Metrica’s first annual PR industry benchmarking report – Metrica Numbers 2007 – is now out. And as Brendan Cooper says: “it’s a serious piece of work.”
Like Brendan, I haven’t gone through the results with a fine tooth comb, but Metrica have helpfully provide a good precis on their blog.
Two things to highlight:
Haste and paste: High message delivery and spokespeople mentions suggest the emergence of a copy and paste publishing trend in online media. Online featured the strongest message delivery of any media type with half of coverage delivering key messages, and an average of three message deliveries per article.There is also some indication of a similar trend amongst regional titles.
Does this support Nick “Flat Earth: Davies’ claims of “churnalism”? At least online and in the regional press? Or could one be charitable and say online PR is more effective at getting its messages across?
Tech no PR: IT, telecoms and internet organisations struggle to see their messages delivered and spokespeople quoted. This highlights the problem that tech PR often faces in translating marketing messages into PR stories that appeal to journalists. More than half of IT sector coverage appeared in the business press reflecting the strong B2B nature of this sector’s activity.
Reinforces what we’ve said here on many occasions – that tech PR generally needs to get better at creating meaningful, relevant and comprehensible content for the media. The point about half the sector coverage appearing in the business press also shows the need for tech PR firms to have rock solid experience and relationships with this demanding sector of the media.