ITL #611 Playing the long game: how PR outpaces short-term marketing metrics
2 weeks, 4 days ago
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PR isn’t marketing and its success can’t be measured with sales metrics. By Mary Poliakova.
As the global business landscape grows more competitive, clients increasingly demand tangible results from PR-related efforts. Many of them compare PR to marketing and sales, where metrics like conversion rates, lead generation, and ROI can be easily quantified.
But while it’s understandable why they would think in such terms, it severely misrepresents the role of PR in supporting a business. Public relations operates on a broader scale, and its successes manifest over a prolonged period of time, not immediately. Which is why attempting to measure PR with the same KPIs that are typically used for short-term marketing and sales efforts diminishes its value and creates unnecessary confusion.
Understanding the bigger picture
PR plays a central role in shaping your company’s reputation, helping you build trust with clients, stakeholders, and the wider public, and positioning you as a trustworthy market player. Where marketing and sales focus on promoting specific products and driving immediate results, PR is what you need to lay the groundwork for brand awareness and credibility that will, in turn, help your sales efforts find success. That’s why, when dealing with public relations, you need to shift your perspective and adopt a broader, strategic outlook on things.
To put it in shorter terms, the key difference between PR and marketing is that the latter is when you talk about your product yourself. The former is when your brand or product is being talked about by external parties. This sense of validation from the outside is the main distinction between the two.
Many businesses, however, don’t get that distinction. They treat PR as an extension of their marketing departments, demanding immediately measurable outputs like you would see in those fields. For example, our team often has new clients making requests to quantify our PR efforts in terms of direct sales or customer acquisition. This approach not only misjudges PR’s role and value but can also create needless friction between departments. Marketing and sales teams are often accustomed to seeing their efforts bear fruit quickly, so when they look at the work that goes into PR, they think of longer-term strategies as sluggish and not particularly impactful. This perception couldn’t possibly be more off-mark.
A well-executed PR campaign that you approach comprehensively and with consistent effort over time is what ensures that your brand builds up recognition and trust. This, in turn, drives loyalty and attracts new clients, partners, and investors, contributing to your sustainable growth. For example, prolonged media exposure with regular publication of thought leadership pieces will help position your brand as an authority in your chosen industry, paving the way for marketing and sales.
PR, marketing, and sales KPIs: what are the differences?
To properly appreciate PR’s unique value, it’s important that we clearly understand how its metrics differ from those of other promotional activities. Marketing KPIs often include website traffic, click-through rates, and conversions, while sales focus on revenue generation, lead-to-client conversion, and deal size.
PR, on the other hand, is evaluated differently, leveraging the following information:
- Media visibility: Coverage in relevant outlets, both in terms of volume and quality of materials
- Reputation management: The sentiment of mentions and the narrative surrounding your brand
- Stakeholder engagement: Building trust among clients, investors, and partners.
- Crisis mitigation: The effectiveness of communication strategies during crises.
These metrics help get a clearer idea of how your brand is perceived, helping you with figuring out long-term strategy and relationship building. Trying to measure PR efforts with marketing or sales KPIs distorts its purpose and risks undervaluing its contributions.
PR’s role in crisis management
PR isn’t just about promotion; it’s also about protection. When a crisis situation finds you, public relations takes the lead in managing communications to mitigate damage and preserve your company’s reputation. This is one more way in which PR contributes strategic value.
There is a well-known example in PR and crisis management that involves a major oil company and an oil spill incident. At the time, the company’s CEO made several statements in the media that caused public outcry due to the tragic circumstances surrounding the whole event. This case highlights the importance of professional PR when you need to handle a crisis in a thoughtful and measured manner.
Poorly chosen words can amplify public discontent and cause reputational damage, making recovery that much harder. A strong strategy prepared well in advance can help you manage the narrative and address public concerns more sensitively. Unfortunately, far too many companies start thinking about such things only when they are already neck-deep in trouble. And by then, it's already too late to do things effectively.
So, as I keep saying, unlike marketing or sales, which focus on more immediate goals, PR ensures the company’s long-term viability. And this case is a good representation of that point: a damaged reputation is difficult to repair, which makes proactive and strategic PR efforts that much more important.
Tips for advocating PR’s value to clients
When clients demand measurable outcomes, it falls to PR professionals to articulate the distinct value of their work and why it can’t all be evaluated the same way. Here are some tips to effectively approach this conversation, drawn from our team’s experience:
- Educate on the role of PR: Take the time to clearly explain why a business needs PR and how it builds trust and credibility, which are prerequisites for successful marketing and sales efforts
- Showcase qualitative outcomes: Highlight media placements and improvements in brand sentiment as indicators of where your value and successes lie
- Leverage data where possible: While PR is not solely metrics-driven, there is no shortage of tools out there for media monitoring and sentiment analysis; they can provide quantitative insights that your client may find convincing.
Emphasising synergy between PR, marketing, and sales
To unlock a brand’s full potential, PR, marketing, and sales must operate in harmony. Each discipline has a role to play, and all of them are valuable in their own right. By combining their efforts, you can create an even more powerful mechanism for brand success. Marketing and sales to drive immediate results, and PR to build the trust and recognition needed for those results to endure in the long run.
For example, a product launch might involve marketing campaigns to generate buzz, sales outreach to close deals, and PR efforts to secure media coverage and position the product against the broader industry background where more people can see it. This synergy ensures a cohesive and effective approach, where each department helps the others to drive better results.
But I should highlight that achieving this synergy requires clear communication and alignment of goals. PR teams should be involved early in planning processes to ensure that messaging can be consistent across all channels. Likewise, marketing and sales teams must understand PR’s long-term goals and respect what it contributes to the shared success.
Final thoughts
Ultimately, we should keep in mind that PR, marketing, and sales all share a common goal: to build a strong, successful brand and help it grow. However, what they do towards that goal differs significantly, and, as such, their results cannot be measured in the same way. Treating PR as a short-term, metrics-driven function will only hinder its effectiveness.
To measure PR accurately, businesses should focus on its core contributions: media visibility, reputation management, stakeholder trust, and crisis mitigation. By recognising these strengths and making proper use of them, companies can fully leverage PR’s ability to create a resilient, trustworthy image.
Remember: PR isn’t just another cog in the marketing machine. It’s an engine that drives your credibility and long-term success. Let’s measure it accordingly.

The Author
Mary Poliakova
Mary Poliakova is a PR consultant, Co-founder & COO of the global PR consulting agency Drofa Comms. She has more than 10 years’ experience executing successful PR campaigns for FinTech companies, and more than 15 years’ experience as a journalist.
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