5 customizable PR report templates to save you time

PR reports are a necessity in the public relations world. They help us stay accountable to higher-ups and busy clients about what we do with our workday (and their money).

Plus, they’re a lot of fun to write.

Said no one ever.

Thankfully, you can save a little time and energy writing these beloved documents using the following customizable report templates. We made the outlines, so you don't have to!

PR reporting isn't a one-size-fits-all science. In fact, your PR report can contain as little (or as much) information as you and your agency deem necessary. As long as it’s useful for your team, it’s the “right” amount of information.

Some reports will be simple Google Sheets, while others will be exhaustive, overly long Word documents. It all comes down to personal preference (and what your stakeholders and C-suites want to see).

You can include things like:

• Important key metrics and statistics that align with previously identified goals
• Coverage obtained (such as profiles, interviews, and news pieces, social shares)
• Backlinks
• Screenshots of social posts, blog posts, and other content published
• Actions taken that provide PR value (pitches sent, content distributed, social media posts, etc.)
• Any other tidbits that bring you and your brand closer to achieving campaign goals based on your PR strategy

Of course, the metrics you should include depend on the type of report you're drafting. 

Some of the most common PR report types include:

A daily report will likely be your shortest PR report, and not all PR folks are expected to account for daily activities. Why? Because it's excessive and time-consuming, and, frankly, PR just doesn't change that fast.

Weekly reports are more common than daily ones. They can help your campaigns stay calibrated and your team be aware of any significant updates.

Weekly updates will often include things like website visits, social posts and analytics, media monitoring mentions, social media engagement, and actionable steps for the week.

Your monthly and quarterly public relations reports will likely be beefier and include more macro metrics that address broader objectives.

In your monthly and quarterly reports, you'll want to discuss how your efforts are strategically getting the company closer to its stated SMART objectives and high-level goals.

And if your efforts aren’t getting you closer to those goals? Well, you might want to start discussing how that will change.

These reports should also include any major progress made since previous reports were analyzed, marketing challenges, competitor analysis results, and next steps.

You could also push this to an annual report, but many teams find this too infrequent. Whatever time period you and your team decide on, just ensure that it’s long enough that you’re able to see helpful trends based on key metrics but not so frequently that it ends up being a huge time sink.

A coverage report, also called a media report or a clippings report, can be completed quarterly or at set intervals as determined by the needs of your team. 

Since coverage is often one of the slower PR metrics, it can happen on a less frequent basis than your other reports. You may also want your coverage reports to sync up with your campaigns, product launches, and other PR initiatives.

A coverage report can include things like:

• Social media mentions, coverage pieces, articles, and other notable successes
• Backlinks
• Share of voice metrics
• Brand sentiment analysis
• Stats and links from monitoring tools (Ahrefs, Google Analytics, social media marketing platforms)

Log coverage against your media contacts for easier reporting with Prezly.

A social media report can aggregate statistics and digital engagement metrics from your identified social media channels.

In this report, you can share growth/decline statistics, viral social media posts, Reddit mentions, influencer mentions, and anything else social media-related.

Social media reports are an excellent opportunity to evaluate content creation methods and determine whether social media marketing strategies need to be changed or if things are going (and growing) as planned.

There are many different types of PR reports, such as crisis reports and campaign reports, but we’ve created templates for some of the most common types of PR reporting. Each template can be individualized to meet your specific needs.

Your daily report should be short and sweet, building upon the previous workday. It should also have a simple structure, be easy to scan, and not require much effort to update daily.

Date:
​​
​Daily goals & objectives
​- Create an actionable to-do list
​- Tasks should relate to overall PR goals
​- Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for team members
​​
​Ongoing projects
​- List the projects and campaigns that are actively being worked on
​- This can include product launches, interviews, client onboarding
​- Anything that needs active attention
​​
​Forecasting
​ -Include upcoming projects, reports, or future campaign details that should stay top-of-mind

Similar to a daily report, your weekly report should give you a general roadmap and actionable steps for the week.

Date: ​
​​
​Weekly goals & objectives
​- What should the focus be for this week? Outreach activities, etc.
​- Step-by-step guide for team members
​- Who is responsible for what on the PR/marketing teams
​​
​Ongoing projects
​- List events, campaigns, interviews, or client meetings for the week
​- Progress reports for ongoing projects
​- Anything that needs active attention
​​
​Key analytics to note
​- New backlinks
​- Analytics and graphs from relevant monitoring tools

A quarterly report should have more in-depth insights about longer public relations campaigns, initiatives, and goals. This could also be customized as a monthly activity report if you choose.

What did we accomplish this quarter?
​- Identify clear progress based on previously stated goals
​- Share how you connected with external stakeholders, current customers, and potential customers through various channels
​​
​Trend/analytics analysis
​- Include pie charts, graphs, and other visual representations to demonstrate growth (or decline) over the last three months
​- Discuss the efficacy of outreach efforts based on the data
​​
​Next steps
​- Talking about what was accomplished is good, but it needs to inform the next quarter. How will you change your strategy based on what is and isn't working? Make sure that your quarterly report includes a roadmap of where to go next 

Coverage reports are often simple spreadsheets that outline the coverage, links to articles, status, updates, and other key info about what kind of coverage is being worked on.

Start with the date, then address:

You don't need to do this manually. With Prezly, you can log coverage right in the app, making it easy to track, share, and update:

Social media reporting is often done as a spreadsheet or straight from one of the many social media tracking tools.

Start with the date, then address:

Social media post analytics:

Social media reports are another report you don't need to create manually. There are many awesome tools that will aggregate and visualize your social media presence and engagement rates across numerous channels.

Why even bother with a PR template at all? Can't you just write them yourself?

Yes, of course. We certainly won’t stop you! In fact, many people find that a personalized template is ideal for their workflow, because it includes only the most relevant information for their team, brand, or campaign.

But a template offers a few tangible benefits, including...

Use your energy to focus on the things that matter, and let a template save you a few minutes.

Plus, you can use that precious time to do something important, like scroll on TikTok or engage in some existential dread.

No need to re-create the wheel. PR reports are not the most exciting documents in the world (nor should they be), so save some of those creative juices for other things (like the aforementioned existential dread sessions).

One of the main reasons PR folks fail to keep up with a regular PR report schedule? It's too complicated and lengthy and tends to run on needlessly.

Remember, unlike this SEO article, your PR report does not need a minimum word count. The shorter, the better.

An easily copy-and-pasted, customizable public relations report template can help you make your reporting more professional by maintaining the formatting each week (or month, or quarter).

Templates save time, but the right tools? Those are worth their weight in gold. 

Prezly is an all-in-one PR software that's great for PR reporting. It helps you win coverage, send campaigns, create beautiful newsrooms and press releases, and, yes, even create and send informative PR reports.

Prezly can help you track coverage straight in the app to help you demonstrate your PR prowess to clients, colleagues, and C-suites. It also allows for robust media monitoring with minimal effort, so you can stay ahead of the gossip.

Using Prezly for reporting on your PR efforts couldn't be simpler:

• Log coverage manually or with built-in media monitoring
• See who opens and clicks on your email pitches
• Get engagement analytics for your newsrooms
• See all those stats reflected against your media contacts in your PR CRM
• Report to your stakeholders using Prezly email campaigns

Sound good?

Start your 14-day free trial of Prezly now →

PR reporting is necessary to prove your worth and acumen as a public relations expert. Save time and effort by using a template so you can focus on the important work. 

The right template can help you stay focused on key metrics and help demonstrate your value so you can spend your time on outreach efforts, not boring reports.