Start and finish line — PR professionals should always begin their campaigns with the end in mind! *Photo courtesy of Pexels.*

By Brianne Miller, LCI

You’ve taken the plunge and designed a PR campaign that you hope will advance your goals. You’ve written plans, the team is in place and stakeholders are on board.

That’s a lot of work for…? That’s right. Begin with the end in mind!

Here are five outcomes you should expect from any well-designed and implemented PR campaign:

Hitting your metrics.

What, you say? You don’t have metrics? Oh, dear. You can have the most creative campaign in the history of PR, but unless you’re going to measure its effectiveness, why are you doing all this work in the first place? Line up your goals (brand awareness, lead generation, fundraising, etc.) and then measure before and after your campaign.
“Tough to measure” wins.

These can sometimes become the best outcome. Data is great, but that giant sale that came through because of the article in Trade Weekly? That’s a win. Make sure you create a reporting vehicle for gathering that information – it can be as simple as a customer service “how did you hear about us?” script.
Team goals.

If you want to know how well a team works, put a campaign together and then survey those involved afterward. Was the work inspiring? Insipid? Infuriating? Test and learn!
Actionable next steps.

You’ve launched your new service to the world, and those (measured) leads are coming in! Now what? Any good PR campaign will have tentacles that inspire your next big push.
Happy stakeholders.

What makes management happy? How did your campaign support a vital strategy? Illustrate how your campaign supported those efforts, and take a victory lap.