Creating or managing a business can be great and offers a wonderful sense of ownership and pride. Regardless of the size of the entity, the product or service your company is involved with, communicating is a key component in its direction. Developing a brand does take time but no CEO or manager can afford to wait blindly as time progresses. It is important to measure performance so that informed predictions and projections can be produced and strategic decisions can be made to secure success. But how do you measure PR success? The answer is metrics.  Below we’ll explore five key PR success metrics that are important to keep track of in order to listen to the crowd and give them what they ask for.

Returning Visitors
Every store (digital or physical) loves a returning customer and good PR can allow for that to happen naturally. It also says a lot about the product you’re delivering and helps with free marketing. For businesses, return visits are key indicators especially if the old customers have a high return rate. If the return rate is low then you may consider changing a few things in relation to the product or concept around it. If the business is virtual rather that “brick and mortar”, deliberately assessing the online returnees traffic through algorithms could give a clear overview with time specific periods as to the possible highs or lows of the business. 
  
Engagement
Pay attention to engagements as these are all potential clients. These are persons and possible clients who for some reason or the other visit your business regardless of what the motivation is. Once you’ve managed to spark the interest of the potential client, then comes a reason for them to be interacting with the product.  Data on social media engagements is also valuable as a vast majority of the target markets today are online.  Digital data extraction can show you how many people interact with the content you post on a daily basis.

New Unique Visitors
The effectiveness of your PR team will show if there is an uptick or reduction in your new customer base, depending on the type or strategy they use to present the business or its product to the general public. It is good to have a constant flow of committed regular customers but a deliberate effort should be made to increase that baseline of clients to show real growth in the business.

Referrals
A Referral is essentially a means of routing potential clients to products and services. Referrals don’t have to be done from person to person but also through online platforms. A click on a YouTube video may come with a “pop-up” of your product and a steer in that direction. This stimulates the interest of the potential customer who would normally not have an initial curiosity in the item for consumption. A person sharing the advertisement is also good as a means of referral for business as it widens the net for a larger group of possible client.

Mentions
It is important for PR teams to keep constant tabs on mentions. What is being spoken about by the general population who are the receivers of the product can either make or break a business. The product that is being highlighted can be identified easier and make the company more product strategic which will determine pace and priority.  Mentions that highlight product limitations are also important as this will also assist in the company’s direction with a particular item.   
Once you have collected the data on these PR metrics it is time for strategic analysis. Look for patterns that indicate progress or the opposite and use the data to help you decide whether to keep your current PR campaign as is or make adjustments.