It’s been perhaps the busiest measurement month ever in 2019 – personally, I managed to clock up no fewer than 20 hours on measurement month related activities in one week alone.

In just three days during w/c 18 November I: attended the two-day PR Week measurement conference in London, recorded a podcast on media sentiment and delivered a measurement bootcamp to international marketing and comms heads.

My measurement month started with a talk for the PRCA SEA in Singapore on how to embed measurement attitude in your PR agency and draws to a close with a measurement bootcamp for delegates in the housing sector.

In the process I learned – or re-learned – a lot of the key lessons about measurement, including how to bring the AMEC integrated framework to life for those who haven’t used it before. As a result, more PR practitioners are aware of the good work that AMEC does to encourage best practice in comms measurement. Objective achieved.

PR Week conference

The PR Week event included a pre-conference day of workshops, the aim being to encourage practical application of the theory which followed a day later. The workshop day was well attended, demonstrating appetite amongst those eager to learn more about measurement to put theory into action in a supportive setting.

The morning workshop introduced delegates to the AMEC framework, encouraging participants to focus on qualitative aspects such as sentiment and messaging rather than quantitative metrics such as simply volume or OTS.

The afternoon workshop challenged small groups to make purchasing decisions to partner with a range of social influencers for a theoretical client scenario. It encouraged delegates to look past initial markers of ‘influence’ to ensure the best outcomes for clients and ensure strong return on investment.

The conference itself included a range of case studies from Kerry Foods to Diageo and Virgin Trains. This was supported by wise words from a panel of measurement friends from UK Government, Gumtree, Slimming World, Citypress and the National Trust.

Andrew Bruce Smith’s high energy session revealed some very practical, low or no cost tips which would benefit all kinds of organisations from major corporates to SMEs (Inputs: Google alerts to RSS > Outputs: Google Data Studio > Outcomes: Google Trends >> it’s as easy as 1-2-3).

Claire Robson’s session on GDPR specifically appealed to measurement practitioners in the room – we all have a duty in relation to data collection, data storage and privacy.

Breakout sessions throughout the day give me FOMO (fear of missing out)…. although I was happy with my choices of sessions attended. I missed Shelter’s case study late morning as I was being interviewed alongside Maya Koleva of Commetric by Stella Bayles of CoverageBook – a new PR Resolution podcast focused on sentiment in media evaluation is now live here.

Measurement month events give us the opportunity to reconnect with contacts and make new ones. London certainly delivered on many fronts last week – it was lovely to be in town when so many other measurement folk were around too. Thank you AMEC for creating both the resources (framework, M3, support and guidance) and the momentum via these events to encourage us to work so collaboratively and in the spirit of friendship as an industry.

Getting hands-on with measurement

London also played host to Intelligent Conversation’s first measurement bootcamp, a new training course aimed at helping people to get hands-on with their own measurement challenge. I have been working with Intelligent Conversation to support their award-winning client measurement work for many years, and our partnership has become closer since the summer when I became a measurement associate for the firm.

Our measurement bootcamps take a deep dive into measurement theory, focusing the interactive framework, guiding through client case studies and sharing some quick fire tips to gather data and look for signals of impact and outcomes – followed up by a 1:1 phone call and measurement maturity mapper exercise.

In true workshop style there were post it notes for the wall and group discussion to bring measurement challenges and solutions out into the open. In small steps, we gathered delegates’ information relating to comms objectives, inputs, outputs and outcomes.

By the end of the session, Libby Howard, Intelligent Conversation’s CEO and I had demonstrated how simple and helpful the framework can be with a bunch of colour coded post it notes and a wall. The smaller group setting worked very well for this approach and I look forward to our forthcoming bootcamps in London and Manchester.

By Stephanie Bridgeman of Experienced Media Analysts and Measurement Associate at Intelligent Conversation