Planning and executing a public relations campaign

1. A PR campaign or program must be run according to four required steps:

Research —Quality of original and secondary research used to identify the problem or opportunity and the approach likely to be successful.

Planning —Objectives, originality and judgment in selecting strat­egy and techniques, accuracy of budget, and difficulties encoun­tered.

Execution —How the plan was implemented, materials used; in-progress adjustments to the plan; techniques in winning manage­ment's support; other techniques; difficulties encountered; and effectiveness of the program's employment of dollar, personnel, and other resources.

Evaluation —Efforts made to identify, analyze, and quantify results and to what degree a program has met its objectives.

 

2. Strategic management must be carried out on different stages:

The stakeholder stage, where you identify your publics and rank them,

The public stage, where you segment the publics into active and passive,

The issue stage, on which you either resolve a problem before it becomes an issue or develop programs of crisis communication,

The objectives stage, where you specify the objectives to change the cognitions of the publics first and then their behavior,

The planning stage, on which you translate objectives into actual programs and campaigns,

The implementation stage, where you execute the action,

The evaluation stage, on which you formally, not subjectively, evaluate the action.

PR Writing

 

1. Has the target public been defined specifically enough so that the best channel of communication and the best style of writing can be selected?

• Is the selected channel of communication the one that will best reach and influence the target public?

• Is the writing style—including vocabulary and amount of background information—appropriate to the target public?

• Is the story complete enough to satisfy the information needs of the target public? Are fundamental questions left unanswered?

• Is the length of every element appropriate for the audience and channel?

1. Words

2. Sentences

3. Paragraphs

4. the entire item

• Are words correctly chosen? Is the use of jargon and specialized vocabulary appropriate to situation? Aren’t there any errors in usage, spelling? Doesn’t the choice of a word combination create confusion? Is it politically correct?

• Is reader interest maintained throughout?

§ Does the opening section identify the topic and attract attention?

§ Does the information flow logically throughout the piece?

§ Does the item indicate how or where more information can be obtained?

§ Is it attractive to read? Does it provide humor, drama or vivid examples?

§ Is it credible? Does it contain testimonials, quotes, endorsements, polls and surveys, statistics?

• Was the piece of writing properly evaluated before being released?

Preparing News Releases

§ The final versions of the stories and articles we read each day are assembled and packaged by journalists. But often the raw mate­rials—the ideas, facts and figures, quotes, and even tables or charts— are prepared by public relations professionals working for their companies or their clients. So the editors of many newspapers depend on PR practitioners, on the other hand it is good for PR people as well, because they make the information public.

 

§ A usual press release is different from a flyer – it contains more information about what, where, and when happened. A normal press release can be possibly written by a PR practitioner.

 

§ As any other document it has its standard form, but the problem is that the body or the actual contents of it mustn’t be standard. Above all PR people are interested in attracting attention of the target audience.

 

§ A press release should contain:

§ the "News" banner,

§ identification of a contact person with ad­dress and phone number,

§ the standard "For Immediate Release" line,

§ a sample headline,

§ the body of the article,

§ and the end sign (#).

 

§ There are some rules that are to be observed while composing a news release. Special attention should be paid to headlines, leads, quotations use, and sidebars.

Preparing Brochures

In the past decade, direct mail—sometimes called direct advertising—has risen to become the third largest marketing medium, right behind newspapers and television. Brochures and fact sheets are designed to go into greater detail about the issue. They provide infor­mation that can be saved, stored, referred to, and acted upon.

 

The format you decide on depends upon the needs of the occasion, the creativity of the PR department, and, of course, the size of the budget. It can be unfolded, single-fold, two-fold by norm. The latest gives more place for information and is easy to send.

 

Organizing the text presents another challenge. Depending on how many appeals or how many examples you want to provide in one publication, you may decide to use several small pieces of art—line drawings or photos—or you may feel that the impact of a single picture will carry the entire message. The management consultant Howard Upton warns that three common mistakes can negate the value of a costly brochure: Built-in obsolescence. • Ostentation. • Awkward format.

 

It is a waste of both your time and the printer's if you have not suf­ficiently thought out what it is you want printed. It helps greatly if you have in hand rough layouts or samples of jobs similar to what you are looking for. On the other hand, the worst approach you can take, unless you have an unlimited budget, is to come to a printer with the job so firmly worked out in your mind that you are totally inflexible.

 

Preparing to Speak

 

§ Speaking and speechmaking is as fundamental to PR as writing. In two-way symmetric model it is unavoidable, because it presupposes direct communication.

 

§ PR speaking is on the one hand similar to PR writing, since it must be well prepared, which mean clear, concise, correct and complete. But on the other hand it differs from PR writing, because it is personal, it is delivered by a person and carries all his emotions.

 

§ PR speaking goes through all the usual stages: research, planning, organizing and evaluation. Not a single one should be overlooked.

 

§ Since the speech is first written, it has the same with any written piece composition: introduction, body and conclusion. Besides the whole piece must be devoted to one main idea – to be complete, so one should never forget the actual purpose of delivering the speech.

 

§ Since it is still a speech, it must contain all the features of an oral piece. It must be lively, a little more impersonal, carrying the charm of the speaker. Besides the speaker must be prepared to all possible alterations: questions, interruptions, etc.

 

§ The work with the speaker should be conducted at all the stages! The speech should live in harmony with the speaker: the choice of words, the manner, the pauses, etc. Then for better success it must be rehearsed, possible questions asked and answered. Then the speaker must undergo a prep session: wear the proper attire, learn how to hold the audience’s attention, learn to deal with unexpected situations, to smile, be cordial and never rude. In case he or she has a stage fright it takes some more work on it.

 

§ Besides sometimes the speech requires some visual aids, that are always good for understanding. The conditions must be thought over beforehand: Darkening the room, coaching the speaker, preparing all the necessary equipment, etc.

 

§ The print feedback in form of releases, newsletters, etc are very useful.

 

§ Don’t ever forget that several reporters are much riskier an audience, but in the end they cost more than a thousand people audience.