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As a business owner myself, I fully understand that, when decisions on how best to allocate budgets are made, the preference is to base those decisions on the ability to easily, quantifiably measure the return on investment of the product or service. As a Public relations professional, I also fully understand that we, as a group, and our clients, have been thinking about and discussing effective ROI measurement in greater detail over the last few years because everyone (PR practitioners and clients alike) seems to be more accountable than ever before. If my clients had larger budgets to work with, I would welcome regular primary research to uncover perceptions and track awareness in their respective target markets. However, it is significantly more difficult (and expensive) to survey specific titles and departments within financial institutions, than to survey 18-22 year olds on their mobile phone preferences. Therefore, we have to look for ways to effectively measure business-to-b...

I have had many conversations over the years whereby people have considered the fate of a communications program based on its impact to sales. The thought being, “At least with another salesperson, I know there will be someone calling on prospects who can buy or customers whom should be using more of what we have to offer.” In a business-to-business environment, companies that sell a solution, professional service or information need people who can close deals. God knows we could all use a few more competent people like that. There is a link between public relations to sales, but it is more likely to be a part of the sales chain. We do hear about a door that opened, a spike to the company’s website or request for a demo because of a well-placed article or finely written press release. Capturing these stories is akin to our industry’s “Cobbler’s children having no shoes.” It is important, but we are all too busy to track them down. And if we do, there is usually someone else there t...