Surveys

Surveys often are performed by opinion measurement specialists, al­though increasingly people with college training in public relations are able to prepare, administer, and analyze the data from their own ques­tionnaires. As the public relations grad learns in the PR research course, samples of target audiences must be scientific and random if the results are to be valid. Questionnaires must be constructed carefully to rule out bias and to assure the validity of each item, which involves pre-testing. If done properly, the survey may take weeks to design, test, administer, and analyze—often at considerable expense. Fortunately, new software packages designed for the personal computer make it possible for the re­searcher to glean a wealth of data, including interesting correlations be­tween various responses on the survey. That richness may make the expense of time and money worthwhile.

Focus Group Interviews

Focus group interviews are a marketing research technique that has been successfully adapted to the needs of public relations practitioners. They do not yield the strictly quantitative data that can be gotten from a sur­vey. But they have the advantage of being open-ended and permitting members of target groups to speak in their own terms of understand­ing, provide their own emphasis, and respond to the views expressed by other members of the same group. The focus group interview re­quires trained moderators and equipment for recording the sessions. Audio and/or video tapes have to be put in transcript form, and then the transcripts must be summarized and analyzed. Sometimes focus group interviews are used as the basis for designing the questionnaires used in survey research, creating a valuable linkage between the two devices and enhancing the value of both. An example is the focus group research done by Larissa A. Grunig at the University of Maryland that sought to learn the attitudes of adults toward the housing of mentally ill people in apartment buildings within the community. "The focus groups were considered formative research, to be conducted before a telephone survey of a sample of all county residents and well ahead of the public relations plan to be developed and implemented by the consulting firm," the report said.

Analysis of Data

Analysis of data that already exist can be the fastest, and often the least expensive, means of acquiring information that can help with the plan­ning of a public relations campaign. Some examples:

• When the Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron sought to position itself as specializing in the emotional and social well-being of children and their families during medical treat­ment, secondary research included studying the admissions and functions of all twenty-seven hospitals in the area, and also an analysis of national statistics on "latchkey" children who re­turn from school to their homes without parental supervi­sion—a phenomenon that has a bearing on the independence and/or the emotional needs of many children who are treated.

• When Time magazine decided to help increase voter turnout in the 1988 presidential election by staging a "National Student/ Parent Mock Election," it started by analyzing census and pop­ulation statistics, sociological studies of voter turnout and apathy, and characteristics of non-voters in the United States.

• When Hill and Knowlton was engaged to counter the negative publicity directed by AT&T and others at the Open Software Foundation—a nonprofit group formed by leading computer manufacturers, including IBM—the public relations agency hired a media research firm to perform in-depth content analy­sis on 450 news stories to learn exactly which were the most fre­quent and the most damaging negative statements made about the client and its mission. Objectives were drawn specifically to counteract those negative statements.

As we saw, identifying your key publics— those groups that are most likely to seek and process information and to behave in a way that has consequences on your organization—is a fundamental aim of the process we call public relations management.

Two programs planned by public relations students at Rutgers Uni­versity for outside clients supposedly had "all Rutgers students" as the audience. The downtown merchants association wanted a campaign to attract students to their stores; the area's blood bank wanted to increase donations. Both clients assumed that all students at the university would be the target group. Surveys and focus groups conducted by the public relations students indicated otherwise. Upperclassmen were al­ready set in their ways. If they had not previously shopped in the stores near campus, and if they had not previously donated blood, the indica­tions were that it would be very difficult to change their behaviors with a one-shot information campaign.

Instead, the student-run agencies decided to target incoming fresh­men for long-range programs aimed at creating and maintaining be­haviors favorable to the clients' goals. First-year students have not fully formed their attitudes and behaviors. They are more susceptible to per­suasion than upperclass students who already have set patterns. The program prepared for the blood bank, for example, aimed not merely to get the first-year students to donate once, but to pledge a donation ev­ery semester while they are in college—an expected eight times during their career for a total donation of one gallon of blood. (The reward: a special symbol next to their names in the graduation program.)

Once target audiences have been selected, it is important to decide what message each group needs to receive from your organization. Rarely does an information campaign give precisely the same message to each of its publics. That's because careful analysis shows that each public has a different stake in the organization. When Cleveland Scholarship Programs, Inc., an organization that helps disadvantaged inner-city stu­dents attend college, used the occasion of its twentieth anniversary to highlight its contributions to the community, its public relations agency specified three key publics and a slightly different message for each of them:"