Research: Outcome-based PR Tactics (Survey)

Public Relations operates on a time continuum; an ongoing effort. Adjusting or adapting your tactics based on results and outcomes is necessary in order to maximize the return on your PR investment. Improving a process should be an ongoing effort. Universal Information Services believes we can help you.Earlier this year we launched the first of two surveys to develop a valid means to use outcomes as an indicator for future public relations tactics. The information we analyzed from that survey, Expanding Public Relations into Predictive Analytics, has allowed us to move to the second phase of our research.In our effort to develop Outcome-based PR Tactics, tactics that are indicated by the outcomes of your immediately prior efforts, our media measurement team has designed a very short survey. In our first survey we sourced detailed PR tactics that PR professionals might use, given a specific PR scenario. The 28 questions in that survey have been distilled into 8 general PR scenarios, with each scenario having four to five possible tactics to choose from. We now want to survey a wider array of PR professionals to determine which single tactic is most favored given a specific type of PR scenario.Again, to give you an idea of the level of professionals sourced for the research foundation, here are some statistics.Some statistics from our first survey results:

• PR professionals responded form California to New York• Responses from NY state accounted for 1/5 of all responses• Responses were obtained from 13 states, spread across the entire U.S.• 50% of responses came from PR pros with over 20 years’ experience• 94% of responses came from PR pros with over 8 years’ experience

This next survey will provide only multiple choices of tactics for each of the theoretical scenarios. Again, PR professionals will be asked to select a single tactic they feel would be most appropriate for specific scenarios. From the results of this second survey we will distill the key tactics that would be indicated for specific scenarios. Ultimately, we believe we can correlate media results, and measured outcomes, to next-step tactics that will improve your results.We understand many factors contribute to a PR plan, but as a “next-step” indicator, we believe using big data to help you when deciding on next steps could be extremely valuable to you and your clients.