You might want to measure press coverage for a whole variety of reasons. This includes:
Tracking - news, industry and competitor developments.
Optimizing - conducting a quarterly or twice-yearly review of primary KPIs is a good way to ensure necessary adjustments are made to improve the impact of your PR.
Proving success - measure the performance of PR campaigns in alignment with broader business objectives and demonstrate the value PR has brought to your business.
Measurement Best Practices:
Measurement should be more than just a retrospective report card. Done well it can be used to inform decisions before a campaign begins and to course-correct during the journey. Data should be used proactively to optimize campaign and strategic planning.
Measure what matters. Each company is different and the KPIs for PR should be linked to broader company objectives. There are various types of metrics ranging from Output related (volume, share of voice etc), Outcome related (e.g. communications had an impact on attitudes or behaviours) and Business related (e.g. increase in sales, customer retention etc).
Moving beyond basic metrics such as volume, impressions, share of voice, is important to properly assess the impact of PR.
Establish what data your company is using to assess business results and see how that can be shared with PR for integration.
Once an agreed-upon set of KPIs for PR has been established ensure that the best collection tools and procedures are in place.
Establish the best format and cadence for reporting. Reports should contain a combination of key findings, data visualisations and, ideally, recommendations for how to optimize future campaign performance.
Quarterly reporting tends to fit well with other business reporting, agency reviews etc; more frequent reporting can sometimes be useful but consider the bandwidth required to produce, review and implement findings.