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For all that PR is seen as a ‘dark art’ with hard-to-measure outcomes, assessing its value shouldn’t be any harder than anything else. Firstly, let your PR department do their own PR. Ask them what they’re bringing to the organisation. How do they define their objectives? How do these contribute to your organisation’s goals?

Second, what outcomes are you looking for? If you’re simply interested in PR leading to media coverage leading to attendances and sales, then you can evaluate cost against return as part of your marketing mix. If you’re also interested in things like profile and reputation, the less tangible benefits of PR (and why wouldn’t you be?), define what success would look like. Is coverage positive? Are your key messages reflected in customer feedback? Can you see progress over time?

Think about how you are utilising your PR resource. Does the team help to shape messages about the organisation that flow through all your communications? Is there a role for them in managing other stakeholder relationships, as well as the media? Is their work integrated with your social media activity?

Be conscious of the opportunity cost of cutting PR. The department will have skills and contacts that may not be replicated elsewhere on your staff. Buying-in freelance PR can be expensive and without a legacy of benefit to your organisation. Metrics may be helpful, but there is no single measurement that will reveal the value of your PR work – certainly not advertising value equivalents (AVEs), which are a flawed way of assessing the monetary value of media coverage. The ‘Barcelona Principles’, agreed at an international PR conference last year, established a first set of global industry standards for PR measurement, specifically rejecting AVEs as a concept to evaluate public relations.