Mensuração de resultados em revistas customizadas: uma análise de métricas e metodologias usadas por editoras brasileiras/Measurement of results in custom publishing: an analysis of metrics and methodologies used by Brazilian publishers

Abstract

Resumo

O aumento da produção de conteúdo pelas empresas e a crescente busca dos profissionais de comunicação pela comprovação de resultados fez surgir no mercado a necessidade de maior conhecimento sobre técnicas de mensuração. Este artigo se propõe a analisar por meio de um estudo exploratório o processo de mensuração e avaliação em revistas customizadas em seis editoras brasileiras. Os resultados demonstram que as empresas ainda não incorporaram a mensuração de resultados em suas atividades, desconhecem as métricas e não possuem profissionais especializados no assunto.

Palavras-chave: Revistas customizadas, Métricas, Mensuração e avaliação de resultados.

Abstract

The increase in the content production by companies and the increasing search of the communication professionals for the proof of results have raised the need for more knowledge regarding measurement techniques. Although the requirement is recent, the debate around the issue is not new. It is possible to find a growing number of studies, researches, books and articles produced in recent years by market professionals and academic researchers. On the other hand, even widely debated and researched, the practice of measuring results is still viewed with reservations by professionals and has several obstacles, especially among the editors of customer magazines.The first one is the lack of professionals with knowledge in measurement, with abilities to exploit the diversity of the metrics and to use them according to the strategies of the publication. The second is the necessity of extra budget, since any attempt to quantify results requires the hiring of companies or specialists to execute them. Third, there is the fact that communication professionals, especially journalists, are not the habit of presenting results of their work because many of the attributes imputed to the activity are erroneously considered as intangible. Added to this is numeric inability, which makes it difficult to understand the metrics arising from the areas of administration, finance and marketing, and the fear of punishment, such as dismissal or cancellation of action due to negative results, and we have a hostile scenario to measurement. Despite the popularity that the theme has gained in recent years, especially among public relations professionals, we still see a large gap between the speech and practice. Much of this misalignment lies in the difficulty in defining concrete objectives to be evaluated, lack of adjustment between the organization's objectives and the objectives of the communication area, lack of knowledge about the use of the available metrics in the market, the complexity of adapting these metrics to the communication projects and lack of exclusive evaluation methods for the area. Although our object of study in this article deals specifically with the customer magazine, that is, of the publications distributed exclusively to the external public of the organizations, the moment lived by the agencies that produces content does not differ from the environment faced by communication professionals, regardless of their area of action. This article proposes to analyze by an exploratory study the process of measurement and evaluation in customer magazines in six medium and large Brazilian publishing houses, which edit in average seven titles each. Field research conducted during the months of May, June, and July 2018 interviewed company executives, all with training in journalism and over 15 years of experience in the field. The results show that the application of the measurement of results has not gained representativeness within the organizations yet, and is still very little used to evaluate the publications. Among the most cited causes is the lack of knowledge about the metrics, the lack of results collection by the clients of these companies and the lack of specialized professionals.

Keywords: Custom publishing, Metrics, Measurement and evaluation of results.