Healthcare Case Study on PR and Advertising

By Luke Hannan

The healthcare PR firm, Macias PR, has published a case study that takes a closer look at how PR and advertising compare against each other from an ROI perspective.

The case study, PR vs Advertising vs Marketing, evaluates the two more popular methods healthcare organizations use to acquire new clients: PR and advertising. The paper evaluates media campaigns Macias PR led for two mobile apps and for a nonprofit organization. The PR campaigns resulted in nine TV stories in New York, Phoenix, Tucson and San Antonio, as well as news stories with magazines, newspapers and online publications.

A Quantitative Look at the Value of PR vs Advertising

Researchers with Macias PR calculated how much these clients would have paid for this exposure under an advertising campaign. They applied local ad market rates from Golden State Media Concepts to determine the equivalent cost for this exposure under an advertising buy. They also applied public advertising data from SuperData that revealed the average cost for a mobile app download is $2.73 per phone.

The case study revealed that the media campaign in San Antonio would have cost more than $12,000 in advertising to equal the two TV segments that aired on KENS 5 and KSAT 12. This cost does not include the influential factor of TV news, which provided more credibility and targeted consumers when they were paying attention.

In Phoenix and Tucson, Macias PR secured five TV segments promoting a mobile app, which would have cost more than $30,000, according to ad figures from Golden State Media Concepts.

The case study also evaluates a media campaign Macias PR led for the mobile app, Blush No More, which was featured on Channel 11 in New York, The Daily Mail in the UK, Channel 3 in Phoenix, GQ Magazine, The International Business Times and other online news outlets. After only one week of publicity, Blush No More had 1,833 downloads following news profiles in the Daily Mail in the UK and a TV segment Channel 11 in New York City.

Those downloads from only one week of exposure would have cost $5,004 under an advertising campaign. This cost does not include the news stories and TV segments that publicized the mobile app with future news stories. It also doesn’t include the SEO influence that branded MACIAS PR as a “top tech PR firm” and pushed the New York-based PR firm to the first page of Google under this search term.

You can read the entire case study by clicking here.