Introducing Outwing: LaunchSquad’s New Tool for Measuring the Impact of PR
By: Adam Severance
The PR industry has long struggled with the task of proving direct business value. While the larger marketing world has sped down the road towards increasingly large datasets and complex attribution models, we feel there is progress to be made in advancing PR analytics. While some may say we need to follow in the footsteps of the increasingly data-driven marketing world, we believe PR requires a unique approach.
That’s because the arena we work in operates under different rules than your standard lead generation, paid media or direct response marketing channel. The incentives that facilitate our work—namely earned and owned media—don’t revolve around response rates or CPMs, they rely on the quality and authenticity of storytelling. This requires a different strategic calculus to facilitate the sharing and spreading of content, and as a result, a unique approach to attribution and measurement.
Why We’re Launching Outwing
In 2015, after years of fumbling with different tools to answer that age-old question, “How do you evaluate success?,” we embarked on a mission to change that. We conducted a full investigation of the market and concluded that the tools available didn’t get the job done; they were a varying mix of high costs, bulky functionality, and misaligned services. Ultimately, we threw up our hands and decided to build one ourselves.
After many iterations of custom dashboards for teams working across industries, from quantum computers to sweatshirts, we began to notice trends. These features that worked best for us and our clients were most often the things we couldn’t get in out-of-the-box solutions: heightened control over metrics and business alignment; more transparency and accuracy in data; and an overall simplicity in user experience. We found our dashboards to be easier to use and more effective in catering the unique programs we like to build for clients.
Thus was born a tool we called The LaunchSquad Intelligence Platform, a web-based software that centralized coverage reporting, measurement and analytics in an account-based format. Today, after 5 years—and well over 10,000 hours—of research, product development, and refinement, we’re unveiling that platform as Outwing for companies and communications professionals who are looking for a better way just like we were. We believe our industry deserves a better tool, something we feel qualified to provide after 20+ years leading PR for emerging tech in the US and abroad, and ChiefMartec.com’s Scott Brinker agrees.
“I think we’re starting to see a movement in the PR industry similar to what’s been happening in marketing for years now - a decentralization of software to subject experts offering a hybrid software / services model.
I’m very excited about the release of the Outwing platform and the ways LaunchSquad is blending software and services to innovate their industry. I’ve written extensively about the role this model plays in the Second Golden Age of Martech and I think we’re at the precipice of this evolution in PR.
There’s massive opportunity for growth and I don’t see any reason why we won’t see a market evolution comparable to other marketing verticals.”
Scott has long provided a prescient voice in martech and our conversations in the early days of Outwing were influential in our development.
About the Name
The definition of “outwing” is to fly faster or more skillfully. It’s a simple idea, but one that contains an endless amount of creativity, precision, and agility.
This gets at the heart of what we believe is needed in the space: a simple, elegant—but powerful and accurate—tool that focuses on the core elements needed to tell great brand stories. Outwing is designed to empower PR professionals to weave together the story of how they made an impact, and helps align PR goals with business goals.
These core functionalities help achieve that vision:
Custom Analytics and Business-Alignment: We believe a good measurement program needs to directly align with brand goals. Outwing is designed to allow teams to report on any number of custom metrics such as spokesperson, product mentions, campaigns, etc. Additionally, Outwing allows for custom integrations with Google Analytics so teams can see exactly how their coverage impacts custom marketing goals.
Real-Time Dashboards and One-Click Reporting: Data is useless unless you can easily communicate it. Outwing is designed to automate the key analytics you need to both inform team strategy and communicate value. With a variety of one-click reporting options, you can easily lead an insights-first communication program.
Insights Beyond Coverage: We believe the value of our work goes far beyond coverage. So we’ve built PR-specific analytics like briefings tracking, which empowers you to communicate your client’s relationship building and look at key KPIs like briefings-to-coverage conversion rates.
Market Intelligence: We believe in extracting all relevant data points, so we’ve partnered directly with SimilarWeb to provide a UMV search portal so you can provide full contextual market insight along with your coverage impact.
What We Believe
We built our own tool because we felt the available options missed the mark. So in designing Outwing, we were guided by four core principles:
Everyone benefits from understanding and employing data.
PR analytics and measurement used to be a game reserved for the biggest corporations and agencies. But today they are table stakes, and we feel the industry has not caught up to this reality.
Media coverage is more than just a data point.
We believe a single story can change a brand forever. While many tools focus only on the “forest” of data, we believe in looking at the trees as well. This means getting granular with story-level data and analysis and ensuring your data is accurate and aligned with your most important business goals.
Great reporting is great storytelling.
For too long our industry has passed off reporting as an afterthought. We believe this aspect of our work is a massive opportunity to prove value and align with our clients. It’s a form of storytelling. And storytelling is what we do best.
Software should make it easier, not harder, to work with data.
We believe analytics has a PR problem. Too often people are reluctant to “dive in” because they feel overwhelmed or confused with numbers. We think software can resolve this. But too often it does the opposite by gate-keeping insight behind complicated interfaces and tooling. We want to change that.
We see this announcement as just the beginning. We believe this tool will bridge the gap between great storytelling and attribution — in a way that recognizes PR and comms for the way it can impact a brand.