Why Data is Important in PR Campaign

Data is having a significant role in public relations campaigns. Data will enrich our knowledge to compose campaign strategies and programs. Without eligible data, our background knowledge on the issues will remain on the surface. Without sufficient knowledge, the campaign might only develop a generic program and not provide a solution to address the problem.  

Data Collection

There are several ways to gather data. Firstly is by doing desk research. In the 4.0 era, collecting information from the web is common, because maybe, it is the easiest and quickest method. In a minute, you will be able to gain a lot of information, from somebody’s point of view to gigantic amounts of media coverage. Whereas, this method has several disadvantages, accuracy and low level of depth for example. Our ability and skill in browsing technique will affect the findings. One person to the other might be producing differ information, based on their level of knowledge on a certain topic, level of intelligence, and their browsing history. As you might know, google will provide customized information to the user based on their historical browsing record. 

Secondly, is conducting field research. This part will be time consuming and costly. But if you run this method in the correct way, you will gain enormous information for your campaign. Going to the field will give you nuance of the problem that you will face. Still, preparation is fully required before you start to the ground. You must analyze and set your target audiences or respondents, develop a list of questions, and determine the coverage area. In addition, learning target audience background will be significant to equip you with the information in approaching the target audiences.  

In the field research, discussion is the crucial part. By having an interview or just a light conversation, you can dig their interests, problems, and needs. Event, they might even offer a solution to address their problems. The difficult part to conduct this activity is how to develop trust from the target audiences. People tend to have mistrust of the outsider, and it’s logical. How to approach the communities and build trust are difficult. Persuasion is an art and not everybody has this talent. 

What i’m trying to say is, developing a pr campaign is not as simple as making a presentation with given outline, from background, problems, and programs. We must fully understand the problem before we are able to give the solution. Problem understanding and data analyzing are taking 50% of the campaign process, while the rest are concepting and executing the program. However, in the current situation, a comprehensive data collection is almost impossible to be conducted. Time is always the main constraint. Sometimes, the potential clients give limited time to the agency to develop comprehensive communication strategies. These conditions often lead to creating a bird view’s proposals without shooting a target. Communication is a creative process. Therefore, public relations lest become a machine which produces a proposal consisting of a list of programs.