I had a conversation with a professional acquaintance of mine, not so long ago, about media cuttings. What we mean by this is the recording of client coverage in the media. Traditionally consultancies present the cuttings to demonstrate the success of the PR team. We don’t do this at Gem PR & Media. We don’t believe that showing our clients a book of cuttings at the end of the month, a project or campaign, proves anything - other than what you already know. 

When we first sit down with a potential client we always ask the question ‘what are your business objectives for the next 12 months, three years and five years?’ If we know what they want to achieve then we can help them achieve it. 

What we do at GPR&M is align campaigns with business objectives through a strategic and sustained approach. How we gauge success is by measuring the growth of the client’s business in the areas that we’ve focussed on. For example, we have a client in the US who sells healthy readymade meals. The business is five years old and we started working with the client in June 2015. In July, they had their best month of the year, a month in which they usually struggle, and in August they had to take on extra staff to keep up with demand. The client puts much of this growth down to the targeted online campaign that we have created and continue to manage. We didn’t need to show cuttings, the proof was in the pudding. 

We ask all of our clients, if they don’t already, to keep a record of leads so that we can continue to improve on strategy and tactics to help them grow, build brand awareness and position them as ‘go-to’ sources in their industry. We don’t do cuttings, we do results.