Learn How to Measure Press Release Success in 11 Simple Ways

Do you know how to measure press release success? Don’t worry. A lot of people are not aware but it can be measured in simple ways with a good knowledge of analytics.

Press release distribution is perhaps the most important aspect of marketing and promotional strategies nowadays that is widely used in various industries. While most people are aware of PR writing distribution, many are still unaware of how to determine whether the PR is going to be successful or not. Without knowing that, you would be only making distributions with no changes to your campaign along with average results.

If you want to know how to measure press release success effectively, here are 11 simple ways that determine the impact and success of PR distribution. Let’s begin!

1. Pickups by Media

A good start would be measuring the number, spread, quality, and reach of the media pickups. Whenever a new media outlet publishes something about your press release, it is considered a picked-up story. You can track both online and offline print pickups as well as indexed pickups. This way can understand which media finds your story most interesting. Create a list of the top 10 high-tier publications where you want to get featured and keep improving until it happens so.

2. Sentiments and Social Mentions

One of the key aspects of measuring effectiveness would be the social media platforms that are heavily used by global online users. If your PR has a trending topic in it; it is more likely to create a huge social buzz. You can also check if any user shared it or expressed something that shows the sentimental value of the topic.

Check the tone and writing style of the PR that creates the most buzz and follow that style in the next PRs. This way, you will know writing from which angle can help create maximum buzz for every purpose of PR distribution.

3. Follow-up Stories

Usually, you will be contacted by the Journalists or the Reporters whom you have pitched for distribution. But, you know that they are very busy and it is quite common if the journalist skips your PR content even without reading it. Therefore, you should be prepared with follow-up strategies to make sure they pick it up or at least offer read to the content. Chances are high to be featured when you follow up with a letter to them.

4. E-newsletter Mentions Media

Digital newsletters and other media outlets produce digital newsletters that offer a great viewing experience. E-newsletter is a crucial part of modern survival and most online users like to read it online only. Check the e-newsletters that can successfully spread your story in the market.

5. Link Clicks

You might already know the fact that press releases consist of links in it everyone utilizes these links to redirect the readers to the main website or some other webpage. So, if you add links; measure the link clicks which refers to the number of clicks received by the particular link. This way you will know whether readers are actually interested in the news.

6. Visits to the Site

Keeping an eye on the website statistics is much crucial as it offers critical insights into web traffic and online engagement. The amount of traffic and engagement can help you understand the areas where you can find more target audiences. Figure out what kinds of new elements draw the most attention and traffic to your business website.

7. News Aggregator Inclusions

Modern-day news is not only limited to newspapers and radio but it has spread over social media platforms and many other mediums. As a result, there are a variety of digital aggregators and search engines. You need to count how many times your story is featured on the world’s top news aggregators, such as Google News, Bing News, Apple News, Yahoo News, etc that sheds more light on the area and industry of your expertise.

8. Backlinks

Backlinks are related to referral traffic that takes people back to your website. The number of backlinks can help to determine the success of the press release. These links have high value in search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and so, they can greatly improve the presence of the PR as well as the website on the niche market.

9. Referral Traffic

Site referrals are actually a subset of overall web traffic. It is mainly addressed to online users who come directly to the website from other sites or platforms without using an intermediary like Google. Tracking this metric can help you figure out where your brand is getting more attention from the specific outside site or some other platform based on the topic of the PR. This way you will know which sites have actually featured your news and offered more exposure.

10. Social Followers

An increasing number of social media followers is what everybody seeks, whether an organization or an individual. Therefore, many people as well as companies post press releases on social media to gain more attention. The increasing number of social followers is considered to be an important metric that determines the amount of social buzz that PR is able to create. Tracking social followers is also important as you get to know which kind of people finds your PR more interesting, regardless of whether they belong to the niche or not.

11. Email Subscribers

You might consider Email is backdated, but guess what? 83% of global consumers have agreed that email is their preferred method of contact with the brand and companies and so, you should take complete advantage of it. Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to keep users engaged and so does newsletters. So, make sure to check the email open rate metric to have a better understanding of the target audiences.

Bottom Line
Checking out all the aforementioned metrics will offer you key insights into your Press release campaign while determining its success. So, do not get upset if there are no successful results yet. Use these metrics to improve your press release campaign and witness greater results next time!