Trends suggest that public relations will be a data-driven function in 2020; however, for years many PR agencies have skirted by with minimal metrics — securing media coverage and then simply handing a list of placement links or clips to a client before moving on. Today, marketers — especially marketers at SaaS brands — expect more.
Measuring PR Coverage and Outlet Quality
PR metrics, like share of voice, and digital marketing metrics, like referral traffic, help fill in the gaps but are far from the be-all and end-all. Any time we’re discussing media coverage with clients — be it competitor and brand coverage in a media landscape analysis or coverage secured for the brand ongoing — we also consider a variety of metrics that speak to the quality of coverage and the outlet where that coverage was secured. These metrics include:
- Type of publication where the coverage was secured — national, trade or local
- Readership and Domain Authority (DA) of the publication
- Type of coverage — contributed content, feature, mention, quote or press release posting
As a result, when prospects and clients ask us questions like, “What can I expect from a PR program?” we can provide data-based answers based on our roster of SaaS clients. While this dataset provides a great comparison point for SaaS brands working with our agency, it lacks a control group. That got us wondering: What does this kind of data look like when the SaaS brand hasn’t worked with BLASTmedia?
An Analysis of Fastest-Growing SaaS Brands
To further understand how SaaS companies are using media relations to generate press, our team decided to analyze media coverage from a set of fast-growing SaaS companies outside of our client base. For the purpose of our first exercise, we selected 25 of the top companies listed on the SaaS 1000. During the analysis, we classified all press coverage — excluding pay-to-play coverage, such as newswire postings, market research reports and sponsored content — by the same metrics we use to evaluate client coverage.
Some results were what we expected while others — like the fact that less than 3% of coverage reviewed in the analysis was made up of quotes — were a bit out of left field.
Curious what we uncovered? Download our analysis to learn more about coverage and outlet quality as a SaaS PR metric and how fast-growing SaaS brands stack up.