Does PR provide value?

A post on this subject on Media Rover should be a must read for PR professionals. It deals with the (useless) terms used in the industry to convince clients of the value of PR.

So what do we, as pr professionals, do? First of all we should quit talking about the value of publicity to the clients. Instead, we should talk about a SOV (share of voice) parameter of the client with respect to competition. That will give him an idea of where he stands vis-a-vis competition.

Is that enough? I don't think so. We should also advice the client on how to turn the media coverage into marketing communication tools. There are various methods of doing this - from putting it on the company website to using the coverage in direct marketing activities.

These can be measured better and will result in the actual RoI for the client.