Benchmarking

Benchmark Objectives

Benchmarks are established based on the campaign's goals and objectives. A goal is the campaign's general expected outcome. Objectives are specific outputs employed tactically to obtain certain outcomes. For example, a goal may be to increase awareness of a corporation's philanthropy. The goal may be obtained through the use of press releases, brochures, articles in magazines, and so forth. The use of the various media is part of the objective—to increase awareness through these outputs—to achieve an outcome. The outcome must be measurable, must be tied to the goal, and must clearly come from the outputs. The objectives are then evaluated against the established benchmarks for the campaign.

Unlike many business objectives, which are almost always based on financial or physical objects, a public relations objective often is more abstract. Thus, public relations objectives and their benchmarks are typically of three types: informational, motivational, and behavioral. Informational benchmarks set the mark against how much information is getting out in the campaign. Motivational benchmarks establish what that information has done regarding attitudes toward the campaign object. Behavioral benchmarks establish whether the target audience is doing what the campaign seeks. Finally, there is the ultimate evaluation, where the actual behavior desired either occurs at the level expected or does not.

In our business awareness example, benchmarks are created during the campaign's developmental phase to be used both in evaluating the campaign's progress toward meeting its goal and to determine whether the specific informational, motivational, and behavioral objectives are being met. Developmental benchmarks are often obtained from historical and secondary data. These may come from previous campaigns or may be found in industrywide or media-related publications. For instance, suppose the company had conducted a similar campaign five years earlier. Use of the results from that campaign could be used as a benchmark against which to evaluate the new campaign. On the other hand, a survey may have been conducted that indicated an awareness problem, and the results can be used as the benchmark against which the campaign would be evaluated during the refinement and evaluation phases. The survey (or focus group or interview data) would be considered primary data—data gathered by the company itself just prior to the developmental phase or as a part of the developmental phase. Thus, developmental benchmarks might consist of attitude surveys (primary data) or secondary data. Secondary data are gathered from other sources that would indicate how aware key customers, for instance, are of the company, its products, or its services. Primary and secondary data can be used in combination.

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