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

• 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?

• Words

• Sentences

• Paragraphs

• 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?