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Public Relations Strategies | Reaching Your Audience
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Successful PR is largely dependent on creating a relevant and focused PR plan. One way to ensure your PR plan is relevant and successful is to create a focused plan. This means that your homework needs to be done. Things to look for when doing your homework:

• Your audience. Who are they? Where do they go online? What are some of the problems they are looking to solve? How can you solve them?
  
  
• Relevant publications. Which publications (online and off) reach your audience the best? What do your customers read? Will they find value in a blog, or prefer to read something in a magazine? Does your target audience read consumer or trade magazines?
  
  
• Preferred medium. Do they prefer reading to watching a video, or vice versa?
  

A great way to find these things out is to really reach out to your customers. Way you can do this include:

• Primary research: Surveys and focus groups are two forms of primary research, and they can be done for relatively low amounts of money. There are great online tools, such as SurveyMonkey, that creates surveys for your online needs (though this relies on the fact that your target audience is online). Focus groups can often be done for low amounts of compensation or a meal. Customers are willing and able to share their opinions (and many really enjoy sharing them), so all you have to do is simply ask!
  
  
• Secondary research: This can include things like research other companies have done (usually available to you for a price). The benefit of these studies is that other companies who specialize in research may have a more in-depth look at things, know better questions to ask respondents, and have a wider reach in terms of the customers and participants they can reach. Moreover, they may have more resources available to them to make the study very useful. More often than not, these studies can be expensive, but well worth the investment because of the insights they offer. Another secondary source of information can be census information (for demographic data). With the 2010 census underway, the new data that will be available therein will greatly benefit businesses nationwide.
  

The goal of primary and secondary research is to really discover where your customers spend their time online, the sorts of solutions they are looking for, and the places they regularly go for information. This can help you to focus your PR efforts correctly so that you do not waste resources or time. Knowing whom to target is the first step in creating a successful PR plan. Once you know whom to target, you can establish where your efforts will be best spent. For example, it doesn’t make much sense to send in your stories or press releases to a consumer magazine if your customers are more interested in trade publications.

Do your homework to create great PR plans. What strategies have you used to reach your audience?