Cision Webinar Recap: "Beyond Impressions: How ‘Pandemic PR' Drives Deeper Results"

In case you missed it, earlier this month Cision held its State of the Media Summit. In one session, Cision MultiVu's Melissa Elsner and agency insider Matt Batt sat down to discuss changes to the media landscape due to COVID-19 and moving away from impressions as the sole metric for success.

Both Elsner and Batt have extensive experience in PR, marketing and media and provided incredible insight into the current operations and future state of our industry.

The duo discussed creative solutions MultiVu has implemented for clients during the pandemic that PR pros could and should use going forward. Elsner and Batt see a real opportunity for comms professionals to get to know their real audience on a deeper level in the post-pandemic media landscape.

Moving Away from Impressions: What Else to Consider?

Comms professionals might have a lot of anxiety around the departure from impressions. Batt acknowledged that impressions still provide value for understanding the scope of potential engagement. Still, other KPIs can provide insight into the specifics of engagement: how long your audience stayed on your content's page, how many users clicked to view your multimedia content or how many shared your content/landing page.

They discussed how a holistic strategy could make a world of difference. Tactics in that strategy might include retargeting audiences that have viewed similar press release topics utilizing audience IDs from Cision Impact. Additionally comms professionals could spend less on events and carve out more budget to drive traffic to owned sites, purchases and downloads.

"Impressions oftentimes are hypothetical, which is why the pandemic highlighted how our industry has to improve to retarget and provide more specific analytics," Batt said.

You can home in and leverage all aspects of your campaign for maximum reach and potential benefits when you include other analytics.

"Yes, your audience may get smaller, but the quality will also increase. You can drill down into a specific niche, like travel, food and drink, automotive, etc.," added Elsner.

What Journalists Want: A Partnership

We were reminded from the State of the Media Report that it's also important to keep in mind what journalists expect and need. The more PR professionals partner with journalists and work collaboratively on customized and creative solutions, the better they can justify larger PR budgets and deliver stronger results – even in virtual capacities.

"PR is worth it, but it has to be integrated to fully maximize its potential. To get a seat at the table, it means working with marketing and leveraging the strengths of both," Elsner stated.

Batt discussed a recent virtual press exclusive in which a client, KOHLER, was able to host booth tours virtually for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This virtual press day option enabled them to host a virtual booth while providing journalists with produced, embargoed content two weeks prior to the event. In fact, this innovative strategy produced twice the results of the prior year's in-person CES event – and at a reduced cost!

"By going virtual, we were able to arm our ‘media friendlies' with content early on and uniquely position our clients for success," explained Batt.

As we look ahead, there is still some uncertainty in the industry. However, we can remain confident that analyzing and acting upon these detailed analytics, delivering virtual solutions and integrating PR into the bigger picture will remain valuable, impactful and part of the future.

To view the live tweets from #SOTMSummit, follow the hashtag or connect with us on Twitter at @MultiVu and @Cision.

All 2021 State of the Media Summit session recordings are available here on-demand.

ABOUT THE EXPERT: Charlee Rae Bender

Charlee Rae Bender is a Product Marketing Assistant for MultiVu. She is currently finishing her undergraduate degrees in Communications and Sports Management at Pepperdine University. Upon graduation, she plans to move to New York and pursue a degree in sports law.