The problem with the indicators measuring efficiency in press advertising is that there are relatively small number of industries and advertising campaigns where only press is used as a means of advertising. That is why such indicators as cost to sales/inquiries ratio and similar to them should be used and analyzed with due care. The ideal situation is when loose inserts that may be counted are used or there are possibilities to find out where a customer/inquirer has obtained the information. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that in comparison with other advertising vehicles monitoring of press advertising and gathering of the data necessary for the calculation of the indicators are relatively simple. Besides, despite some drawbacks, the system of indicators reveals the company's performance from different angles and points to the organizational problems that are to be dealt with.
Read Why do business professionals choose ready-to-use KPIs? to find out the answers to these questions:
Ideally, you need to have a strategy (in a form of a strategy map) before you start thinking about the ways to measure its execution (KPIs). Don't have a strategy map yet? Use free Strategy Map Wizard to create a strategy map for your current business challenges. The wizard will:
The whole process takes on average 6 minutes. Give it a try right now - it's free.
bonus.
Press Advertising can be turned into an effective mode of reaching out to people. However, choosing the right option out of the available choices has to be a prudent decision in any case. Nevertheless, investments would go in vain for sure.
One of the ways to start with the task is getting to know about the 'readers you need' and 'readers you are likely to receive via a given publication'. Only when you spot the correct magazine or newspaper that has the 'required section of readers' that you can hope for a successful 'press advertising campaign' to shape up.
Another way is to enquire your existing customers regarding the publications they read. This will suggest a direction to head into and help in future decisions.
Thought the utility of this advertising media has been declining, it has managed to catch hold pretty well so far. Companies often use this 'press advertising mode' in combination with other options.
Coming to the subject of 'judging the effectiveness' of this strategy of 'advertising via press media', organizations use BSC (Balanced Scorecard) as the means to measure it usefulness. The actual process involves spotting meaningful metrics that are collected together and used for further 'corrections'.
This is the actual scorecard with Press Advertising Performance Indicators and performance indicators. The performance indicators include: cost per thousand, cost of advertising to sales volume ratio, cost of press advertising to number of sales ratio, cpt to growth in inquiries ratio, actual number of ads/ to number of ads planned, budget allocated for press advertising to budget actually spent, number of hours allocated spent on copywriting and design, percentage of mistakes in press ad placement not perceived by the customers, growth and development perspective, share of voice in press ad to competitors share of voice ratio, share of voice in press ad to share of market ratio, percentage of mistakes that may be perceived by customers as mistakes, reach (%) for press advertising, awareness growth following the press campaign, frequency to growth in number of inquiries ratio.
Download a trial version of Press Advertising Evaluation Balanced Scorecard or purchase a full version online.
How is this book different from 796 other book titles about KPIs on Amazon?
"Before writing a single line, I formulated some guiding principles, one of them was: "If our clients ask, "How can I find a good KPI for..." - I want this book to provide a perfect answer."
