Results Measurement A NetManage, Inc. Case Study

Problem

As an expert in the competitive host access and integration software market, NetManage is continually looking for ways to increase press awareness and market-share. NetManage executives were looking for an objective measurement tool to gain visibility into both volume and quality of coverage in order to measure the success of their public relations program and determine strategy. Its previous approach was to simply gather and count clips, which yielded little insight to the impact made by public relations efforts.

Solution

NetManage needed a measurement program that would align PR efforts with the company's business objectives, gauge the success of it public relations program and provide actionable data. The company identified a need to track and compare its own corporate and product line visibility to that of its main competitors, as well as a need to analyze market trends to help the company determine future direction.

Horn Group selected 35 publications to target and track in detail. Based on this list of targets, Horn Group provides a "Week in Review" industry coverage summary and an in-depth monthly coverage analysis for NetManage. These analyses help the team quickly respond to immediate media opportunities, determine the prominence and quality of coverage received by each company, the visibility of competitive product lines with an emphasis on customer inclusion and compare overall press volume against press release activity.

Conclusion

The measurement system put in place continues to allow NetManage to identify publications where increased presence is needed, messages that need to be re-communicated, new outlets/reporters to be courted, and market trends to be addressed. Using these metrics, NetManage's PR and product marketing teams are able to continually gauge the success of their PR programs, raise the coverage bar each quarter, and devise new strategies to broaden market awareness.