Research for Strategic Public Relations

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Research for Strategic Public Relations

• The R in RACE

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WHY RESEARCH IS NECESSARY

• Fragmentation of audiences
• Increased isolation of top management from
  personal contact with publics
• Can prevent waste of time, effort, and money
• Research provides factual basis for programs
• Research can generate publicity
• Research can establish a baseline for the future
  evaluation of a pr program or campaign

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Research helps us do the following

• Achieve two-way communication and mutual
  understanding with our publics
• Define the situation
• Identify, segment and profile publics AKAP,
  Demographics, Psychographics, perceptions, media
  usage and preferences
• Set Goals and SMART Objectives
• Brand the campaign Identify and/or develop a
  theme or BIG IDEA for the campaign
• Determine the content and treatment of public
  relations messages
• Pretest messages
• Determine appropriate media and the timing of a
  message
• Achieve credibility with top management

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Situation analysis to determine the
organization's/client's. . .

• Structure Size, decision-making process
• History and culture
• Mission statement and organizational goals
• Features of products or services (pricing,
  outlets, benefits)
• Current publics, customers or audiences

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• Past communication experience (PR, advertising,
  direct response, etc.)
• Organization's/client's expectations of
  communication efforts
• Organization's/client's perception of its
  environment, including comparisons to other
  organizations in the industry
• Needs, opportunities, problems, challenges and
  issues as defined by Organization/client
• Stop

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PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS TO FORMULATE RESEARCH
DESIGN

• What is the need, opportunity, problem, issue or
  solution?
• What kind of information is needed?
• How will the results of the research be used?
• What specific public(s) should be researched?

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• Should the organization do the research or hire
  an outside consultant?
• How will the research data be analyzed,
  reported, and applied?
• How soon are the results needed?
• How much will it cost?

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INFORMAL RESEARCH METHODS

• Analysis of organizational materials
• Personal contacts
• Environmental monitoring
• News articles
• Regional and national poll results
• Data from trade groups

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• Library research
• Online data mining
• Advisory boards
• Analysis of letters and telephone calls to the
  company
• Focus groups
• Copy testing of planned messages and materials
• Communication audits

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FORMAL RESEARCH METHODS

• Surveys
• Experiments
• Content analysis
• Naturalistic research