Strategic campaign prediction

Marketing executives expect PR to deliver tangible outcomes. A well-executed campaign feeds top-of-funnel outcomes by driving organic traffic, defines differentiation to persona audiences, and positions higher valuations through category ownership. Yet, many marketers have had mixed results, with little clarity on when or how outcomes will take shape.

PR has always been mysterious in its results. Unlike advertising, editorial coverage cannot be bought from reputable media outlets. The decision to include or feature a company in a media story ultimately lies with the editors and reporters, making results difficult to anticipate and predict. Yet, anthonyBarnum has done so for years.

One of the ways anthonyBarnum has built a set of anticipated outcomes is through experience. Our core focus is on B2B and transformative technologies. Most of our clients are venture- or private-equity technology companies. As a result, we are often the first firm to initiate a full-scale, systematic PR campaign. Our team is standing up campaigns from no prior PR infrastructure.

How Metrics are Created

With a client base that shares many factors—time in the market, lack of initial systematic PR, and complex but differentiated capabilities—we have developed a large set of real-world case studies.

The firm’s leaders have evaluated the factors that generate the most coverage and the difference between high-performing campaigns and slower-moving initiatives.

Over the course of a decade, we’ve accumulated hundreds of case studies, cultivating a culture of inquiry—constantly asking why and how one campaign succeeded over another. Internally, our team has long focused on identifying levers and scenarios that produced results.

Yes, Time is Money

PR firms operate similarly to other types of consulting firms – retained time. Time is allocated toward executing initiatives but not necessarily tied to results. Because no tech marketer has an unlimited budget, understanding metrics and outcomes in the context of time is critical.

anthonyBarnum not only tracks results but also meticulously monitors the time spent on all core PR activities that drive results. We’ve developed a comprehensive time-tracking system, evaluating how time is utilized across activities and pairing it with campaign outcomes to determine what activities produced the most efficient results.

Over time, this enabled anthonyBarnum to build out specific sets of activities that produced the most media placements in the least amount of time. Then, we continued to take averages and measure the productivity of the campaigns. Today, the vast majority of our campaigns follow a week-by-week methodology. From our initial kick-off meeting to the first moment we reach out to the media, we use a specific playbook designed to stand up B2B technology companies as quickly as possible to achieve results.

A Productized Services Framework + Methodology

The result of pairing outcomes with time has enabled us to define average monthly placement cadences. We define the overall range as 3 to 7 earned media placements per month on average, based on time-to-budget thresholds.

Beyond measuring averages, we also have leveraged our methodology-driven case studies to determine optimal sequences of PR activities to drive outcomes as quickly as possible.

Examples include:

  • Rapidly standing up initial Thought Leadership Platforms to the media upon retainment. Because media outreach is iterative, getting in front of targeted media as soon as possible is key to securing results in the first month of representation. In other words, to get to five to six placements by the end of three months, we know that outreach has to start by the third week of representation.
  • Conducting thought leadership outreach in advance of a product press release is essential. Media are far less likely to cover a product innovation and substantive press release without establishing an initial understanding of the company’s benefits to its market. At the initiation of a campaign, all hands on the media outreach team have to be on deck to familiarize targeted media with the company as quickly as possible. If executed thoroughly enough, product coverage will be ample.
  • Consistency increases the ROI of PR campaigns. Nothing is more efficient than consistent outreach and execution over time. Reiteration and ongoing connection to targeted media are key to securing steady results. In other words, there is a higher ROI in a consistent six-month campaign than spending the same amount in three months.

Outcomes in PR campaigns can be defined and anticipated – not because the editorial environment is fully conquerable, but because best practices can be replicated. However, core to being able to predict is using research to position the most compelling Thought Leadership Platforms and incorporating priorities, pain points, and trends into the concepts themselves.

When this is brought together with a method-driven approach, anthonyBarnum is able to cast a set of metrics and outcomes within a range that – ultimately – enables marketing executives to have confidence in their investment.