# What do communications directors and PR managers actually need from a PR analytics platform versus what gets purchased by procurement teams evaluating vendors on feature lists?

<p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">Question for anyone who's sat on both sides of a software evaluation. What do communications directors and PR managers actually need from a  <a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/categories/pr-analytics">PR analytics</a> platform that gets missed by procurement teams evaluating vendors on feature lists?</p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">The RFP tends to score vendors on feature-grid breadth, like most sources, biggest journalist database, and most boxes ticked. </p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">But from what I can tell, a comms lead needs:</p><ul>
<li>Day-to-day coverage that's accurate and relevant, </li>
<li>alerts fast enough to act on, </li>
<li>a report you can send an exec without a half-day of cleanup, and </li>
<li>a tool the whole team still uses eight months after onboarding.</li>
</ul><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">You can see the gap in the reviews: the platforms people rave about for ease and precision aren't always the ones with the longest spec sheet, and some of the biggest suites that win on paper are the same ones users call overwhelming and hard to configure. Procurement optimises for coverage-on-paper; practitioners optimise for "does this save me time on a Tuesday."</p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">So for the comms leads and software analysts here: what's the feature procurement fell in love with that’s never actually used, and the unglamorous thing (clean exports, an alert that fires in time, a support rep who picks up) that actually decides whether a team keeps the tool?</p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true"></p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true"></p>

##### Post Metadata
- Posted at: about 1 month ago
- Author title: Tech Consultant
- Net upvotes: 1


## Comments
### Comment 1

&lt;p&gt;The features I&#39;d worry least about are the ones that look impressive in demos but rarely become part of the weekly workflow: thousands of niche sources nobody monitors, AI scores nobody can explain, or highly customizable dashboards that only one power user knows how to maintain.&lt;/p&gt;

##### Comment Metadata
- Posted at: 29 days ago
- Author title: Marketing Executive





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