“So, David, what does success look like?” no one ever said to him.
We all know what he wants to see happen, what he might consider success: an end to deforestation, dying coral, and global warming; fewer forest fires, less plastic pollution in our oceans and support for bio-diversity to name just a few. We want to see that too.
It’s impossible to compare oneself to Sir David Attenborough, and horribly feeble to use his words to shoe-horn in a connection, but obviously this is about to happen.
PRs are often asked ‘What does success look like?’ and it’s an important question because clients are paying serious money for our services.
There’s a useful blog post on this subject on our website so please check that out if you would like some serious suggestions about measurement and KPIs.
I want to talk about the less tangible outcomes of communications; ones that don’t make it onto the monthly results report or spreadsheet of scores, but which really matter to us in comms.
We were super proud during lockdown to have provided PR support for Earthwatch’s new programme called Naturehood. Helping people keep their sanity and protect nature all at the same time – it’s a wonderful community scheme. Thousands of people have signed up, I’m delighted to say.
I put a little snippet in our village newsletter afterwards about a Citizen Science campaign from Earthwatch called FreshWater Watch. A few days later I got this nice email and photo back from someone in the village:
“Fran did the water test thing that was in your village newsletter did you want her to write an article about it?”
This, in a nutshell, is why I love working in communications. It really can make a difference.
