A look at the best practices for researching PR campaigns
The best PR campaigns start with research first, not a story.
Great copywriters spend 80% doing research. Maybe even more.
The best painters sketch their ideas out before painting.
Successful chefs research, iterate, test, and perfect before publicizing a menu.
In the same vein, marketers and PR practitioners must do their research before pitching and executing.
Because…how do you make anything with zero knowledge?
Why Research Is Important
For one, media campaigns don’t just appear out of thin air.
Research allows PR professionals to define their clients’ goals, their target audience, and potential marketing problems that can be addressed long-term.
And truthfully, it isn’t practical for ANY campaign to start without any research. That’s like building a skyscraper with no concrete or steel.
Research doesn’t have to be too complicated, either. Read on!
Defining What Needs To Be Defined
The first step in researching any campaign is to define what needs to be mapped out.
- Have a clear goal. Is it to advocate for a cause? Reach out to a new audience? What does success look like?
- Know your target audience (demographic, region, etc.)
- Scan competition. Look into how the competitor does their PR and marketing. Do you have an edge?
- Analyze brands in your industry. Independent of competition, what makes a brand like yours stand out? How can it stand out more? What’s everyone else doing, and how can you do things differently?
From that point, it is highly recommended that a PR team continue their research.
As much as possible, no PR team should execute anything until they’re absolutely certain about all the facts.
Some Methods Of PR Research
From defining what needs to be defined, a PR professional can further map out what research is needed, and data collected, before strategizing and executing any campaign.
No two research plans are the same. Here are some methods best practiced by other PR and media professionals in assessing what a campaign needs:
SWOT
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT is a framework used to assess a company’s standing, competitive position, issues, possible issues, and potential for future growth.
This was initially used to analyze business and was plotted out on a grid. Now, any institution uses SWOT. But in the case of PR, SWOT is useful for visualizing a client’s business and using that as a starting point to flesh out a campaign.
Message Mapping
While message mapping is technically a framework developed during a campaign, PR and media professionals can also map out a company’s overall messaging: what they stand for, who they appeal to, and the values that make up the core of a company’s brand.
Customer Journey Mapping
More important than a company’s brand is how a customer finds their products or services.
Customer journey mapping entails that a company (or its PR team) tracks how a customer finds their products or services. This map can be huge, because there are both online and offline channels where customers can find said products or services.
This method is fantastic in spotting problems and potential avenues for growth. Ultimately, all companies want their customers to spot them faster.
PR professionals also love customer journey mapping because there’s just so much potential for campaigns.
Surveys
When it comes to both qualitative and quantitative data (both equally important in any campaign), PR professionals still love surveys.
The traditional marketing surveys (or even their digital versions) still serve as one of the best methods of research because they provide first-hand data from consumers themselves. If not consumers, employees, executives, people from communities, etc.
Social Listening
Social listening encourages brands to pay attention and track what people are saying about them online.
Technically, everyone on the internet socially listens one way or another. But for a PR team, social listening is critical in understanding:
- A company’s brand perception
- The brand perception of their competitor
- Upcoming and ongoing trends
- The public’s overall sentiment around a company
Media Analysis
Much like social listening, a media analysis involves tracking any sort of press coverage and media (online and offline) that mentions a company.
Media analysis allows a company (and its PR team) to:
- gain actionable insights,
- refine their brand’s overall messaging,
- manage potential PR crises, and, importantly,
- identify PR and campaign opportunities.
This comprehensive analysis involves analyzing metrics such as:
- a company’s website traffic,
- online and offline media mentions,
- overall sentiment (including sentiment offline), and
- share of voice (meaning a brand’s visibility compared to their competitors),
Content Analysis
Yes, this practice is a little similar to both social listening and media analysis. The difference is that content analysis is more systemic. Rather than just the overall picture (as is the case in media analysis) or a picture of online sentiment (as is social listening), a PR professional analyzing content is looking for patterns: in text, in pictures, in media releases…everywhere.
It’s from finishing a content analysis that a PR team can decide on following a pattern, or breaking it to potentially make waves for a company and its brand.
Focus Groups and Interviews
Knowing public sentiment straight from the source is one of the best qualitative research practices a PR professional can do–provided that they’re done well and in the appropriate environments.
Through focus groups and interviews, a professional in media can explore motivations and attitudes consumers have toward a company’s brand, their services, their products, and their overall sentiment.
There is a wealth of other research practices PR agencies and in-house teams use to see what campaigns work for a company.
Key Takeaways
Researching for a PR campaign can be daunting and overwhelming. But it’s always good to remember the basics of why you’re researching in the first place.
- Plot out what you want, and keep that in mind. This way, you can determine if what you want for a campaign is feasible before, during, and after your research.
- Research deep, not research more. Don’t do as many research methods as possible. Researching more doesn’t always mean researching good. Just focus on what you need. And you don’t risk creating a pool of data you might not need.
- Determine your KPIs and overall picture of success. During your research, you’ll eventually have a list of KPIs to consider. Don’t preemptively create a list until after your research is done.
Still need help in researching for a campaign you have in mind? For more than 20 years, NGP IMC has worked with a variety of clients, big and small. With research, they’re great to collaborate with! Contact them here or set an appointment here.
Kriztin Cruz is a recruitment and digital marketing professional, freelance writer, hobbyist painter, and frustrated sociologist–with too many things to want and too little time to spare. She graduated with a Psychology degree in 2019 at De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde Antipolo. When she’s not drafting a corporate letter or working on anything digital marketing, you can find her doing the following, but not in this order: reading a good book, scavenging for a good book, sketching, painting, journaling, junk journaling, obsessing over an obscure Czechoslovakian surrealist film (or anything by Miyazaki or Del Toro), cooking, finding a cafe to relax in, and creating new things while a nice documentary plays in the background.