10 PR measurement mistakes and how to avoid them

Follow this checklist to eliminate errors that undermine your hard work.

Follow this checklist to eliminate errors that undermine your hard work

Despite the best laid plans, public relations measurement programs can sometimes go awry. You can’t always anticipate how everything will go, and your elegant research design rarely seems to play out quite as you planned. Let’s face it, unforeseen problems and errors can creep in, and part of your job is to figure out how to get the job done anyway.

But there are certain errors your program just won’t survive. These mistakes will ruin your data or analysis and leave you with no options but to learn an expensive lesson and start over. Here are 10 fatal research errors to avoid:

1. Clipping systems that miss clips. We won’t name names, but you should regularly test your provider. Do what we call a “”Pub/Month”” check: Look back over the statistics for the last year and see on average how many articles you get in your key publications. If you are below that for the current month, or if you have zero clips for the month, someone’s probably missing your clips.

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