-PRT) and Media Presence.


Based on confidence intervals for 2H2014 data, a 1% increase in M-PRT sees a 3% increase in quotes, while a 1% increase in Media Presence strengthens Vimpelcom's asset value by an average of 1.4%. Meanwhile, for the purpose of additional verification of the model, the influence of general market factors was studied. The "dependence" of the Vimpelcom Ltd stock price on fluctuations in the NASDAQ index was calculated. This correlation turned out to be not only weak, but also negative (-68%), which may mean a complete absence of dependence and a strong influence of other causes and circumstances. However, at the same time, the actual value of the Fisher criterion turned out to be greater than its tabular value (11.33 versus 9.55), which indicates the adequacy and sufficient reliability of this model.

The question of evaluating the effectiveness arises if the funds invested in PR seem disproportionately high compared to the results of the PR events carried out. Evaluation of effectiveness is also necessary to confirm the choice of certain tools for the implementation of one's own communication program.

Formulation of the problem

Often the evaluation of the effectiveness of PR activities becomes a stumbling block in the client work of a public relations manager, when PR activities are compared with advertising, the result of which can be measured, for example, through financial indicators activities, as well as special statistical procedures.

Regardless of the specific practical context, the topic of the effectiveness of PR events naturally raises the question of the criteria for its measurement.

Key principles

Before proceeding to the description of the assessment tools used in practice, I would like to outline the basic principles, deviation from which, as the experience of implementing a number of projects has shown, can significantly complicate the process of assessing effectiveness:

• The goals of PR activity should be consistent with the business goals of the company. The goals of any PR event should at least not contradict common goals organizations at this stage of development. In general, it is necessary that PR-activity correspond to the strategic priorities of the company in the field of relations with target groups and the public in the broadest sense.
• PR activity should be evaluated in PR terms. Quite often, representatives of the business community try to present business criteria to public relations and evaluate the results of PR activities as a percentage of turnover, profit, or growth in the number of customer requests. Unfortunately, real processes do not allow a pure experiment: it is hardly possible to separate the results of using PR from the factors of changing external conditions, for example, legislation, or internal ones - an incorrectly chosen business strategy of the company.
• Methods for evaluating effectiveness are varied. There is no one reliable and unambiguously correct tool for evaluating the effectiveness of an organization's PR activities. The assessment tools are directly related to the criteria that we consider as a priority for this project. There are quite a few tools for evaluating the effectiveness of PR activities, both qualitative (content analysis, expert surveys, focus groups, etc.) and quantitative (telephone/on-line surveys, mass population surveys, etc.).
• Planning a PR event makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness. Performance evaluation is always a comparison of the achieved results with the planned ones, therefore, first of all, it is necessary to determine strategic goal and tactical tasks of the ongoing PR activities. At the same time, it is desirable to define the goal in terms and concepts that can be further used as criteria for evaluating effectiveness.
  For example, you can set a goal to include bank experts among the most relevant commentators on financial news for the media. In this case, the criteria will be an increase in the number of cited statements by bank experts, an increase in the number of calls to the press service, etc. Such indicators can be clearly measured. Evaluation of the effectiveness of a PR campaign is always directly related to its planning, as this allows us to formulate the expected result already at the stage of preparing any PR activity. And conflicts related to misunderstanding and lack of transparency of the results achieved with the help of PR tools are the result of the lack of initially set goals and the ability to measure their own actions with any benchmarks. Practice shows that it is in the interests of a PR consultant not to hush up the situation, expecting that subjective satisfaction will be the basis of the client's assessment of the work, and at the very beginning of the project to discuss how the results of PR activities will be measured.
• Performance measurement is not performance evaluation. It is necessary to distinguish between these two concepts. Both are based on the presence of a workable PR strategy and the division of the results of PR activity into short-term and long-term ones. If we mean a single event, the purpose of which is local and not tied to the strategic communication priorities of the company, then we can quite successfully measure the effectiveness of our work. As a rule, this opportunity is provided immediately after the PR event.
  However, if we are talking about systematic work on the creation and management of reputation, we are likely to face the need for significant research on the evaluation of the effects achieved as a result of PR activities.
  Take, for example, an industry conference in which a company is attending. What can be a successful outcome in the short term? Successful presentation by a newsmaker, an increase in the number of contacts, an increase in the number of requests from journalists, the number of information and promotional materials distributed, etc. In the long term, we will try to determine, for example, how much participation in the conference affected the company's expert status, or evaluate the number of requests for additional information .
• Evaluation of effectiveness should not exceed the value of the PR campaign itself. This thesis is directly related to the timing of the implementation of the PR program: if we are aimed at long-term work on building an image and reputation, we should definitely collect empirical data periodically in order to check the correctness of the chosen direction and demonstrate the results. As a rule, in such campaigns, performance evaluation becomes a recurring project that requires no less resources than the current PR activity. For these reasons, the task of communication audit can be outsourced (writing custom programs for other companies).

Criteria for evaluating effectiveness

According to the classical theory of communication by G. Lasswell, the scheme of the act of communication is as follows: WHO - informs WHAT - through which CHANNEL - TO WHOM - with what EFFECT. For any structural component of communication, criteria can be developed by which the results of PR actions can be measured, but only the measurement of effects gives a complete real picture of the effectiveness of PR. Thus, the analysis of the totality of all elements of the act of communication allows for a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of PR.

Below are the criteria for each component of the communication structure: see table. 1.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but, as a rule, the positive dynamics of most of these parameters makes it possible to judge the high efficiency of the measures taken.

One of the most common criteria for the effectiveness of PR campaigns is the mention in the media. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that mentioning has both a quantitative and a qualitative dimension. In addition to increasing the number of references, the task of improving the quality of reference is always meant (transition from the regional to the central press, access to the pages of leading business publications).

Consider an example of an information campaign we conducted for a large energy company. Before the start of the information campaign, about 40 publications were published in the central press in 8 months, a significant part of the materials accounted for background references and specialized industry media. The attention of the leading business media was mainly related to the conflict situation around the subsidiary.

During the 4 months of the information campaign, communication channels have changed: 36 publications appeared in the leading high-rated central media and 5 television broadcasts (NTV, ORT). In the course of the campaign, the nature of the materials changed significantly: publications now represented a meaningful assessment of the client's activities, analytical articles, client interviews with expert assessments of processes in the fuel and energy complex.

Methods for evaluating effectiveness

Directly related to the criteria that we consider as a priority for this project.

In the practice of leading PR agencies, they are used as variations classical methods, and their own "proprietary" methods. So, you can demonstrate the economic efficiency of a PR campaign by calculating the advertising cost of publications that came out as a result of a PR event, for example, a press conference.

Despite the variety of existing methods, I would like to dwell in more detail on the interpretation of two classical approaches: content analysis and the expert survey method.

Content analysis

It is often used as the main tool for evaluating the effectiveness of a company's PR activity.

Content analysis can be a complex multi-level tool for assessing the effectiveness of PR activities. We can use its various possibilities to study both the short-term results and the long-term effects of our actions.

For example, the effectiveness of a press conference can be assessed by how many journalists were accredited to the event, representatives of which publications came, how many of them wrote materials and, finally, in which media materials the key messages that we laid down in the process were used. event preparation. You can use such criteria for studying the media space as the source of information (newspaper, magazine, federal / regional media, on-line publications), publication date, material genre (market review, editorial, interview, background publication, etc.), dynamics news stories, etc.

The most productive is the analysis of the information field in terms of informational occasions and key messages. To conduct such a study, it is better to involve a significant array (for six months or a year) of media materials using both the federal and regional press. An analysis of informational occasions gives us the opportunity to trace which events in the company's activities invariably arouse the interest of the media, and which ones go unnoticed. The study of the dynamics of the image includes, first of all, an analysis of the distribution of key messages - semantic attitudes that make up the main content of media messages.

As part of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the PR program big company On a federal scale, a content analysis of media reports was carried out, which was a study of the information activity of the company for six months. The results of the analysis showed that the image of the company is greatly influenced by the image of its shareholders. At the same time, more than 40% of all negative references to the company were related to one of the shareholders.

A significant proportion of negative messages is occupied by the topic of social risks (16%) and the risk of rising prices for the company's services (19%), which is primarily due to the social sensitivity of the industry in which the company operates.

The analysis of positive messages also showed a number of patterns. In most positive publications, the company was associated primarily with improving the quality of services throughout the industry (47%) and quite often (about 14% of all positive mentions) was considered as a pioneer in reforming the industry, which made it possible to use rhetoric reflecting strategic development priorities in a further information campaign industries.

Perhaps the most interesting in terms of results (although the most difficult to implement) is the analysis of the information field in relation to the presented images, metaphors and causal relationships. The results of this kind of research can be presented both in the traditional way and in the form of cognitive maps that graphically show a consistent representation of the relationships between concepts. For example, when analyzing the topic “banking crisis”, we can obtain results according to which the most common logical link in publications is “the appearance of “black” lists of banks - the growth of the banking crisis”, and the least common link is “the appearance of black lists - an increase in the number of depositors” .

Expert survey

This is a rather expensive and time-consuming tool, so it should not be used only to measure the effectiveness of an ongoing PR campaign. At the same time, an expert survey is an excellent way to measure attitudes towards the subject of PR activities among elite groups. Very often, it is the expert community that is one of the most important target groups of PR activities; the vector of PR activity is aimed at changing the opinion of the community. Regular expert surveys make it possible to reveal the dynamics of the attitude of experts to the subject of research, to determine both polar opinions and some general vector of sentiments within a given group of professionals.

The theory says that the best constructed survey should be carried out within the framework of the initially formed expert panel, however, practice shows that approximately the 10th, maximum 15th expert interview leads us to a state of theoretical saturation, when we stop receiving new knowledge. Therefore, it is still important to expand the panel of experts and strive to include groups of experts representing different points of view in the survey.

As part of the evaluation of the communication program of a large company, we conducted 2 expert surveys with a difference of six months. The results of the first survey recorded the cautious attitude of the expert community towards the creation of a company, the presence of stable negative associations with the industry, low awareness of the company's plans and business strategy, and lack of knowledge about the company's leaders. The second survey showed that the vast majority of experts demonstrated an understanding of the company's main priorities, and began to evaluate its initiatives and activities of managers much more loyally. The company consolidated the image of the initiator of improvement in the expert community legislative framework and new technological approaches, has increased the attractiveness of the entire industry. Thus, the expert survey made it possible to fix the dynamics of the company's image, the growth of loyalty of the target audience, the development of public images of the company's key newsmakers.

The practice of expert surveys shows that it takes from 6 to 9 months of systematic PR work to significantly master the expert space, increase the loyalty of experts and the emergence of experts who adhere to a point of view similar to ours.

Practical Conclusions

Thus, at present, in the activities of not only large, but also medium-sized companies, there is a tendency to form strategic communications that involve planning PR activities and the possibility of evaluating its effectiveness.

At the planning stage of PR activities, a number of questions should be answered (these answers will subsequently set the criteria for evaluating effectiveness):

• What are the goals of a PR activity or communication program? Can they be expressed in such a way that they can be measured?
• Which of the managers and employees of the company can be its public representative?
• What are the main themes and key messages that we are interested in spreading?
• What are our target audiences?
• What communication channels have been used and are planned to be used in the future?
• What is the strategy and tactics for the implementation of PR-activity? What tools are we planning to use?
• What are the planning horizons for a PR program or campaign?
• What specific results are our PR activities aimed at, what is the scale of their priority?
• How well do our PR plans fit in with the company's planned advertising, marketing, and internal communications efforts?
• To what extent do the plans for PR activities correspond to the organizational and financial resources allocated for them?
• What external factors and how can affect the implementation of our PR program?
  Today, in the market of professional PR services, proposals are being formed to evaluate the effectiveness of communication programs and strategies, both at the planning stage and at the stage of implementation and summing up. In fact, there is a new line of activity related to the implementation of a communication audit. We hope that the approaches proposed in this article will be useful to the subjects of PR activity and will help to increase the efficiency of PR activities of companies and the prosperity of their business.

Ekaterina Stenyakina

In essence, the evaluation of PR activities can be defined as research work, the purpose of which is to determine the relative effectiveness of PR programs, PR strategies, PR campaigns, PR actions by measuring and correlating the intermediate results, consequences and main results of these PR programs, actions, campaigns, strategies with a predetermined set of goals and objectives .

However, there is no concept of "efficiency in general" in PR. Efficiency is always specific. Efficiency can be considered both as a "success indicator", and as a "relative efficiency", and as a "productivity of the process".

In PR management, as in general management, there are four main functions: planning, organization, motivation and control. For graduation purposes qualifying work we are interested in the last, fourth function. Control - these are activities that include the measurement, testing, verification of one or more characteristics of a product, service or process and their comparison with established requirements, goals, objectives in order to determine compliance. But control is a more capacious definition than performance evaluation (for example, you can control the implementation of the plan by the PR department, simply fixing whether a particular task has been completed). Evaluation of the effectiveness is designed to establish and further constantly optimize the feedback between the goals set and the results obtained.

It is impossible to approach the assessment of the effectiveness of the activities of various organizations with a single measure. We can only talk about the principles of performance evaluation. The main principles for evaluating the effectiveness of activities in the field of PR are distinguished in their article by a group of American authors (Lindenman K., Payne K., Anderson F. and others):

1) in order to prepare the basis for evaluating the results of PR campaigns, it is necessary to establish clear program goals and the desired result before starting vigorous activity. At the same time, PR tasks should be directly related to all the goals of the organization's business program;

2) it is necessary to make a clear distinction between measurable intermediate PR outcomes, which are usually short-term and superficial (for example, the amount of media used or the effectiveness of disseminating a particular message in society) and PR consequences, which usually have a strong impact and far-reaching consequences (for example, determining how much the program has changed the level of attitude, understanding, consciousness and possible behavior);

3) despite the particular importance of the stage of assessing the content of messages in the media, their frequency, coverage, etc. (i.e. media content) should still be considered only as the first step in the process of evaluating the entire PR process. This step involves measuring and evaluating the possible impact of PR messages on the audience. But be that as it may, this step alone cannot reliably show, for example, whether the target audience saw the messages intended for them and reacted to them in any way;

4) there is no single, unique tool or technology that could be fully relied upon when evaluating the effectiveness of PR, it is usually necessary to combine various evaluation technologies;

5) one must be careful when trying to accurately compare PR performance with the effectiveness of promotions, because These two communication forms are quite different from each other.

It is necessary to take into account the fact that the process of placing advertising messages, in contrast to the placement of PR messages, is more controllable;

6) PR effectiveness can be better assessed if the range of basic organizational messages that the organization wants to convey to the target audience, the target audience itself, its characteristics, has already been identified and accepted in advance, distinctive features and direct communication channels in the dissemination of messages;

7) the PR evaluation process should never be isolated and reduced only directly to PR components, it is necessary to try, in all possible circumstances, to combine PR plans and actions with all the main business goals, objectives, strategies, tactics and policies of the organization as a whole.

In order for the results of the evaluation of PR companies to reflect reality, the true state of affairs, it is necessary to take into account 4 main elements of the PR evaluation process:

setting specific and measurable PR goals and objectives.

This element must come first because no one can evaluate the effectiveness of anything without a clear definition of what is being evaluated and in relation to what. In practice, this is not easy to implement, because. it is always very difficult to draw a line between direct PR activities and PR programs from marketing communications and promotions. When defining PR goals and objectives, it is also important to realize that the evaluation of PR effectiveness (i.e. the evaluation of the entire communication activity of the organization in relation to the target audience) is in itself a difficult task until all elements and constituent components of the PR program.

Instead of trying to measure and evaluate the entire set of PR actions at once as a whole, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of individual steps, i.e. specific PR actions, for example, measuring the effectiveness of individual publicity events; or a specific communication program aimed at the target audience; or activities to organize a particular event, etc.;

2) evaluation of intermediate PR results. Intermediate PR results can be defined as the short-term, ongoing results of specific PR programs or promotions that are usually visible to the public. PR results show how effective an organization is at presenting itself to the public and quantify the total attention the organization receives.

In the field of media, an example of intermediate PR results can be indicators such as the total number of stories, articles and other mentions of the organization that create a general impression; the number of those who were exposed to the targeted stories and articles, and the overall assessment of the entire content of the information about the organization that appeared in the media. Media content analysis is one of the main methods used in evaluating PR results in the media.

Another side of the evaluation process of intermediate PR results is manifested in the number and quality of reports made, negotiations held, special messages for the target audience, the number of times when the words of the organization's representatives were quoted; positioning of important messages and focusing the attention of the target audience on especially important messages, as well as the number of other measurable indicators that appeared as a result of PR campaigns.

Intermediate results of PR activities can also be considered an assessment of specially prepared and organized events, the results of a campaign through direct correspondence, the number of people who took part in this activity; also an assessment of how the leader behaves at press conferences, and the appearance of books and brochures about this and their content;

3) evaluation of PR-consequences (main results). In this case, it is assessed whether the target audience received the messages sent to it, whether they paid due attention to them, whether they understood the meaning of the messages, whether necessary information in any form in the mind. Also, PR-consequences show whether or not the deliberately disseminated information was able to influence and change the opinions, attitudes and behavior of that part of the audience for whom the disseminated messages were intended.

Assessing PR impacts is a more complex and expensive process than assessing outputs, as when measuring PR effects, it is necessary to use more sophisticated tools and technologies for collecting information.

Research technologies used in evaluating PR effects include quantitative research (surveys), focus groups, a qualitative approach to elite audiences, research methods before and after trials, multivariate research methods based on previously developed statistical methods. (correlation and regression analysis, modular models, factor and cluster analysis) and others;

4) assessment of business and/or organizational consequences (outcomes). Whatever measures PR practitioners take to evaluate the effectiveness of what they do in public relations, they must necessarily try to link achievements in the field of PR with the primary goals, objectives, successes and achievements of the organization as a whole. In other words, it is necessary to correlate the PR effects with the desired business outcomes (expansion of the sector, market penetration, increase in market share and sales, and, ultimately, increase in the profit of the organization).

The use of PR technologies in relation to such a subject as sales is often discussed. Some trade publications offer feedback in the form of survey cards and questionnaires after certain articles go to press. As practice shows, this is enough effective tool, which allows you to identify the main preferences of people. With the help of this system, preferences are revealed, which can be traced by the results of sales. However, it must be remembered that while people's leading preferences are formed with the help of PR technologies, the opposite, negative effect may appear, and PR actions will be at least ineffective, because. the influence of such factors as individual preferences, interests and needs for a particular product in the first place, the quality of the goods and services offered, distribution channels, availability, suitability and usefulness of these goods and services, price, etc. will affect. All these factors should be taken into account when evaluating the effectiveness of the actions taken.

Thus, the majority modern organizations and also many non-profit groups and associations have come to the conclusion that PR objectives have no value as long as they lie outside the overall goals of the entire organization, so it is very important to integrate PR programs and goals with the overall business plan and marketing strategy organizations.

Criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of PR activities

The problem of analyzing the effectiveness of PR activities is relevant today. It is related to the fact that the assessment methodology is based on international practices and the issue of adapting it to Russian business is still worth it. It is quite difficult for companies to assess the impact of PR activities on performance, unlike advertising.

The need to measure the effectiveness of PR arises already in most Russian enterprises. Services for the development and implementation of public relations activities are now in great demand, despite the high cost. Accordingly, the increase in the cost of PR activities leads to the fact that business representatives are forced to evaluate the effectiveness.

There are a lot of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of PR events, but this list allows you to measure the effectiveness of public relations.

There are quantitative and qualitative indicators of the effectiveness of public relations.

Analysis of the effectiveness of PR programs is carried out in three stages:

1. Preparation of evaluation criteria
2. Analysis of the program implementation process
3. Evaluation of the results of the implementation of program activities

It is necessary to evaluate the results of PR activities at each of the above stages in order to get a complete picture of the effectiveness analysis in the aggregate.

Compared with Russian companies The PR effectiveness evaluation system has received its sufficient development at the enterprises of foreign countries. In particular, German experts consider three concepts in the framework of evaluating the effectiveness of PR events:

• impact is a change in emotional-behavioral and cognitive orientations and directions after PR actions;
• effect is the ratio of goals and results;
• efficiency - the ratio of the effect to the cost of a PR campaign

It is known that public relations activities are aimed at harmonizing relations between the company and the public. Therefore, the evaluation of effectiveness should be comprehensive and consist not only in the analysis of the ratio of profits and costs, but also in the assessment of the impact of PR activities on the consciousness of the target audience.

Remark 1

A well-conducted assessment of a PR campaign contributes to the formation of a positive image of the enterprise in the market.

Methods for analyzing PR activities

There are the following methods for analyzing the effectiveness of public relations activities:

• Assessment method based on the goals and objectives set (carried out at the planning stage, the goals of both the head and employees of the company and customers are taken into account).
• Calculation of quantitative indicators of PR activities (accounting for the number of information materials, the number of calls made, in which and how many means mass media material has been posted).
• Evaluation of feedback (determining the degree of awareness of the target audience about the conducted PR events, changes in public opinion, the number of responses, etc.).
• Measurement of quantitative indicators of the enterprise's activity (change in the level of profit after a PR campaign, the emergence of new target audiences, etc.).

Some public relations experts recommend evaluating individual public relations tools:

1. Press releases
2. Press conferences
3. Corporate and special events
4. Media use

Each PR activity tool is evaluated using quantitative indicators:

• Number of prepared press releases and number of published in the media
• The number of accredited media and those who simply came to the event
• Counting and analysis of the number of publications after PR events, etc.

Remark 2

The qualitative component is the most significant, as it allows you to evaluate the opinions of the target audience through feedback and use them to improve your activities.