Chapter 8 Notes
Evaluation
- Evaluation is the measurement of results against established objectives set during the planning process.
- PR budget devoted to measurement which is close to 5 percent but by 2010 will increase to 10 percent.
- The most widely used methods for evaluating public relations efforts are
- Measurement of production
- Message exposure
- Audience awareness
- Audience attitudes
- Audience action
- Advertising Equivalency
- Calculate the value of message exposure by converting stories into regular news columns or on the air into equivalent advertising cost.
- Computer software and databases can analyze the content of media placements by such variables as market penetration, type of publication, tone of coverage, sources quoted, and mention of key copy points.
- Benchmark coverage before and after a campaign to determine whether organizations publicity efforts paid off in terms of placement and mention of key messages.
- Cost effectiveness is calculated by taking the cost of the publicity program and dividing it by the total media impressions.
- Day-after recall participants are asked to view a specific television program or read a particular news story and the next day they are interviewed to see what key messages are recalled.
- Baseline study is a measurement of audience attitudes and options before, during and after a PR campaign.
- The entire communication activity of an organization should be evaluated at least once a year to make sure that every primary and secondary public receiving appropriate message.
- Split message is common in direct mail campaigns.
- Two or three different appeals may be prepared by a charitable organization and sent to different audiences. The response rate is then monitored to learn what messages and graphics seemed to be the most effective.
- Readership interest surveys
- Get feedback about the types of stories employees are most interested in reading.
TOW 4
For week four, I viewed an interview with Martin Waxman who owns his own PR agency in Toronto, Canada. He has based his agency on three pillars including: simplicity, energy and integrity. At the beginning of opening his agency he described media relations at being at the core of the agency but as time has continued social relations has moved to the forefront. Along with running his PR agency, he also runs a podcast that has an episode every week. Waxman felt that having a podcast is more personal to produce because you don’t have the same time to think about what you r going to say. You say what you’re thinking a d you can’t turn around and edit it like you can in a blog. The most he has to prepare himself for a podcast is a 45 minute talk session before filming about the things that they are going to discuss on the show. Waxman stresses the importance of blogging, podcast and Twitter to stay connected in the social media world. The most important thing that I learned from the interview was what he looks for in hiring new people. It’s important to have the basic and traditional skills that come with PR. I focus so much time and energy on what is new in social media and I forget to know the beginnings and where everything started. Also learning the importance of participating in blogs, podcast and Twitter, of my own and following up on people who are prominent in the industry. Know the important people of the business and what they are saying and what the comments are to the information that they are putting out. I want to learn about what skills are needed in the social media industry. I want to hear about how he started in the PR industry and the experiences he had. I also would like to learn more about his agency and what is involved in running your own PR business.
Chapter 7 Notes
Communication
- Goal is to inform, persuade, motivate or achieve mutual understanding.
- Five Communication Elements
- It has a sender/source (encoder)
- A message
- A channel
- A receiver (decoder)
- Feedback from the receiver to the sender
- The most effective two way communication is two people having a face-to –face conversation.
- Media uses and gratification theory
- The communication process is interactive
- The communicator wants to inform and even persuade
- The recipient wants to be entertained, informed, or alerted to opportunities that can fulfill individual needs.
- Clarity and simplicity of messages are enhanced by the use of symbols, acronyms, and slogans.
- Jargon interferes with the message and impedes the receiver’s ability to understand it.
- Clichés and hype words can seriously undermine the credibility of the message.
- Sleeper effect people may retain the information and eventually separate the source from the opinion.
- Key points should be mentioned at the beginning and then summarized at the end.
- Entropy which means that messages continually lose information as media channels and people process the information and pass it on to others.
- Five stages of the adoption process
- Awareness
- Interest
- Evaluation
- Trial
- Adoption
- Not necessary to go through all five stages
- How decisions are influenced
- Awareness stage: mass media vehicles such as advertising, short news articles, feature stories, radio and television
- Interest stage: detailed brochures, specialized publications, small group seminars, web sites, and meetings to provide details.
- Evaluation, Trial, and Adoption stages: personal experience, group norms and options of family and friends become more influential than mass media.
- 72 of consumers are influenced by their own experience and another 56 percent by friends and family.
- 75 percent of word of mouth communication occurs offline and in person.
Chapter 6 Notes
Program Planning
- Eight basic elements
- Situation
- Objectives
- Audience
- Strategy
- Tactics
- Calendar/ Timetable
- Budget
- Evaluation
- Objectives
- Informational objectives: expose audiences to information and to increase awareness of an issue an even or a product.
- Motivational: changing attitudes and influence behavior
- Bottom line oriented and are based on clearly measurable results that can be quantified
- PR programs should be directed toward a specific and defined audience or publics.
- A strategy provides guidelines and key message themes for the overall program and a rationale for the actions and program components that are planned.
- Program planning should take into account the environment context of the situation and the time when key messages are most meaningful.
- Concentrate the most effort at the beginning of the campaign when a number of tactics are implemented.
- Gantt chart is a column matrix that has two sides. Left side has a vertical list of activities that must be accomplished and the top has a horizontal line of days, weeks or months.
- It is not unusual for 70 percent to be salaries and administrative fees in a budget.
Chapter 5 Notes
Research
- Public relations professional use research to:
- To achieve credibility with management
- To define audiences and segment publics
- To formulate strategy
- To test messages
- To help management keep in touch
- To prevent crisis
- To monitor the competition
- To sway public opinion
- To generate publicity
- To measure success
- Primary research new and original information is generated through research design that is directed to answer a specific question. Example: in dept interviews, focus groups, surveys and polls.
- Archival research in an organizations files to reference books, computer databases and online research
- The success of the product or service in the past
- Analysis of what geographical areas provide the most sales
- A profile of a typical customer who buys the product or uses the service.
- Common reference services: Statistical Abstract of the United Sates (census info), American Demographics ( population shifts and lifestyle), Simmon’s Media and Markets ( survey of households on product usage by brand and exposure to various media)
- A lot of PR research is qualitative which is good for probing attitudes and perceptions of messages and testing messages.
- Content analysis is the systematic and objective counting or categorizing of information.
- Measure the amount of media coverage and the content of the coverage
- 250 to 500 people will give an accurate data with 5 or 6 percent variance that will help to determine public attitudes and opinions.
- Questionnaire Construction
- Highly charged words elicit an emotional reaction from the respondent.
Responses to surveys questions are influenced by events
Give a range of possible answers
- The major disadvantage of telephone surveys is the difficulty in getting access to numbers.
- Mail questionnaires reach a large geographical audience and is less expensive
- Personal interviews are the most expensive but can generate a lot of information.
