what to include in a PR Program?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I would like to get a better insight into how our PR efforts are translating into pipeline but I'm unsure how a Program to capture this would look like in Marketo. I understand the basics such as adding utm parameters to links we send out in our press releases and guest articles but I was hoping something more substantial is possible. For example, is there a way to capture web referral traffic from press outlets that wrote about us and add these visitors to the PR Program in Marketo (this would probably need an enormous list of potential outlets?)? Or would the best bet be to try to make a comprehensive list of partners that send us traffic and categorize all web traffic that does not come from partners as PR related?

Appreciate any suggestions.

/Arthur

[Anonymous]

Hi Arthur,

Great question! I'll start at the beginning, although it sounds like you understand this first part already. I recommend you treat public relations the same way you would any other lead source. Create a channel for it. Make sure PR is one of your lead sources. Then when you are doing a specific PR campaign, you can create a program using the Public Relations channel. When leads reach success in that program, they will get multi-touch attribution credit in Marketo. When they come in via a PR program, they will get first touch credit.

Now, onto how to make these programs function. You can create a quarterly PR program that tracks when someone visits your Press page on your website/views a press release. This enables PR to get some multi-touch attribution credit.

Measuring PR as a lead source gets more challenging. Here are two scenarios and solutions:

• You send out a press release over the wire and direct leads to a specific LP with a form: This is the easiest example because you can use URL parameters to capture lead source. In my experience, wires don't strip out URL parameters.
• You want to measure traffic to your website or landing pages that come from press mentions: This is a toughy. The BEST way to get this information is by using Bizible. Bizible's power is in its ability to capture and categorize sources of traffic to your site. This means that it would determine if something came from Forbes or a local publication or whatever. Then, it would be on your team to categorize which ones align to PR placements.

Hope that helps!