Content creation is now considered one of the most critical PR activities for communications professionals, though the majority are still struggling to measure the true impact of campaigns, according to a new study published by software enterprise Cision.
The 2017 Global Comms Report: Challenges and Trends canvassed the opinions of 425 communications and marketing professionals working for brands in major markets across the globe. The overriding sentiment among those surveyed was that analytics tech, metrics and measurement need improvement in order to correctly determine the effectiveness of comms activities.
Respondents indicated that content creation is now central to PR. 66% of them said it featured in their top three most important brand activities, while nine out of ten said “sustained, ongoing” campaigns were more capable of delivering the results they needed compared to sporadic programmes.
However, 58% of those surveyed wanted better tools to evaluate their endeavours and said that they are still unsure what actions consumers and clients take after they consume content. Furthermore, 72% said that they need to improve how they leverage tools to glean relevant information relating to demographic profiles of target audiences.
“To those that appreciate great storytelling, the value of comms is something they’re able to understand anecdotally,” Cision CMO, Chris Lynch said.
He added: “But that’s just the issue: Even to those that appreciate it, comms is not directly tied back to key business objectives like the rest of marketing. This survey clearly demonstrates that comms pros know they struggle to attribute value back to the business and that they need technology and measurement to help achieve that goal.”
