The McRae Agency
KB Home
Summary
KB Home, formerly Kaufman and Broad, is one of America’s premier homebuilders with operating divisions in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. Currently, KB Home has 17 communities in San Diego County, specializing in homes for entry-level and first-time move-up buyers. We work closely with the marketing team, coordinating community grand openings and special events as well as ongoing media relations.
Unfortunately, due to time constraints and a modest budget, we were unable to conduct formal market research. However, we were able to do secondary research, which involved a strategic planning session, executive interviews and Internet research. We conducted a thorough half-day strategic planning session with our entire account team and key KB Home management to identify target audiences, messages and objectives for KB Home’s public relations program. KB Home’s marketing team wanted increased media coverage of their grand openings, especially television, which was most successful in reaching their target audience and driving traffic to their communities. KB Home was a demanding client, focusing on results to prove a program’s overall success.
We set out to create a document that not only showed our publicity “hits”, we wanted to give KB Home a ROI (or return on investment) measurement tool. We created a reporting chart, or “scorecard,” to track our hits based upon the quarterly objectives: five major print hits (San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego Business Journal, San Diego Daily Transcript, etc.), 10 minor print hits (community newspapers) and two television or radio hits. We gave ourselves quantifiable goals to judge the success of the program because we know how difficult it can be to qualify a PR program’s effectiveness.
Not only did we want to illustrate our performance, we wanted to give the marketing team a reporting device to use in its quarterly meetings with upper management. We created a document divided it into several sections including date, event/news item, media outlet, graded (which would count towards final “score” for PR success), key messages, charitable tie-in and community contributions. Graded items included bylined stories, feature stories, news articles (over 100 words), news briefs (under 100 words), quotes, TV stories/interview and radio interviews. Certain items, such as advertorials, public service announcements, news from KB Home’s corporate PR department and research/public knowledge with KB Home mentioned, would not be included in the “graded” column, as requested by the marketing team. The scorecard was further divided into quarters based upon our fiscal year. Our quarterly goals (five major print, 10 minor print and two television or radio), actual hits and variance would be listed at the end of each quarter. We updated the scorecard each month. This kept us aware of our strengths and areas that needed improvement.
Results
The scorecard we developed for KB Home has greatly impacted our media relations program. We have created a quantifiable way to judge a public relations program, based upon stated goals and objectives that have been agreed upon by the client and agency. The scorecard proves our strong belief in accountability – there is no room for excuses. At a glance, we are able to see our strengths and areas that need improvement. This grants us the opportunity to “tweak” our tactics and program during the quarter to maximize our effectiveness. The scorecard has received numerous accolades from the marketing team at KB Home/San Diego. The report has helped the marketing team look good to their boss, which in turn, make us heroes in their eyes. In fact, the marketing manager sent the scorecard template to the public relations manager at KB Home Corporate and suggested it become the new reporting standard for the entire company. Previously KB Home was ranked number two in the San Diego County homebuilder market. As of second quarter 2001, KB Home is ranked number one with more net homes sales than any other builder in the county.
The KB Home PR scorecard received a bronze anvil Edward L. Bernays Mark of Excellence Award by the Public Relations Society of America.