Measure to prove your worth

By Tracy Jones

What's the difference between a PR practitioner and a PR professional? It's all in the numbers.

A practitioner delivers tactics and counts their success in terms of outputs. How many media releases did I issue? How many words did I write?

A professional delivers strategy and measures their success in terms of outcomes. What difference did this make? What behaviours have been changed?

Understanding our objectives and measuring our achievements is key to delivering value as PR professionals. So why do so many of us not do it?

Money, tools, time and desire are all cited as reasons. We can't afford it. We don't need to know. It's too late. We don't have the tools.

None of these excuses are valid. We do have the tools, they don't cost a fortune and you can start using them today.

Being a professional rather than just a practitioner should be the goal of all of us in public relations. So start measuring your performance and prove your worth.

As published in the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) National Newsletter September 2009.
Tracy is national president of the PRIA.