Most organizations distributing PSAs want to know how well their campaign has performed, based upon objective criteria. Essentially there are two ways of providing this information. First, individual PSA campaigns can be compared against previous ones launched by the organization.

Or a campaign can be compared against others with similar characteristics, i.e. comparable quantities distributed.

Obviously no two campaigns are alike in terms of subject matter, timing of release and creative quality. However, by examining usage data taken from a wide variety of campaign issues, some interesting patterns emerge.

To provide the benchmark that Goodwill Communications is presently using, average usage data was compiled from 74 different TV releases (A.C. Nielsen SIGMA TV data only), 21 radio releases, 11 print and four outdoor campaigns. The TV data is also compiled by non-profit campaigns versus government campaigns as well.

The graph depicts the dollar value from all sources which is $5.7 million, using Nielsen tracking data, response cards and print PSA clippings as the data source.

Examining your organization's PSA data using benchmarks is not an idle exercise. Knowing what to expect from a campaign in terms of response rate, market penetration, and dollar value of exposure is the first step towards taking corrective action, if necessary.

When response rates or usage levels are less than average, an organization has objective data on which to base follow-up activity. It is also important to monitor your progress as your campaign matures. If, for example, you wait until the campaign evaluation is completed to do your analysis, it is too late to take any corrective action. You need to monitor and correct weaknesses as they develop to truly use evaluation data in a meaningful way.

Also you will get far different results - particularly from TV - the longer you monitor your campaign. As shown in this graph, a typical TV PSA will generate about $2.4 million over a 26 week period, but that total nearly doubles over 56 weeks. There appears to be almost no erosion in support over time. This fact has led some organizations to continue to track their PSAs for a year and a half and even up to two years in some cases.

Follow-up Tactics

Follow-up techniques vary in terms of cost and how easily they can be executed. In some cases they may consist of personal contact by community partners, telephone surveys or a blast fax.

While we have good data to tell us how well a campaign is performing in broadcast television, for radio we must rely on bounce-back cards for evaluation data. Data resulting from dozens of our client radio PSA campaigns indicates that only about 17% of stations that receive a PSA report usage. Unless some follow-up technique is used, any other exposure that occurs goes unrecorded.

One of our successful techniques is to send a radio reminder postcard to non-responding stations. It is a two-part postcard with a note to the public service director on the top with the same evaluation reply card that was originally sent to the station on the bottom. The station simply completes the brief questionnaire and returns it for keypunching. Its purpose is to obtain a more comprehensive accounting of true PSA usage.

As the graph indiates these postcards can have a dramatic impact upon reported usage rates and estimated PSA exposure values.

Evaluation Criteria

PSA program planners need to know what they expect from a PSA campaign, prior to even launching them and what types of corrective actions they can use to overcome weaknesses. And remember a very important point...always thank the media that provide you with hundreds of thousands - and even millions - of dollars worth of advertising support.

Following are several different indicators of PSA success that should be monitored for each campaign by media type.

• Number of cities and states in which PSAs are used
• Number of media outlets using PSAs
• Total number of PSAs used and response percentage for the campaign
• Total estimated dollar value of exposure
• Usage by spot length
• Usage by daypart (TV SIGMA data)
• Usage by market size
• Where you are NOT getting PSA usage geographically or specific areas