In tight financial times, public relations (PR) expenditures are likely the first to get slashed in the corporate budget. That’s why you need to stay on your toes and develop a system for proving to management that PR is important to the growth and survival of the organization. It’s not enough to simply show the boss a book of clippings. You need to show the value of the coverage you’re received.

The first thing you need to do is to manage expectations. Find out what results the budgetary decision makers will be seeking. If their expectations are totally unrealistic (e.g., the front cover of every leading national news magazine), you need to set them straight. If they measure results in terms of column inches, see how realistic these expectations are. If they’re going for increased awareness, be sure an accurate before—and after—the campaign measurement mechanism is in place.

Perhaps your management wants to measure results by converting what those placements would have been worth if they were paid for with advertising dollars. In any case, the last thing you want is to have your PR budget slashed because the CEO “just decided” you weren’t getting enough coverage. Or because they expected PR (instead of advertising) to provide them with inexpensive sales leads. We can’t emphasize this point too much: quantify expectations and get top management agreement. (And, whenever possible, under-promise and over-deliver.)

Then you need to communicate regularly to the executives in your company. Once you launch a PR campaign, track every step of the process by creating a formal reporting system for the executive team to review. It may be beneficial to outline your report in case—study format by describing the objectives, the campaign you introduced to achieve this goal, and the overall results of the campaign.

Tangible results are obviously a very important part of your reporting system. Without results, you have no solid evidence that your work is of value. If you receive phone calls from the press on a daily basis (without your having initiated the calls), keep a call log of the reporters name, organization, what was discussed, and so forth. In addition to using this log to show results, you can catalog the reporter’s inquiry and follow up at a later date to see what coverage you received.

Management is used to getting reports. So, whatever form you use to explain your results, formalize the process. We suggest that an easy-to-grasp executive summary be provided, along with substantiating backup materials.

Plus, let your management know what’s in the works. PR is not static, so you’ll probably know you have an article appearing next month or a speaker scheduled for a conference early next year. Tell them. By doing these things you should have a better ability to not get your budget cut and show value to the main shareholders of the company.