Purpose Worldwide: Proving PR’s Impact in the Boardroom

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Lana McGilvray, co-founder and CEO of Purpose Worldwide, a marketing strategy and public relations firm with deep adtech expertise, covers how to set up PR programs that have a big business impact and how to clarify objectives and results so that everyone from comms tacticians to board advisors understands that impact. In short:

1. PR programs need to start with an understanding of two things. First, how do PR and content ladder up to revenue? Second, how do the various stakeholders involved understand marketing? By asking, “What would success look like?” the PR team, internal or external, and executives can align on objectives.

2. PR can contribute to short-term sales goals, not just long-term awareness. One way to do this is to talk directly to sales and find out which accounts they’re going after. The content and comms team can then directly target those prospects and show engagement with them. Most leaders track “touches to sale,” and it allows marketing and PR to contribute to the funnel.

3. Meltwater is a decent baseline for PR measurement. B2B marketing teams will often need to supplement it with custom reporting (such as engagement with target accounts) while avoiding doing so much measurement that measurement detracts from execution.

Here’s a condensed version of our conversation:

JZ: Clients come to me very often and say, “We want content.” And I say, okay, what are we going to do with the content? I find that the relationships that have failed, usually the culprit is some version of ‘just doing’ PR or content without a broader understanding of what we are trying to accomplish. What are your thoughts on that?

LM: Even if somebody comes to us for content or PR versus our full breadth of strategic services, those are always initiatives underneath a strategy that is intended to drive awareness and growth. We know that we will be at high risk and won’t deliver 100% for the client if what we're doing doesn't answer the question, “How does this PR initiative contribute to awareness and growth?”

So, at the beginning of every relationship, we go through discovery. And the very first questions we ask are why does the company exist? What's the purpose? How do you drive growth? What are the business KPIs? We always ask, what is this communication initiative or tactic going to do generally — for the business as well as for the marketing plan and communications plan? If we don't have a good answer to that, and it's not an answer that ladders up to revenue or business-level goals, then it is often a waste of time. And then the client can feel that we're decorating and not solving the problem. Professionally, the motto I live by and stole from my husband DJ, who’s been a 20+-year partner at Pentagram Design.r, is, “Solve the problem. Don't decorate.”

I think it's very important, at least quarterly, to have members of the leadership team on calls. That's where the best ideas in the room arise, not just from them but across the team. Having all hands in once per quarter is golden.

JZ: A lot of PR and content people don't talk in terms of revenue and growth. We don't know how to tell that story. In that case, you're expendable.

LM: It's absolutely true. I had this conversation with several CMOs recently. In response to a question about their biggest challenges, I kept hearing, “Showcasing how marketing is contributing to the bottom line.” I learned great strategies and tactics during that conversation. When I began my career in leadership, I was chief marketing and sales officer. Since then, I still imagine I'm co-reporting into or am partnering with the CRO.

One of the most fun things that's happened this quarter is clients have said, “What are the low-hanging fruit type things we can do to show contribution to the pipe?” When that question is posed, we often use it to bring sales to the table with marketing and comms. During those sessions, we hear that the quarterly focus is around doubling sales within a specific client segment or getting in front of specific prospects they’ve never met for the first time. The information is priceless in helping us adjust marcom strategies to deliver results.

So, I've been talking a lot with clients about how our earned and owned content performs when we put it in an environment where we can invite our followers, prospects, and customers to engage with it. Let's go see who's engaging, and let's see how the sales team feels when we're showing them who is interacting with the client versus how much traffic is driven. “Oh, remember that prospect that's brand new? Did you see they interacted three times with your content here? When we started, you had a baseline of zero. There were no important journalists or influencers. None of your prospects were ‘with you online.’ And part of the reason was you were not feeding them content and inviting them to follow you. Now they're hearing about you all the time, they are seeing third parties cite you as experts which is increasing your credibility, and they're also engaged with you directly in a way you would never be able to see on a third-party site.” LinkedIn can be helpful here, too. But that’s one way to help sales see the impact marketing is having on their conversations.

JZ: When I try to explain PR and content measurement to people, people always say, so what are the metrics? And I say, well, the only thing the CEO, CFO, and board care about is sales opportunities and revenue. So, you have to have an eye on that. However, that is a big number to which a lot of factors contribute. So, you can't only point to revenue. There are leading indicators that show content and comms are contributing to sales opportunities and revenue.

LM: However you translate this, it is something you translate. Meltwater to me is the bare minimum. So, for a client that likes more measurement, we've gone a couple of different ways. We'll spend time extrapolating off of Meltwater and then we have to do things to supplement. Onclusive is an example of a tool that is like the Rolls Royce of measurement. The B2C and global NGO case studies Onclusive showcases are amazing. I love them. But for most B2B's that we work with, especially in ad tech, you can’t always advocate for the cost of it because the scale of what they are going to get and what you are measuring just doesn’t make sense.

Regardless, you still have to have somebody on the client side who understands the content. There is not a simple payoff, right? If you get to The New York Times and you read this amazing story about this brand, you are impressed. But what is the payoff — to go visit their website? It makes the impression and increases your trust, but it doesn't drive traffic back to the website. Some clients will say, for example, that when they do SEO, they can measure all of it. Well, that's not the way that PR works. The truth is most clients recognize all the things we’ve shared above when you get in smart conversations together, and they teach us so much we don’t know about their businesses. That is the beauty of sustainable and growing partnerships.