INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS AND RESEARCH

Importance of research in IPR

 Gaining feedback, Knowing how effective the public relations plan is at achieving the objectives helps the organization decide whether to continue with the plan, make adjustments to the plan or to scrap the plan and begin formulating a new one. Before going international, an international public relations practitioner after conducting a research it will be easy for him and his organization know of how much the organization is known internationally due to the feedback, and therefore come up with a better plan depending on the feedbacks. After a public relations plan has been formulated and then put into practice, additional research provides feedback on the actual public relations plan. This research allows the organization to determine if any of the objectives formulated for the public relations plan has been achieved and to what degree.

Research helps public relations practitioner identify its key publics and issues at the moment so the organization can focus on areas where it will deliver the most impact and value. Stakeholder group with whom organizations communicate include the community customers, suppliers, financial markets, distributors and vendors, potential employees and opinion leaders. Through research, an international public relations practitioner has to maintain intense relationship with every group all the time.

Provide the groundwork for building effective programs. Through  conducting the environmental scanning research, problem statement and situation analysis provide a room to build valuable public relations programs including establishing better goals and objectives. Objectives are more specific describing the results to be achieved by a specific rate for if the well defined target public. Moreover, are based on protected and actual program results. Goals indicate the more general result of the total program.

Performance evaluation. Is a constructive process to acknowledge the performance of a non-reliable career employee? Research helps an international public relations practitioner to know the evaluation of different employees in his organization over is their performance in order to see if they are ready to go global as an organization. Performance is everything in introducing an organization to the local publics and even global publics. An employee’s evaluation shall be sufficiently specific to inform and guide the employee in the performance of her or his duties.

Research makes public relations activities strategic by ensuring that communication is specifically targeted to publics who want, need, care about the information. Without conducting research, public relation is based on experience or instinct, neither of which plays large roles in strategic management. It is likely that research help the international public relations practitioner know of what the public needs and how to reach them instead of wasting money on the publics that are not reached easily.This type of research prevents us from wasting money on communications that are not reaching intended publics or not doing the job that we had designed them to do.

Organizational strengths and weakness. Research for public relations plan should involve a non-biased assessment of the organization itself. This research says not only the general mission of the organization but also how far the organization has gone toward achieving its mission. The research also gives a list and assessment of all resources available to the organization that it may use in the implementation of a public relations plan. Leadership in the organization also receives information about any liabilities or possible internal threats that could threaten the public relations plan, allowing the leadership to devise a plan for how to proactively manage these risks.

 

Public relations messaging. The research conducted by the organization provides valuable information about how the organization should create its public relations messaging. The research provides feedback about what matters most to the public, which the organization addresses or incorporates in public relations messaging. Thorough research on groups the organization interacts with also supplies a list of media forms the different groups engage in, letting the organization know the most effective methods of delivering its message.

Research helps identity the existing knowledge, predisposition or blur of key publics, their preferred information sources and how to reach them. Through research lead to continually bring needs and wants of the public especially activists publics into decision-making. These lead public relations practitioners or departments to respond to key publics such as activists. Therefore, for an international public relations practitioner through research he/she will be able to know the needs of the public towards the services or products provided by his/her organization.

                                                                                                      BY          

KIMATI ELITRUDAH. BAPRM 42582