Six ways to use media analysis to plan your next campaign

Planning a PR campaign without data to back it up is a bit like sailing a ship without a map. You may have a general direction, but you’re likely to drift aimlessly and struggle to reach your desired destination. 

Reviewing relevant metrics before your next campaign will help you to make confident decisions on your campaign strategy and reach your KPIs in the most effective and efficient way. 

 Here are just a few to consider ahead of your next campaign: 

• Coverage over Time: Volume and reach of coverage is a helpful place to start. How has your organisation performed on the topic historically? What are the key stories over this time period and who were the key speakers?
  
  
• Share of Voice: You could also consider a  Share of Voice analysis on your chosen topic, benchmarked against competitors. If one of your KPIs is to lead the conversation on a topic in your sector, Share of Voice measures the percentage of the discussion led by your organisation vs. others.

• Sentiment: While quantity of coverage is important, it is essential to explore the quality of coverage alongside it. You may come second to another organisation in Share of Voice, but what if the leading organisation’s coverage includes passive mentions or mostly negative?
  
  
• Prominence: Similar to sentiment, prominence is a metric that can easily uncover secret wins that are hard to spot by solely focusing on volume and reach. Prominence is a way of measuring how significantly you have featured in the press on this topic in the past, i.e. headline, substantial or passive mentions.
  

Tip: To condense your findings even further, try creating multiple share of voice analyses based on specific qualitative goals (i.e. sentiment or prominence). For example, if your brand is striving for the most positive coverage on the topic, you could create a positive Share of Voice chart and a negative Share of Voice chart. 

• Proactive comms comparison: We’re all looking for the most efficient way to spread our best stories quick and fast, but what is the most effective method?
  By analysing the techniques used to land a specific story, i.e. press release, interview, product placement, etc., you can see who amongst yourself and competitors are proactive or reactive and what is working well for this topic.

• Media opportunities: Which publications are likely to cover your topic? By analysing where competitors have previously been featured on this topic, you can identify any missed opportunities and incorporate them into your media outreach where appropriate. 

Tip: In order to pick those that will support your reputation, be sure to measure the quality of the coverage within these publications.

With just a few of these metrics on hand, data-led decisions will help you to strive for S.M.A.R.T. KPIs that actually drive results. 

Maybe you’re trying to break into a new market, comment on a new topic or simply improve your reputation in a pre-existing area. Conducting a media analysis helps you to create a realistic and effective strategy, while identifying new journalists to target outside of the existing relationships. 

Don’t have the time or headspace? 

It’s one thing to understand the benefits, but it’s another to find the time and resources. The Vuelio Insights team does the work for you by creating expert-led, highly digestible media strategy reports just for you, so you can see exactly how you’re performing against competitors without the sense of analysis paralysis along the way. 

Want to know more about this data or how media insights can support your PR and communications? Get in touch.