First thing's First

Any good public relations student knows that there is a methodical way to begin a new campaign.  This could exclude crisis communications situations, but not necessarily.  An acronym exists that guides public relations efforts: R.A.C.E. which stand for research, action, communication, and evaluation.  The building block of a public relations campaign is based on research.  Before you can change the perception of society, it is important that you research your audience.  What does you target public believe?  What does your target public want to see?  There are multiple ways to conduct research.  Just listening to the needs of your public can be a method of research.  Scanning the environment to understand what is on people’s mind is another method of research.  In my political experiences, we have always hired someone else to survey the public, to conduct our all of our polls (benchmark, tracking, and brushfire), and to conduct opposition research.  In smaller public relations firms, you may be required to conduct a limited research campaign of your own to understand your public.  I recently completed a class where we participated in a semester long research program.  Here is how we did it.  We first conducted surveys (a form of primary quantitative research).  We then found the standard deviation as well as the means and average of our survey participants.  Our second task was to conduct in-depth interviews.  Following our interviews, our class researched previously published works relating to our situation.  Finally, we held focus groups to speak directly to our publics.  The work of the class was a prime example of the first arm of public relations.