Communicators under increasing pressure to deliver & still not seen as contributing to business growth

It’s no surprise to hear that PR and communications professionals are an inspiringly hardworking bunch.

PR, communications and marketing managers are under increasing pressure to deliver but are still not seen as contributing to business growth, according to the second Digital PR: Challenges and Opportunities survey released today.

In July 2015, PR technology company Mynewsdesk surveyed 1,231 communications professionals from around the world, on the digital challenges they face in their roles.

Regardless of their location, communicators around the world face one main challenge – an ever-increasing workload.

For many in PR, it feels like new digital channels appear every day. Technology has forever changed the way brands communicate with customers, prospects, and each other. Communicators are now expected to produce more content, across more channels.

However, just 23% of respondents said their budget has increased to reflect the requirement for more content. Despite much spotlight on video & blog content these days, 65% rarely or never create video, and over 50% rarely or never blog.

A wide variance between countries when it comes to managing blogger and influencer relations. 55% of respondents in the UK Germany and Singapore are managing blogger and influencer relations, compared with 35% in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Working out where to dedicate PR resource is still a challenge - 70% of communicators agreed that one of their biggest challenges is working out where to dedicate PR resources for maximum impact.

Perhaps this is related to the lack of an effective standardised measure for quantifying ROI. 91% of respondents reply on content views to measure effectiveness of digital & social activities. Financial ROI is used as a measure of success by only 18% of communicators. This is creating a hurdle of gaining buy-in from C-level executives.

“There are challenges aplenty, but with these challenges come exciting new opportunities to reshape your PR and communications strategies,” said Jonathan Bean, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, Mynewsdesk. “To those who are ready to embrace these opportunities, I hope you share our excitement about your path and the possibilities that lay ahead. One thing is for sure, we cannot stay married to yesterday and we cannot be afraid of tomorrow”.

It could be a small change to PR management, or experiment with a new content format, or it could be a step to simplify workflows, differentiating content to cut ­through noise, or setting up a measurement framework. The report details the trends which will help communicators to benchmark activities.

The report is also punctuated with expert tips from industry influencers like Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Institute), Luke Kintigh (Intel), David Rockland(Ketchum) on how to tackle the following challenges: