Law firms must regularly assess the performance of every aspect of their operations, including legal marketing and digital public relations (PR) efforts. Legal marketers and public relations professionals are vital in helping promote a law firm’s services and attracting new clients.

While PR seems like a vague concept to quantify, there are vital ways to measure performance. A law firm’s PR Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as media mentions, potential publication audience reach, and website referral traffic from media outlets, can provide insights into the effectiveness of the firm’s public relations strategies and help identify areas for improvement.

Similarly, a law firm’s SEO KPIs, such as website traffic, lead conversion rates, and pay-per-click ad conversions, are crucial metrics that can provide insights into the effectiveness of a law firm’s marketing strategies.

By regularly tracking KPIs for both marketing and public relations efforts, law firms can better understand their overall performance, stay competitive in the legal marketplace, and ultimately grow their clientele.

PR Metrics vs KPIs: What’s the Difference?

Public Relations professionals often use the terms “PR metrics” and “KPIs” to evaluate the effectiveness of their campaigns. While these terms are often used interchangeably, they have different meanings and purposes.

PR Metrics refer to the specific numerical measurements used to track and analyze PR activities. For example, PR metrics may include the number of press releases your law firm has issued, the media mentions received, or website referrals generated from media outlets.

On the other hand, KPIs are used to assess the overall success of a PR campaign. KPIs measure a campaign’s performance against a predefined goal and strategy. For instance, your elder law firm might set a KPI to increase brand awareness by 10% within a specific timeframe.

By tracking both metrics and KPIs, PR professionals and law firms can measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions to improve their strategies moving forward.

Top PR KPIs and How to Measure Them

Here are the most effective PR KPIs that you should track as a law firm marketer. It is always best to start with the ones that have the most significant impact on your business. Measuring your performance against your competitors in these areas may also be helpful in understanding where you may need to catch up in the media.

1. Active Media Coverage

Active media coverage metrics reveal the number of active media placements and coverage the PR team has secured. This metric represents the overall success of your law firm’s public relations efforts in generating publicity and positive exposure. However, creating a specific group of this KPI that focuses specifically on top-tier publications for your law firm and your target audience may be beneficial. By doing so, your law firm can measure the PR team’s effectiveness in securing coverage in the most reputable and relevant outlets, which can be used to share on your law firm’s social media and website.

2. Potential Audience Reach

This metric refers to the estimated total number of people who could potentially view any mentions or features of your law firm in various publications and websites. It considers the reach of these platforms, including their readership, subscribers, and online traffic. This information is essential in determining the potential impact of your law firm’s media coverage and its ability to reach a wider audience.

3. Share of Voice

Share of voice represents the percentage of coverage of your law firm’s brand, lawyers, or managing partners compared to the industry as a whole. This KPI is helpful for you to gauge your place within the industry against several competitors or check a competitor one at a time and drill down into the corresponding media coverage to uncover key differentiators. It’s important to note that share-of-voice can be tracked by volume or reach. For instance, your competitor might have a higher volume of mentions, but you might be in higher-reach publications.

4. Sentiment

The tone of the articles that mention your law firm or competitors is reflected in sentiment. It’s important to keep an eye on the tone of articles that mention your law firm or its competitors, as this can help you determine whether your law firm is being portrayed positively or negatively. In addition, you can use sentiment analysis to identify negative comments about your law firm and address them in order to improve your brand perception.

5. Geographical Presence

Geographical presence is a measurement of media coverage based on location. This is essential when evaluating your effectiveness in targeting specific geographical areas. This is especially useful for national law firms or lawyers who have the ability to practice in multiple states. Understanding the impact of your media mentions and which publication outlets are featuring your law firm on a nationwide level can help you attract more clients to your other locations.

6. Domain Authority

Domain authority is a metric created by SEO software company Moz that helps you predict how well your law firm’s website is ranking on search engines, using a logarithmic, 100-point scale. A successful PR campaign can increase your law firm’s domain authority by securing multiple media link placements or backlinks on various third-party publication sites with high domain authority, like The New York Times. This can also positively impact your law firm’s SEO.

7. Earned Traffic and Engagement

It is important to keep track of the number of visitors who visit your law firm’s website due to the earned coverage and link placements, and how many visitors are engaging with your coverage on social media. This KPI is also used in SEO. However, in PR, it is used to help keep track of which publications are driving traffic to your site. This ultimately allows you to identify the news outlets that your target audience typically gets their news from.

Get Help Tracking Your Law Firm’s PR Progress

Integrating these PR KPIs into your law firm’s PR campaign planning allows you to monitor and evolve your law firm’s success. From setting specific targets to tracking and measuring PR metrics, you can allow yourself to make more effective decisions for your law firm. If you are looking for help starting a PR campaign or are looking to use digital PR to grow your law firm, contact our team of experts today!