Corporate communications measurement: a UK PR checklist

What to take away

Named suppliers for a UK shortlist

Global platforms index US national titles most deeply. In England the market splits quickly after the nationals into regional dailies, local weeklies, trade press and broadcast. A tool that will not show its UK title list cannot be compared on outlet coverage.

None of the main suppliers publishes a full title list or a public rate card. The table sets out what each is known for and what to demand in writing.

How to compare subscription quotes

Monitoring, distribution and social listening are usually sold as separate modules on one annual contract, which makes a headline fee misleading. Price one real reporting job across both shortlisted tools instead.

Ask each supplier to quote for the same twelve months, the same outlet list and the same number of users. Anything outside that scope becomes a second column you have to explain.

Fees move with sources, seats and archive depth, so a like-for-like quote beats a headline figure. If you need to show which clip produced which outcome, read the attribution methods for corporate communications before you fix a fee.

How to run a two-supplier coverage test

Run the test as a job, not as a free trial. Give it a start date, an end date and a named reviewer.

Publish the gaps in every report, including the sources the tool cannot see.

Regulator sources: Ofcom bulletins and IPSO rulings

IPSO publishes its rulings on its own site. Ofcom publishes the broadcast bulletin on its own site. Neither sits in a standard news index, so a supplier needs a separate feed to capture them.

Treat regulator coverage as unproven until a named person runs a live search that returns one Ofcom bulletin entry and one IPSO ruling.

If the clips feed a policy team, press the devolved coverage questions in our review of UK public affairs software for comms teams.

The requests behind many of those documents run on the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Data rights, defamation and clip retention

Clip libraries hold names, quotes and photographs, so most of the data is personal data. The conditions for processing it sit in the Data Protection Act 2018. Agree a retention period before the feed goes live.

Reusing a claim in an internal newsletter or a public dashboard can create fresh exposure. Defamation rules for England and Wales sit in the Defamation Act 2013, and Scotland follows its own route.

Keep a source register for each tool: the outlets covered, the date the list was last checked, and the owner.

Common questions

Which tools index Ofcom bulletins and IPSO rulings?

The shortlist does not identify any supplier with confirmed coverage of both. Check Cision and Gorkana, Meltwater, Kantar Media, Vuelio, Durrants and Press Data individually; ask each for a live demonstration returning one Ofcom bulletin entry and one IPSO ruling in the same search.

Can one platform cover press, broadcast and social?

Often, with gaps. Broadcast transcripts and regional titles are the usual misses, so test both before signing a long contract.

How should we compare quotes from different suppliers?

On one scope: same months, same outlet list, same seats, same archive depth. Then price one real reporting job across both tools.

Do we still need a spreadsheet layer?

In most teams, yes. No single tool holds every source, and a spreadsheet keeps the gaps visible when a total is questioned. The habits in our piece on measurement reporting mistakes show how a thin source list can pass unnoticed.