Just for fun, during our annual offsite team-building event in the summer, we thought we would brainstorm the ‘secret of PR campaign success’. We wanted to see if we could identify the core elements that have been present in every successful programme or campaign we have run over the years. And in so doing, see if we could unlock the ‘secret formula’ for the perfect PR campaign.

We kicked the idea around for some time … and I am sure there are statisticians and PR experts who might pick apart this formula … but we think it kind of works!

First of all, here’s a rundown of the six key elements we identified:

D: A clear definition of success. Does everyone involved in the campaign agree what success will look like? This ranges from the account executive at the agency to the most senior executives within the client.

R: Results measurement. Have key measurement criteria been agreed in advance, and are the tools/systems in place to actively measure them?

M: CoMmitment. Does the PR activity have buy-in from the most important key stakeholders within the client? If so, it means the input we receive will be well thought-through, thorough and relevant.

Ct: Content. Central to any strong campaign is content that adds real value, is authentic, informative and topical. We agreed this could be anything from newsworthy press releases, to creative video content or white papers. The key is that the content is useful to the target audiences you want to reach, and void of marketing puff.

Cr: Creativity. For us, creativity is rarely stunt-driven, but it is the ability to dream up fresh angles, new insight and look for alternative ways to make a story compelling and interesting.

K: Knowledge of your business. This was actually the first element everyone unanimously agreed on. True knowledge of a client’s business gives us a fast-track into the heart of the issues that will be of greatest interest to the audiences we want to reach.

We weighted each of these elements as equal, at the planning stage, with the exception of creativity. While it is a ‘nice to have’ – and experience has taught us that it may be creativity that wins the pitch – it is solid implementation, backed by strategic thinking, in addition to everything else outlined above, that gets the results.

We then handed over our workings to the very clever mathematicians at MindLab to see if they could put this into some kind of working formula. And here’s the result:

Try it for yourself.

First rate each of the six key elements listed above on a scale from one to five, with five being the best. Feed these scores into the formula … et voilà! You have a campaign success rating.

If your score is 0–40:
Abandon. The likelihood that your campaign will succeed, in whatever measure you select, is low. Suggest you go back to the drawing board.

If your score is 50–70:
Proceed with caution. Try to identify the individual elements that you rated below a four, and see if there’s anything you can do to improve your chances.

If your score is 70+:
Go for it! You should have confidence that all the most important elements for a successful PR campaign are in place.