Comments on: Tech PR budgets in the UK – some interesting stats

By: Grantie

Grantie — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:19:36 +0000

Haha, that would indeed be a quality Stat, Steve. Unfortunately it’s not . The two are separate figures – so marketing is spending 25% of digital ’stuff’ and 17.6% on PR. As per reply to Pinny, unfortunately we simply didn’t have the space in this initial survey to really drill down on either of those statistics.

I admit its all very top line in its findings, but hopefully the Group and others can use these numbers as a base for further, more in-depth research into those component parts…

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By: Steve Earl

Steve Earl — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:25:32 +0000

Good figures and good initiative.

Does the 25% of 17.6% spent on digital bits of PR count the stuff that ad agencies are claiming is ‘digital engagement’ (but really PR By another name) as they try to muscle in on PR money amidst a backdrop of shrinking budget paranoia? Now that would be a juicy stat.

By: Grantie

Grantie — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:57:24 +0000

Thank you chap! And I am merely the chairperson-like mouthpiece, it was indeed a Group effort!

You raise very good points and I totally agree and hope that this is done annually so that the figures can start to be benchmarked and compared.

Basically this was a first attempt to get some top line figures on some of the areas that we thought would provide useful stats for agencies and in-house PRs and hopefully provide decent real data for conversations that we know happen within PR all the time. Hopefully this will perhaps even start some of those conversations… is your MD/CEO doing enough PR per month? do you pay your agency the average % of your marketing spend, or more, or less? And what does that mean you should expect in terms of results?

And yes, hopefully either the Tech PR Group itself or others can drill down from this top level around some of the areas discussed and produce more depth and analysis.

The digital question is a good one. It could be, though that the 25% includes online advertising? Also, it may be that PR agencies ARE getting a slice of that digital pie outside of the 17.6% we’re seeing? Or perhaps we’re not but we should be?

Anyway, a decent start point we hope and great to get the feedback chap!
G

By: Pinny

Pinny — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:08:15 +0000

Nice work Grantos (and other committee members, though I’m guessing the hardest graft was by you, right?)

I think the figures are useful, so how about a bit of qual to back up your quant? The average CEO devotes 0.8 percent of her time to PR each month (were you actually asking the CEOs, or was it an estimate from PR people?) I’d love to know what sort of activity they categorise as PR. Is it just when they’re speaking to the media, for instance? Do they include conference speaker slots? Meeting local schoolchildren? Etc etc.

Of course, we’d all like a bit more insight into the digital activity…25% of marketing budget spent on digital outreach but only 17.6% of PR? Damn…weren’t we supposed to be the ones nicking the digital work? What is it, and how can we get some?

Oh, it’d be good to index it to…i.e. do it again in a year’s time.