Let’s Learn P R Planning the Jefkin's Way

Friends, Thank you very much for taking out time from your very busy schedule to read my blog(s). Sharing PR knowledge with you with finesse has become my passion now and I really feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column. 

Friends, presenting 71st blog - “Let’s Learn P R Planning the Jefkins Way”

"Public relation is synonymous with persuasion and my belief is that PR was applied as soon as people communicated," - Harold Burson, Burson-Marsteller Co-founder.

Harold Burson appalls that so many who profess to be public relations or communication specialists are so far off the mark in their attempts to define public relations.

Most people, even the scholarly and the sophisticated, fail to recognize the public relations element inherent in every human transaction and communication. The smile on our faces, the tone of our voices and the messages we write, how quickly we respond to emails and phone calls, the typefaces and colours in an advertisement, the body language of the persons seeking our favour, all these are public relations elements that bring the best out of our profession.

Friends, effective PR doesn’t happen by accident, it needs to be carefully planned. As any plan, PR plan has objectives, strategies and actions. The objectives may change with time. PR planning is constant process and reflects any change in circumstances and always uses any free or low cost opportunity for publicity. Out of the many known PR models e.g. James Grunig Four Models, RICE, RACE etc., one of the most popular and widely accepted models is Jefkins model. Author Frank Jefkins created 6 points PR planning model, arguing that planning can be done in following 6 simple steps.

1. Appreciation of the situation

2. Definition of the objectives

3. Definition of the publics

4. Selection of the media & the techniques

5. Budget

6. Assessment of results

1. Situation Analysis (Research) analyzes current situation as SWOT, mission and values of organization, external factors as pressure groups activity and competition. PR plan should fit in overall marketing planning and never go against goals and mission of the company. PR plan research however needs additional research of target audience and its preferences, effective media, etc.

2. Establishing the Marketing Objectives part includes defining objectives (goals), strategies and tactics. Most popular objectives of PR plan are creating awareness (new product, new management, new CSR program); build credibility (make people believe that the publicity is coming from third party and not a planned and paid effort of the company self); increase sales; build good image; defend declining image and lower promotional costs. Objectives are never static, they change together with circumstances.

3. Defining the Target Audience (Publics) is defining relevant audience and researching issues important for given audience. Building right message for the right public is crucial for success of PR plan. Important thing here is creating messages that don’t deny each other (for different groups interests) and carefully check that a message is not offensive for other, not target, audiences.

4. Media Selection. The media will bring the message to the target audience, choosing the right media means choosing best way to communicate with the target audience. Media available for PR include print (news papers / magazines / trade journals), electronics (TV & radio broadcasting), events (conferences / charity / sponsorships / launch parties, press conferences), and the World Wide Web i.e. the Internet, (social media platforms) which has become  a very powerful mean of communication and PR today.

5. Establishing a Budget. PR, as any other activity of organization should be cost effective and budget planning helps to find optimal cost-result way for PR. Some PR activities come for free (as word of mouth) but most are paid and sometimes quite expensive.

6. Implementation and Control. Implementation is about making PR plan work. Not all press releases or online articles will be published, grand openings and sponsorships need to be reflected about in media to get attention and make PR plan work. Making PR events interesting for media and establishing good relationship with media owners is crucial point of PR plan implementation. Control is an important point as it shows how effective PR plan was (by comparing forecasted results of PR activity with actual ones). The control points may be presented by sales, brand loyalty, market position, attention from the public, etc.

At this point a PR professional can determine whether he or she was successful in executing the PR campaign or not. If he / she weren’t successful, then it will be the right time to re-design and launch another PR campaign, by taking care of all the short-comings of the earlier campaign(s), to obtain the desired results from the campaign.

Friends, there is no failure in public relations; all we experience is failure in expected feedback.

Thank you for reading the blog…….

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