Since its inception, the HCA has been committed to effective evaluation of healthcare PR and the demonstration of meaningful RoI. The first step was the production of the HCA Evaluation Toolkit published in 2003.
In 2004, an RoI ThinkTank of senior consultancy and some industry professionals was convened, as the first step in identifying the challenges we face in the definition of RoI for PR. It reinforced that, despite acknowledgement of its importance, there is a general lack of consensus amongst communications professionals as to how we can effectively measure RoI in practice.
Following on from this meeting, the HCA agreed to seek qualitative input on potential methodologies to determine RoI in different situations, which would have the potential to become routine practice - and which could also have the potential to change how PR programmes are derived and deployed as part of the marketing mix. This consultation process was initiated at the RoI Forum held in June 2005, attended by a round table of senior industry communications and marketing personnel. During the meeting, several potential processes were identified for assessing RoI and discussed in the context of different product scenarios.
We are keen now to broaden the consultation with your support. The full report from the June RoI Forum, published 19 July 2005 is essentially a consultation document. It is accompanied by a brief questionnaire seeking your comments and personal experience of RoI definitions and methodologies. All data will be anonymised and we would encourage you to give as much generic information as possible to support our aims for a robust consultation process - and one that has wide meaning throughout the pharma industry.
Please do take ten minutes to contribute and to circulate the report and questionnaire among other senior marketers and communications professionals within your organisation who may like an opportunity to comment. Finally, if you have a particular question relating to the report or the consultation process or would like to become more involved, please email RoI@hca-uk.org.
Click here to download the HCA RoI consult report.
