As we’ve noted before, the real impact of publicity is notoriously hard to track and quantify. With more and more publicity exposure taking place via the web – exposure that often remains available and searchable for far longer than most print media ever did – it’s harder than ever to know who’s reading what, and what percentage of them act on what they read.

Anecdotal evidence continues to come in, though, saying, “Publicity works.” The latest installment:

Michael Chusid recently wrote an article in a major architectural magazine about an advanced materials conference he attended. In it, he mentioned a company that made a presentation, a company that specializes in digital fabrication and has done a lot of work with resin composites. They weren’t the focus of the article, just one of many things described.

A few weeks after the article appeared – I was going to say “in print,” but with simultaneous web distribution of most magazines, print has become merely the tip of the iceberg – the president of the company received a call from one of the largest and most prestigious architectural firms in the world. They requested him to come and do a presentation to them. That kind of request was the bullseye on his marketing strategy target.

Of course, this was only shortly after publication. Who knows how many more such inquiries he may get from that one mention, over the next few years? The shelf life of articles on the web has become pretty much Forever, and unlike the advertising, they show up in search engines. We have had numerous inquiries recently, responding to articles we authored for clients two or three years ago.