PR Glossary

Footprint talks in plain English. Yet the majority of the PR world is full of acronyms and odd phrases, and so we thought it might be useful to give you a little guide, so you’re not left staring at the screen, scratching your head…..

If there’s anything you need to know about PR, or any more jargon you’d like us to translate, please get in touch and we’d be happy to talk to you…and tell it like it is!

Feel free to read it below or download it by clicking here

ABC – Audit Bureau of Circulation
The Audit Bureau of Circulations independently checks the circulation of national newspapers so you know how many readers could see your advert or article. See also ‘OTS’.

AVE – Advertising Value Equivalent
A comparison between the cost of an advertising space and an equivalent editorial piece. Puts a financial value against PR coverage. The value of PR is 3 times more than that of advertising taking into account the placement looks and reads more like a real news story than advertising and has the independent endorsement of the journalist.

Advertorial
A paid-for article that looks and reads like editorial. Valuable when there is no straight editorial way of getting into a publication and provides guaranteed inclusion.

Blog/blogging
Like an online diary. Written using a simple text editor and posted online usually with a simple mouse ‘click’. As at September 2007, Google estimated near 200k posts were made a day. These can be read by the estimated 1.2 billion people connected to the internet.

Circulation
The number of copies distributed by a publication. Circulation figures are available for all major publications. See also ‘ABC’ and ‘Circulation’.

CIPR – Chartered Institute of Public Relations
The leading public relations industry professional body for the UK and Europe.

Column Inches
A form of measuring PR success by multiplying the length of a piece of editorial by the number of columns.

Competitor Analysis
A comparison of PR success against your competing companies. Can be measured in various ways.

Conversation marketing
Style of marketing where a direct ‘do this’ message is negatively perceived. Companies no longer ‘own’ the conversation – but they can participate and so influence it. We can’t tell everyone on the internet what to say, but we can leave messages on forums, blogs and measure consumer responses.

Coverage
The amount of exposure given by the media to a company.

CPC
Cost per Hit – The cost-efficiency of a campaign. Calculated by the total cost of the campaign divided by the total ‘OTS’.

CPT
Cost Per Thousand. The cost-efficiency of on or offline publications. Calculated by dividing the rate or specific advertisement cost by the circulation or number of readers/visitors.

Crisis Management
A crisis can be described as a period of potential or actual damage to the perception and/or reputation of an organisation, individual or concept caused or started by an unexpected event. Effective management and forward planning can prevent a crisis or minimise the impact of one.

Demographics
Information about the target audience, such as age, gender, geographical location etc.

DPS – Double Page Spread
Two pages of the same article covering both pages of an open publication. Becomes more eye-catching to the reader.

Editorial
Section of a publication written by a journalist such as an article or feature or news page. See also ‘PR value’.

Feature
An article usually about one topic, usually of a lengthy nature.

Frequency
Since people are exposed to more than one type of media, frequency is the average number of times that your audience could be exposed to your message.

Keywords
Specific words or phrases often within a press release or website. Helps consumers and journalists when searching to come across your company on the internet, or to find your press release on their computer.

Key Messages
The main angle used to target the correct publications and sectors. Key messages provide the makeup of a brand – its values. Press releases will always contain your core message.

Mechanical Data
The technical layout details of a publication including page size, width of the columns and number of columns. These are needed in order to create artwork for advertising.

NLA – Newspaper Licensing Agency
The NLA issues copyright licences to companies who wish to copy articles. Applies to all the national and some regional and foreign newspapers.

OTS - Opportunity To See / OTH - Opportunity To Hear
The number of times the target audience is likely to see or hear a marketing message.

PR – Public Relations
According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), the official definition of public relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.
Public relations not only tells an organisation's story to its publics, it also helps to shape the organisation and the way it works.

Press Cuttings / Clippings Service
An organisation that monitors newspapers, journals and magazines looking to find mentions of clients products and services to help report coverage gained. Often many services will now search websites online too.

Press Release (or ‘media release’ or ‘news release’)
A written announcement issued to the news media and other publications that seeks to draw the public attention of a company’s developments.

Podcast
An audio or video file recorded and used to deliver information to remote audiences via the internet. With an estimated 1.2 billion people connected to the internet that makes it the words largest media platform to get your messages to.

Publics
'Publics' are audiences that are important to the organisation. They include customers, both current and potential; employees and management; investors; media; government; suppliers; opinion-formers.

RAJAR – Radio Joint Audience Research
An independent research body which monitors the audience of all radio stations in the UK, whether BBC or commercial.

Rate Card
The cost published for advertising in any type of media.

Reach
The reach of a PR campaign is the total number of people within your target audience who may see your message. Often referred to as ‘OTS’.

Readership
A general term that refers to the number of people reading a particular publication. Includes both the individual who purchased the publication and others who have read the publication. Usually readership is at least 3x more than the circulation.

ROI – Return on Investment
A measure of budget spent on a campaign, versus the estimation of income generated through the activity.

ROP – Run of Paper
It is an instruction to a publisher indicating that no special position is sought for an advertisement, i.e. it can be placed in any convenient part of the advertising space of the publication and is therefore charged at a lower rate.

SCC RATE – Single Column Centimetre Advertising Rate
How advertising rates are calculated. It is generally the width multiplied by the height of the publication column.

Social media (& Social Networking)
Software tools that allow groups to generate content and engage in peer-to-peer conversations and exchange of content (examples are YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter etc)

Stakeholders
A person, group, organization, or system who affects or can be affected by an organisation's actions. See also ‘Publics’.

Syndicated Articles
The same article published across a series. The copy and layout can sometimes vary within the series. This is occurring more as newspapers look to cut financial outlay.

Tagging
Selecting key words or phrases in a blog to ensure maximum chance of being picked up by a search engine.

Target Audience
This is the group of people you are trying to reach with your message.

Target Publications
Newspapers and magazines with a readership profile best matching your company's target market.

TVR – Television Rating
Percentage of specific demographic viewing a channel or programme, one TVR represents 1% of target audience.

Web 2.0
A mix of technology and business process that facilitates conversational marketing which allow consumers to engage with the online world, meaning there is no longer one way marketing – it is a conversation taking place that requires careful management to ensure messages are correctly and subtly placed.

Wisdom of the Crowds
Concept that groups of people will give a better overall rating than a single individual, so that reference sites like TripAdvisor are very popular source of rating used by many before purchasing a product or service.

WOM
Word-of-mouth/word-of-mouse marketing where ‘people networks’ promote the message without outside influence or management.