PR Planning and Prioritization

SUCCESSFUL PR OF AN ORGANIZATION:
STRATEGY – ALTERNATIVES AND CHOICES
IN COMMUNICATION
INTRODUCTION

 Public relation is the practice of managing the flow of information between an individual or an
organization and the public.

 Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences
using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment.

 The aim of public relations by a company often is to persuade the

1-public 2-investors 3-partners 4-employees, 5-stakeholders
to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, products, or of political decisions.

Common activities include

•speaking at conferences,
•winning industry awards,
•working with the press, and
•employee communication
NEED FOR PR STRATEGY
 A PR strategy will help you target your communication to the right audience and the right
publications at the right time.
 Why you need a PR Strategy:
 1. Find your target audience: When you create a PR strategy think about the target audience
whom you want to receive your message. This is an important step to ensure your message
will make the most impact. Without it PR activities will not be very successful.
 2. Find your key messages: One of the first steps to creating a PR strategy is to create your
key messages. Key messages are the underlying points you want your target audience to hear
and understand.
 3. Target the right journalists: Once you have determined your target audience and your key
messages, you can now think about what publications and journalists you need to contact. The
best publications are the ones that your target audience reads. This will help you to achieve
media coverage in the most appropriate publications.
 4. Determine your goal: It’s important to (find out) set a goal for your PR activities always.
By determining your goal, then you will have a clear purpose for your PR strategy and it
maximize the success of your PR activities. For example, your goal may be to achieve a 25 per
cent increase in sales a for product in three months.
NEED FOR PR STRATEGY
 5. Create a time frame: By Setting a goal, you can then plan out the steps to achieve this
goal. A PR strategy will help you to establish a time frame around these steps so you
can achieve your goal in the set time frame.
 6. Measure your success: If you’re conducting PR activities for your business your boss
is bound to ask you, “How successful are these PR activities.” If you don’t have a PR
strategy it will be harder to measure your success and answer this question. A strategy
will help you to create measurable data and determine if you achieved your goal. For
example, if your goal was to increase sales by 25 per cent you need to constantly
measure how many sales you received while implementing your strategy.
 7. Better communication: Once you have a PR strategy, it will be easier to
communicate your goal and activities. For example you can tell your client exactly what
you will be doing for them and when. A PR strategy enables you to consider every
aspect of communicating a message in the best possible way. It will also help you to
maximize the success of your PR efforts and gain the most appropriate media coverage.
PR PLANNING AND PRIORITISATION
 Effective Public Relations strategy for an organization can be planned by using a
nine step creative communication planning tool. In these steps, the planner draws
on existing information available to the organization and, simultaneously, creates a
research program for gaining further information required to drive the decisions
that will come later in the planning process.

The steps involved in planning an effective PR strategy are as follow:

 Step 1: Analyzing the Situation : is vital that all involved – supervisors,
 planner, clients, key colleagues and the final decision makers-are in solid agreement about the
nature of the opportunity or obstacle to be addressed in this step.
 Step 2: Analyzing the Organization: involves a careful and sincere look at three aspects
of the organization:
 The internal environment of the organization (mission, performance and resources)
 Perception of the public about the reputation of the organization and
 The organization's external environment that comprise competitors and opponents, as well as
supporters.
PR PLANNING AND PRIORITISATION
 Step 3: Analyzing Key Publics:
of the organization that interact on the issue at hand. PR delivers an objective technique for setting
priorities among the several publics, helping you to select important issue to dealt with. This step consist of an
analysis of each public in relations to their needs, wants and expectations about the issue, their relationship to
the organization, their involvement in communication and with various media, and a variety of social,
political, cultural, and technological trends that may affect them.

 Step 4: Establishing Goals and Objectives.

It focuses on the ultimate position being sought for the organization and for the product or service. It
helps you develop clear, specific and measurable objectives that can recognize the organization's hoped-for
impact on the awareness, acceptance and action of each key public. A good deal of attention is given to
objectives dealing with acceptance of the message.

 Step 5: Formulating Action and Response Strategies:

At this stage, various alternatives are available with the organization, and in this step you consider
what you might do in various situations.

 Step 6: Designing Effective Communication:

various decisions about the message is taken, for example the content of the message, the sources
who will present the message to the key publics, its tone and style, verbal and nonverbal cues, and related
issues.
PR PLANNING AND PRIORITISATION
 Step 7: Choosing Communication Tactics:
This step deals with the various communication options. Generally, the planner considers four categories:
1. Opportunities for personal involvement and face-to-face communication,
2. Organizational media (sometimes called controlled media)
3. News media (uncontrolled media)
4. Advertising and promotional media (another form of controlled media).
While all of these tools can be used by any organization, not every tool is appropriate for each issue.
 Step 8: Implementing the Strategic Plan:
In this step, budgets and schedules are prepared and otherwise preparation for
implementation of communication program is done. It turns the raw ingredients
identified in the previous step into a recipe for successful public relations and
marketing communication.
 Step 9: Evaluating the Strategic Plan: At last specific method for measuring the
effectiveness of each recommended tactic in meeting the stated objectives is indicated. Here
evaluative research, deals with evaluation and assessment, allowing you to determine the
degree to which the stated objectives have been met and therefore to modify or continue the
communication activities.
EVALUATING THE PROGRAM
As the public relations program addresses a wide range of audiences, we can
evaluate the public relations programs on the basis of the type of audience they address. The word
relation refers to relationships with various factors. The key publics addressed by relationship management
programs in public relations are :
 Media Relations: focus on developing media contacts i.e. knowing who in the media is
interested in the organization’s story. The conventional idea of media elations includes publicity
covering only media relations. It is based on honesty, professionalism and accuracy. Once the
reputation is lost, the public relations manager cannot get it back.

Employee Relations: These programs are aimed at communicating with internal employees to
informing employees about the company and marketing programs. This also helps in winning
the support of employees at the time of crisis.
 Financial Relations: These programs are aimed at the financial public like stockholders,
banks and financial institutions involved with the company as investing public. These programs
are aimed at press releases sent to business publications, meetings with investors and analysts
and the annual report, which the central government requires of public listed companies.
 Corporate Relations: programs focus on image and reputation. The goal is to persuade people to view
the company in a positive light. It takes a long time to build a good corporate image and takes only a small
mistake to spoil the show. The corporate image is a fragile commodity. The goal of reputation management is
to strengthen the trust of stakeholders on the organization. The public affairs take care of corporate
communication with government, and with the public on issues related to government and regulation.
Lobbying and monitoring public opinion about communicating the public for issues.
ELEMENTS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
The various elements of good public relations comprise:
 Human Relations:
 1-A man’s sense of dignity 2-A sense of security 3-recognising and appreciation
 Empathy:
The feeling towards the other is called empathy and an individual feeling sorry for him is
sympathy. Empathy can be considered as primary essential for a satisfying experience in a
relationship where a certain degree of depth of understanding is expected.
 Persuasion:
 There are two forms of interaction between individuals and between groups: force and persuasion.
 􀂙 If one party forces another to do something rather urging him, this is despotism it is against the
principles of proper conduct, authorized by society.
 􀂙 Persuasion is an argument of a wise man. An individual with strength of character can listen with
persuasion, consider, what is said and arrive at knowledgeable conclusions. It is generally a
weakling who runs away persuasion. A person generally does not want to risk being persuaded
against his prejudice.
ELEMENTS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
 Dialogue: is conversation with purpose. It is the weapon of reasons. it is form of negotiation.
 Dialogue is used for influencing behavior so as to sell goods or inspire ideas. It is a reasonable
exchange of ideas bringing into being a new form of knowledge.
 Dialogue generally involves compromise and conciliation. The first task while talking to an
unfavorably disposed group or person is to conciliate people and break down prejudice if any. A
person is clever enough who, under any conditions, make it in bringing a state of urbanity into a
gathering that is marked by high profile discussions.
 People carry numerous reasons in order to oppose compromise. A fanatic person may object since
he looks upon it as a sign of ignorable weakness. You cannot prosper in persuading people without
communicating accurately and clearly.
 Communication: Without communication there cannot be mutual understanding.
Mutual understanding is at the heart of public relations.
 Real communication is that communication which is in totality understood by another person.
 You usually think of communication in term of information exchange, public speaking, expressing
our feelings honestly or being sincere or persuasive. So you think effective communication depends
on having special talent, a good vocabulary, and the right circumstances and particularly on the
receptiveness of other people. Effective and true communication does not depend on any of these
things but somewhat on uncovering within ourselves the ability to communicate.