IS PR Worth Doing?

The only way we can answer this question is by actually showing that what we do is effective and has made a difference.  Has  the program or project that we embarked on yielded positive, or negative results, in terms of numbers that will show, for instance, changes in our targets' attitudes,  or perceptions and other forms of response? Or, as they say,  has the needle begun to move?

Measurement and evaluation, quite a growing concern in PR practice,  gains added importance these days. When the chips are down, as in when budgets are lower than they have ever been,  PR practitioners must even more clearly prove that their programs are garnering the  desired results. 

Dr. Walter K. Lindemann wrote and updated a few years ago a paper (published by the Institute of Public Relations) setting guidelines  for  measuring the  effectiveness of PR programs and activities. Dr. Lindenmann  promptly clears up what measurement and evaluation  aims at: "to improve and enhance the relationships that organizations maintain with key constituents."

It is a learned enlightening paper that I feel is even more relevant today. Dr. Lindenmann writes, for instance: "There is no one, simple, all-encompassing research tool,  technique or methodology that can be relied on to measure and evaluate PR effectiveness... Be wary of attempts to compare PR effectiveness to advertising effectiveness... The PR measurement and evaluation process should never be carried in isolation, by focusing only on the PR components. Wherever and whenever possible, it is always important to link what is planned, and what is accomplished through PR, to the overall goals, objectives, strategies and tactics of the organization as a whole."

Time was when we were able to keep Clients largely or solely on the strength of the media presence that we generated for them.  That time is past: now we are called upon to deliver a more rigorous discipline to the process of deciding on whether what we do in PR really makes sense and gets positive results. This is just fair.