Boost your budget.

As the end of the financial year approaches for many businesses, one in five are forecasting that PR budgets will fall. The most recent IPA Bellweather report anticipated a decline in spend during 2026/27 following a rare period at the end of last year when PR spend grew faster than investment in other areas of the marketing mix.

When evaluating budgets, CMOs and CFOs will be looking for evidence that thought has been given to increasing productivity and effectiveness. Those words immediately make people think about reducing headcount or making existing team members work harder.  It doesn’t have to be that way. Before presenting budget proposals, take a step back and get ready to explain where your team is getting results.  Not what you should do less of because it’s unaffordable.  Instead, analyse what you should do more of because it is effective.

Metricomm clients have moved beyond measuring progress in terms of how many articles they generate, or the sentiment of coverage. Neither of these are great metrics for winning the confidence of the C-suite. The CFO will be focused on the links between investment and business results. How do you evidence those relationships?

Let’s stop pretending that PR is only for creating awareness and protecting reputation. By quantifying the contribution of PR through the funnel, we have helped PR teams capture the attention of executives and get the opportunity to show that PR matters.  It affects brand, purchase consideration and competitive advantage. If these outcomes are demonstrable, nobody will care whether it required ten pieces of coverage or one hundred pieces of coverage to deliver them.

The most important indicator for Heads of Comms is the size of audience that engages with media coverage.  That’s a much smaller number than reach, OTS or any other vanity metric.  It’s based on careful and robust statistical calculations that consider the likelihood that people will find and read media coverage. Of course, not everyone reads everything that gets published.

Having audience-centric data allows teams to focus on the campaign activities, topics and media that genuinely make a difference. This means showing how reading earned coverage affects search, website visits, sales and brand tracking metrics, for example. Ticking the productivity and effectiveness boxes. It also boosts confidence by starting a strategic conversation about the value of PR. With the right data, you can critically evaluate how you allocate your time and money – evidence that earns respect and interest from the top table, getting a fair hearing for your spending plans.

Want to know more and potentially save your budget from the hatchet? Get in touch via hello@metricomm.com or complete the form below.