Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
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Link
This unit builds on Unit 6:
Understanding public relations
campaign planning.
Clarifying objectives
and planning actions
‘A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.’
(Chinese proverb)
After weeks of preparation, it is time to activate the campaign plan. This can
be an anxious as well as an exciting time for public relations practitioners,
as their work involves detailed planning, plus the ability to react and adapt
promptly when circumstances demand. While it is possible to look down
the campaign ‘road’ and identify key milestones, in PR the journey often
stumbles on unexpected obstacles. This unit focuses on how to maximise the
chances of success, anticipate and react to potential obstacles, and help you
contribute confidently and competently to the whole process.
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
1 Clarify objectives
Campaign objectives
The first step is to go over the initial plan to clarify all the elements and also
to identify the opportunities and expectations of your own contribution.
Transparency and clear lines of communication should be central to every stage of
the campaign.
This is the time to settle precisely what tasks you are required to perform and
feel confident that you have the knowledge and skills to perform them. It is also
a good time to seek out mentors and scrutinise how and why colleagues carry
out their tasks in certain ways. Many lessons learned this way should be worth
adopting, but the exercise should also help you avoid repeating the mistakes of
others.
Cascading objectives
The campaign will have an overall objective or aim, but individuals within the
campaign team will also have personal objectives. Objectives for both the
campaign and individuals within the campaign team should be SMART (specific,
measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound).
Cascading objectives means that although objectives will be different at different
levels of the team, they are aligned to work together. For example:
•• the overall campaign’s objective may be to raise usage of cycle helmets
among teenagers by at least 15 per cent within 12 months
•• an individual working in the campaign team may have an objective of
achieving editorial coverage of the campaign message in at least ten different
national publications and websites targeted at teenagers by November.
The individual’s objective helps to work towards the overall objective.
Overall planning model
Link
As you learned in Unit 6:
Understanding public relations
campaign planning, the planning
model starts with an analysis of
where you are now, where you want
to be, how you are going to get there,
what tactics you are going to use and
what resources are needed.
Psychologically there is an enormous difference between sitting in an office,
creating ideas for your campaign, and taking that campaign out of your comfort
zone to engage with a range of different, external audiences, not all of them
supportive.
Do not worry if you feel a little nervous at this stage; most of us do. But you will
feel more confident if you can answer yes to the following questions.
1 Have you understood the analysis which outlines where the organisation,
issue or client is now? Elements (see Unit 6) are likely to include various
surveys and internal or external analysis. Has there been a SWOT (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, a PEST (political, economic,
social and technological) analysis or PESTEL (PEST plus environmental and
legal) analysis? If so, have you understood them?
9.1: Clarifying objectives and planning actions
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
2 Have you understood the overall campaign aims and objectives? What
are you setting out to achieve and what is your role? The objectives should
be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. During
a campaign, it is easy to become so busy coping with the everyday tasks that
you lose sight of these. If it helps, pin them up somewhere convenient to
remind yourself – or add them to your screen saver.
3 Who are you communicating with? Hopefully, the plan will include in-depth
analysis and details of the specific audiences who will be targeted during the
campaign. It is always a good idea, especially if you have not been involved
with the initial planning stage, to do some research yourself to see if you can
find out any other useful information about these audiences.
Key term
Segment – a portion of an audience.
For example, the Department for
Transport might want to produce a
campaign to encourage safer driving,
but could segment the audience for
their campaign (and the message) by
city drivers and rural drivers.
4 What are you saying? The plan should include the key messages to be
communicated in virtually every conversation or communication during the
campaign. You should be aware of the different segments of your audience
and how you should tailor the key messages for each segment. Again, it is not
a bad idea to pin them up somewhere obvious. But it is also a good idea to
try them out, when you have some privacy. Can you imagine reciting them to
target audiences? Once you have said each one, can you envisage how you are
going to justify and expand on it?
5 Which media are you targeting? Study the plan’s section dealing with media
targets. How are they prioritised? How easy or difficult is it likely to be to reach
and influence them? Do some of your own research, including such practical
activities as visiting a large newsagent and leafing through some relevant
publications. Although you can do this online, observing how a shop places
publications on its shelves and gauging the reaction of potential customers
can add to your understanding.
Planning model
One simple template for a campaign is called POSTAR, which stands for:
•• Positioning
•• Objectives
•• Strategy
•• Tactics
•• Administration
•• Results.
In practice this can be extended into a typical campaign road map which should
cover all the following necessary elements.
•• Initial planning: how is your organisation currently perceived by internal and
external audiences?
•• Key issue: what will you be campaigning about?
•• Key objectives: what do you want to achieve?
•• Key messages: what will you communicate?
•• Target audience(s): whom do you want to influence?
•• Media targets: which media will influence your target audience(s)?
•• PR tactics: what do you plan to do?
•• Communication materials: how do you plan to communicate your messages?
•• Spokespeople and champions: who will communicate your messages?
9.1: Clarifying objectives and planning actions
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
Link
See Unit 6: Understanding public
relations campaign planning for the
background to planning a campaign,
including conducting a SWOT and a
PESTEL analysis, allocating resources
to a campaign, and setting and
cascading overall SMART campaign
objectives.
•• The team: who will do what?
•• Resources: how much will it cost?
•• Evaluation: how will you measure outcomes?
The first section of a basic campaign plan might look like those shown in the
following case studies (although the plan itself is likely to be a greatly expanded
version of these examples):
Case study 1
This campaign plan focuses on the proposed change of chief executive next year.
•• Executive summary: sets out the challenge of having a long-standing CEO
who is seen as the public face of an organisation with very definite views on
the sector, who is leaving and being replaced by someone who has had little
communication with stakeholders, especially the media. Outlines in some depth
the current status of an organisation, the sector and the wider environment.
•• Key objectives: to retain existing business, attract new business and
investment, convince stakeholders that it is not just ‘business as usual’ but a
positive move forward – and all this while thanking and congratulating the
outgoing CEO on a job well done.
•• Key messages: set out and justify the small number of messages which will
permeate all communication materials. For example: ‘We’re delighted at the
appointment of…to build on the work done by…’; ‘In recent years we’ve
focused on… and achieved…’; ‘Our priorities under our new leadership are now
to…’
•• Key audiences: prioritise the different audiences to be influenced, either
directly or indirectly.
•• Media strategy: prioritise the different media targets and the manner in which
they will be encouraged to cover the changeover accurately and positively.
•• Tactics: a range of initiatives and actions to implement your campaign plan
over a certain timescale.
•• The team: different roles during the campaign.
•• Resources: outlining the costs, in terms of both expenses and staffing costs.
•• Evaluation: how the campaign will be evaluated at different stages or
milestones.
9.1: Clarifying objectives and planning actions
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
Case study 2
This campaign plan focuses on the promotion of a public safety initiative.
•• Executive summary: sets out the challenge, such as the opportunities and timing
of such a campaign, the current views and environment, and the likely opposition.
•• Key objectives: ‘to raise awareness of the dangers of…’, ‘to win support from key
stakeholders’ and ‘to reduce to number of deaths and serious injuries from…’
•• Key messages: these are likely to combine a memorable message such as that used
to encourage people to wear seat belts in cars – ‘Clunk clink every trip’ – and a few
key facts and figures.
•• Key audiences: prioritise the different audiences to be influenced, either directly or
indirectly.
•• Media strategy: prioritise the different audiences to be influenced and consider
some initiatives to generate accurate and positive media coverage.
•• Tactics: a range of initiatives and actions to implement your campaign plan over a
certain timescale.
•• The team: different roles during the campaign.
•• Resources: outlining the costs, both in terms of expenses and staffing costs.
•• Evaluation: how the campaign will be evaluated at different stages or milestones.
Case study 3
This campaign plan focuses on promoting a new type of solar-powered bicycle.
•• Executive summary: sets out the challenge, such as the timing of such a campaign,
the competition and the threat of regulations on bicycles that have power packs.
•• Key objectives: to promote the bikes to key audiences, to promote their green
credentials, to emphasise their role in improving health and fitness in key audiences
and reducing dependency on motor vehicles.
•• Key messages: these are likely to combine a promotional slogan, such as ‘Go Go
Green’, with messages about making cycling more accessible for all.
•• Key audiences: focus on those who need to cycle for work, but would appreciate
the extra boost of a power pack, the over-50s, those living in hilly areas.
•• Media strategy: focus primarily on coverage on national TV, regional media in hilly
areas, and specialist media for public service workers and the elderly.
•• Tactics: initiatives to include promotions in a range of towns and cities which are
hilly, working with an age-related pressure group, promoting support from a small
group of known figures who are over 50, winning support from local councils, with
special loan offers for a selected group of officials and councillors.
•• The team: different roles during the campaign.
•• Resources: outlining the costs, both in terms of expenses and staffing costs.
•• Evaluation: how the campaign will be evaluated at different stages or milestones.
9.1: Clarifying objectives and planning actions
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
Campaign concepts
Most campaigns depend on a couple of concepts which may not look too obvious
in your campaign plan. They can be summarised as the ‘drip drip effect’ and ‘the
tipping point’.
The drip drip effect
Imagine an empty glass: this is the starting point of your campaign.
Imagine your plan’s tactics as dripping water – at various speeds – into the glass.
Imagine the point at which the glass is full – that is, you have achieved your
objectives.
The tipping point
This comes from Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things
Can Make a Big Difference. What do tipping points mean in practice? During a
campaign, you may start to wonder whether all the planning and effort is worth
it, and whether the campaign is really making an impact. To answer this you need
to evaluate whether, on a daily basis, you are making a difference – for instance,
making more friends and fewer enemies. A common scenario is to work day
by day, week by week, month by month, communicating your messages and
influencing stakeholders; then, often quite suddenly, you win! Very often it is due
to the accumulation of all that planning and work.
Sometimes those involved believe this success has resulted from one particular
initiative. However, most often it is the result of all those individual tactics and
initiatives, pursued relentlessly over a certain timescale.
The concepts of the drip drip effect and the tipping point are slightly different
ways of achieving the same outcome. Patience is needed in both cases.
Tactics
The second step is to study what tactics, initiatives or actions have been factored
into the plan. Do not overestimate the possibility of a reality gap developing
between what your organisation wants to achieve and what it is likely to achieve,
given the planned tactics. Study the plan carefully and try to visualise taking part
in the different initiatives and how they are likely to turn out in practice.
For example, the plan may mention:
•• a launch event – to attract national media coverage in television, radio and
print media
•• an interview with a CEO on a main television news channel
•• a new campaign-focused website, linked to your organisation’s main website
•• photographs with extended captions or short stories in the business sections
of at least three European-wide and national newspapers.
Do you believe this is achievable? Will these media outlets be convinced of your
messages? How could you contribute to achieving them?
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
What tactics?
When considering the range of tactics to reach your key audiences, it is useful to
maintain a checklist of possible initiatives. Different tactics carry different resource
requirements – some are expensive, some require a lot of staff and others require
more time but fewer staff. They are likely to be extensive and to include most of
those listed in Table 9.1.1.
Table 9.1.1: Resource requirements
for different tactics
Tactics
Resources
Media relations
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Press materials
Interviews
Press conferences/briefings
Press trips
Articles and features
Graphic and photographic materials
Video news releases
Promotional material
•
•
•
•
•
Annual reports
Brochures, leaflets and newsletters
Surveys and analysis
Product/service literature
Sponsorship/corporate social responsibility
New media
• Websites
• Blogs
• Social media
Events
•
•
•
•
Receptions
Events
Hospitality
Direct lobbying
Exhibitions/Conferences
•
•
•
•
Stands
Demonstrations
Workshops
Speeches/presentations
The basic campaign plan should already have identified the most appropriate of
these tactics for your specific campaign. What it may not set out is exactly when
each one will be used. Nor are you likely to know which ones you will be most
involved with.
Resources
The resources allocated to campaigns are often a combination of human (i.e. the
time of internal people involved in the campaign) and financial. Generally, there is
a relationship between the two – a project with relatively high human resources
(i.e. a team with a large amount of time available for the project) may require fewer
financial resources, but a project with little human resources is likely to require
higher financial resources.
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
However, a project with a high level of human resources does not necessarily cost
your agency any less. These resources carry costs that are often hidden, such as
wages, pensions or equipment. If your agency provides PR as a service for other
businesses, the in-house time will be costed into the price the client is charged.
It is important that a campaign is accurately costed. This costing needs to take
account of:
•• the cost of internal time
•• the fee rates of any freelance suppliers who may be needed to supplement
in-house time
•• the fixed costs for printing, recording video, audio, venues for launches, etc.
Time management and timeline
Figure 9.1.1: Example of
a project timeline
January
Some of the tactics covered earlier can be started quite quickly, but most will
involve longer-term planning and stand-alone strategies. Figure 9.1.1 gives
an example of a project timeline. If exhibitions and conferences are included in
your overall plan, a considerable amount of work will be needed to maximise
the impact. It is essential that you are aware of the deadlines required for certain
tasks to achieve critical dates. For many such events, exhibition stands or speaking
opportunities must be booked as much as one year in advance.
• Book exhibition space.
• Negotiate speaking opportunity for head of research at conference.
• Discuss possible ‘news’ stories, such as analyses or surveys.
• Liaise with marketing department on materials.
February
• Research media attendance and opportunities to generate coverage.
March
• Book venues for entertaining journalists; update on ‘news’ stories and materials.
April
• Select first-tier journalists to be invited to conference event, together with second- and third-tier journalists to be contacted.
May
• Finalise and liaise on first draft of press pack.
• Brief executives on objectives, strategy and tactics.
• Liaise with CEO on speaking engagement.
June
• Finalise leaflets and send to printers.
• Liaise with marketing on exhibition stand.
• Research other attendees and their likely activities.
July
• Revise press pack and check on progress of other materials.
August
• Carry out thorough recce of venues and facilities; finalise press pack.
• Send invites to journalists to events, giving info on activities.
Early September • Print out press pack.
• Chase up and finalise invites to journalists.
• Check on latest news and research that may influence the media and other stakeholders.
Late September
• Final check on arrangements regarding stand, conference, media events and materials before start.
• Check on latest news and research that may influence the media and other stakeholders.
Similarly, if you are planning to launch a guide, booklet or other type of printed
publication, you need to factor in the production timeline. This process is likely to
include the stages shown in Figure 9.1.2 (page 9).
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
Figure 9.1.2: Example
of a timeline for a
printed publication
April
Seek costs or quotes from printer/publishers.
May
Approve the outline, pagination, basic format and timeline/deadlines with contracted printer/publisher.
June
Send draft to printer/publisher.
July
Approval of draft, design and formatting.
August
Send for printing.
Early September Scrutiny and approval of final proofs.
Mid-September
Delivery of publication.
Your own contribution
At every stage of the processes, you need to understand your role: what you are
responsible for; to whom you are reporting. But one of the great advantages of
working in PR is the opportunity to work as part of a team, exploiting the skills
and talents of every member. During the planning and implementation stages,
you should expect regular team meetings to review progress, discuss and agree
actions, allocate tasks and brainstorm creative ideas.
If you are working for a consultancy, you are likely to be required to fill in
timesheets, setting out precisely how you have spent every hour of your day.
Whether you have to do this or not, it is recommended that you keep a short note
in your computer system for every working day of what you have done and list
action points for the next couple of days. This is a good habit to develop and helps
to remind you at times of stress about what you are committed to delivering.
Activity
List the eight main tasks you
have performed each day over
the past five working days. Then
outline the five main tasks you
expect to perform over the next
five days.
Key considerations about your own contribution are as follows.
•• You need to understand how you contribute towards achieving the overall
aims and objectives of the campaign. What are your specific deliverables, and
what is the deadline for these? How do these aims and objectives affect the
decisions that you make?
•• If you are uncertain on any of the objectives, whom should you approach
for help? It will be important to seek clarification and agreement in order to
enable effective activity planning and to check that plans are realistic.
•• When working with others – either external suppliers or internal colleagues –
you need to repeat the key objectives to them at every opportunity. Are you
clear in your understanding of the objectives and deliverables?
•• Have you got SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound) objectives for your contributions to the campaign? These are more
than just deadlines by which activities should be completed and will help
to embed the overall campaign objectives in your work. Are the objectives
achievable with the resources available?
•• Who are the stakeholders for the campaign and what are the reporting
arrangements (e.g. is there a regular progress meeting)? Whom do you need
to discuss priorities with if you have competing demands on your time? What
are the critical activities that need to happen on time for the campaign to
succeed?
•• What are your contributions to implementing the tactics for the campaign?
Which channels are you responsible for, or involved in? What outputs and
activities will be relevant for these channels?
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
•• Do you understand the audience for your campaign and how the key
messages should be tailored for them? Can you segment your audience and
adapt your messages for the segments to make them more effective?
•• What outputs and activities are you responsible for? Are you responsible for
any critical activities (those that must be completed effectively and on time in
order to ensure other activities can be started or completed)?
2 Planning your actions
Own plan
Planning is an essential part of delivering a PR campaign. Once the big-picture
planning has been completed, the individual tasks need to be planned in order
to produce a comprehensive view of the activity that is required to deliver the
outputs.
Planning and delivery of outputs
Planning your individual contribution to the campaign is likely to involve
producing a more detailed plan than exists at a higher level. For example, the
events and dates reported at group level are likely to be milestones (e.g. date of
event, date for advertising) while you need to plan the tasks that lead up to these
milestones.
Checklist
To plan well, try to ensure the following.
üList tasks that need to be completed for each activity, in the order in which they
need to be completed. Where possible, try to allocate timescales and minideadlines to help with time management.
üConduct a risk analysis that will help you identify any potential problems, and
put plans in place to mitigate these.
üIf you are responsible for a ‘live’ event (e.g. a presentation), include time for a trial
run through. This can help you to polish your presentation, but can also highlight
any potential issues with timings, etc.
üBook resources, facilities, services, etc. ahead of time as required to ensure
they will be available when they are needed. For example, equipment,
accommodation and the services of freelance suppliers will need to be booked
weeks, if not longer, before they are actually needed.
üWhere suppliers and external clients are involved, make sure you liaise with them
regularly. Suppliers need to know when their services will be required and what
is required of them. Clients need to be aware of progress on the campaign.
üEstablish regular internal communication so that colleagues are aware of what is
required of them and by when, as well as the campaign’s objectives.
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
Acquiring resources
When acquiring resources, consider the following.
•• What human resources do you need in order to deliver your outputs? Do
other members of your agency need to be involved? For example, if you are
organising a presentation, how many people do you need for greeting, giving
the presentation, managing housekeeping, etc.?
•• What physical resources do you need? For example, you may need a venue
and equipment for the presentation. What budget do you have available for
this, and how will this affect the way you organise the event? Where a budget
has been compiled centrally, check the costing model and fee rates assumed,
as these will affect the suppliers you choose to approach for the campaign.
•• Who will you invite to the event (stakeholders, media, customers, etc.)? Do you
have their details in a database, or will you need to collect this information?
Remember that database management means that you need to comply with
data protection regulation.
Critical path
Key terms
Critical path – the sequence in
which actions must take place for a
successful outcome.
Dependency – a relationship
between two or more tasks, where
one cannot be started or completed
until the other has been completed.
The critical path is the sequence in which actions must take place for a successful
outcome. Once you have a list of all the activities required to produce the output,
and the time needed to complete these, you can identify the relationship between
the activities. For example, it may take a day to run through a presentation in
preparation for the event, but you cannot run through the presentation until it has
been written.
Once you have identified these dependencies, you will be able to work out the
shortest timescale for delivering the output.
This can be a useful technique for prioritising, as it will highlight where a task
missing its deadline affects the achievable delivery date of the output.
Contingency planning
However well you may plan, the unexpected often happens, seriously deflecting
you from your campaign objectives. You need to try to anticipate and factor into
your plans a strategy for reacting to these unexpected events. The more obvious
ones include:
•• someone else launching a similar campaign
•• your organisation experiencing a serious problem, such as financial difficulties
or another type of serious threat to its reputation
•• the publication of facts and figures which damage your campaign.
It is advisable for any organisation of a significant size to have a crisis management
plan which can be adapted for use in any such eventuality. This will most probably
consist of:
•• a monitoring system, to identify any threats as quickly as possible
•• a streamlined communication system, to guarantee swift decisions and
to allow actions to be taken without the need for a complex system of
authorisation
•• steady nerves and good manners.
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Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
Your ambition should be that, when problems inevitably occur, you deal
with them quickly, competently and confidently. This will prevent them from
developing into a serious problem or even a crisis. The importance of early
discovery of any potential problems cannot be exaggerated; one of the worst
experiences in PR is for your first knowledge of a problem to come from a call from
a journalist.
A brainstorming session with the campaign team to identify potential problems
that could crop up is advisable. Sometimes it is a good idea to include others in
the session, such as representatives of the finance, human resources, regulatory or
research departments, who may learn of problems before you do.
Link
Unit 16: Understanding the use
of public relations in issues and
crisis management deals with crisis
management.
Close liaison will help encourage support for and understanding of the campaign
throughout an organisation. Draft internal question and answer papers and policy
statements should always be ready for use at short notice, usually with a little
updating. One of the harsh truths about your role in PR is that you must always be
thinking the worst and always looking out for potential obstacles, however well
a campaign is going. In Benjamin Franklin’s words: ‘It takes many good deeds to
build a reputation and only one bad one to lose it.’
The campaign grid
Key term
Grid – in this context, your calendar
or programme of tactics over a
certain period of time.
The metamorphosis of the campaign plan into a grid or timetable of specific
actions is a vital area for PR practitioners to deal with.
If, for instance, you are involved in the planning of a year-long campaign, then it is
obvious that you will start with a calendar – one perhaps with virtually nothing in
it, apart from bank holidays. The following approach will help you to fill it.
1. Important national/international dates
Depending on your issue, there will be various events which need to be pencilled
into your grid. These could include:
•• parliamentary recess dates
•• religious holidays
•• school or university terms
•• national/international conferences
•• elections.
While some of these may not obviously impact on your campaign issue, they may
affect the chances of achieving media coverage at specific times. For instance,
mid-June to mid-July tends to be dominated by political news; at this time
tensions rise in Parliament as MPs and Peers negotiate new legislation before the
summer recess, and high-profile court cases are often dealt with.
It has become common practice for much of business to shut down from
23 December to 2 January. While newspapers may be thinner and more leisure
focused during this period, you may find opportunities for telling your campaign
‘story’ via different media or more directly to a target audience. (Keep in mind that
if you take your career seriously, you must not assume you are entitled to this long
holiday period.)
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2. Sector-specific dates
Each sector is likely to have particular dates or events. These are likely to include:
•• conferences/exhibitions
•• awareness weeks or days
•• announcements of sector-wide data or analysis.
3. Dates relating to the organisation
There are likely to be events organised by or directly affecting an organisation,
such as:
•• annual financial results
•• shareholders’ meetings
•• annual general meetings (AGMs)
•• monthly or quarterly sales figures
•• releases of financial or corporate information
•• annual shutdowns or closures.
4. Media calendars
National and specialist media will have features’ lists and similar special focus
issues. These could include:
•• national newspapers’ special features or supplements
•• magazines’ special features or supplements
•• media interest, linked to events in 1 and 2 above.
By now, even before you have added in anything relating directly to the campaign,
your grid may be starting to look quite full. For instance, a couple of months may
look like Figure 9.1.3.
Figure 9.1.3: Example of
a campaign calendar
January
Week 1 3rd office reopens after Christmas/New Year shutdown.
Week 2 Submissions for features in Retail Week’s European shopping centre supplement (publication date 16 February).
Week 3 Agenda out for March’s AGM.
Week 4 Final confirmation of conference room bookings for international property conference, Cannes, 3–7 March.
February
Week 1 Quarterly sales figures.
Week 2 December’s retail sales figures announced.
Week 3 Submission for Financial Times’ pan-European property supplement (published 3 March).
Week 4 Shareholders’ meeting.
5. Your campaign milestones
Now you can start to interweave the various tactics and activities into the grid. Be
realistic, and remember that no one campaign is quite like another; each has to be
tailored carefully.
Key term
Milestones – various points during
your campaign when you can
access your progress and check on
preparations for the next steps.
The most obvious milestones are:
•• an impressive launch event
•• build on the momentum
•• outreach to different target audiences
•• relaunch to specific audiences
•• exploit feedback/reaction
•• evaluate results.
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Every grid will look different, but Figure 9.1.4 provides a broad outline of one that
could be designed by a supermarket chain to promote its campaign Don’t Go the
Extra Mile! to promote locally produced produce.
Figure 9.1.4: Example of a
campaign grid for a campaign
‘Don’t Go the Extra Mile!
January
Launch events in six regional centres.
February
Briefings for consumer press.
Start of regional media campaign.
Launch of monthly recipe leaflet using local food.
Interviews with family publications.
March
Launch of local seasonal food promotions nationwide.
Promotion of locally produced pre-prepared foods.
News stories based on the above.
April
Launch of promotions at large-scale food exhibitions.
CEO speaking engagement at national agricultural conference.
May
Launch of promotions at major agricultural and country shows.
June
Launch a June Rose Queen day local food fair.
July
Launch of Have a Yummy Summer Holiday competition and activities, including school visits to local farms.
August
Launch of family vouchers for trips to farm open days.
Interviews with trade press linked to latest food import figures.
Promotion of local barbecue foods.
Sunday Times leisure section insert with selected recipes.
September Harvest Time promotion with regional media interviews.
Offer of Fill your Freezer leaflets.
October
Release of summer sales figures of local produce, with media interviews.
November Promotion of new pre-prepared local produce.
Round of pre-Christmas Consumer media interviews.
December Christmas promotions.
Production of mid-winter farming CD (to be published next month).
Father Christmas ‘made locally’ parties.
Portfolio activity
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
As part of the assessment for this unit you will need to demonstrate that you can clarify objectives for your own
contributions to PR campaigns and plan your own actions to achieve those objectives. To prepare for this part of your
assessment, collect evidence that shows that you have considered the following in relation to at least two PR campaigns
that you have experience of.
1 What are the overall aims and objectives for the PR campaigns that you are involved with? What tactics are used to
help achieve these?
2 You will have agreed objectives for your own contribution to delivery of the campaign. What are your SMART
objectives?
3 What deliverables are you responsible for? How do you demonstrate an awareness of and monitor your own
deliverables in relation to the overall campaign?
4 You must plan the activities needed to achieve your objectives. What is your plan of the activities that you need to
complete in order to deliver your own contribution to the campaigns?
5 You must acquire the resources that you need to meet your agreed objectives for delivery of public relations
campaigns. This should be shown in your plan, and you should be prepared to discuss how you acquired the
necessary resources.
6 You must make contingency plans for critical activities in your plan. What contingency plans do you have in place?
9.1: Clarifying objectives and planning actions
14
Unit 9: Delivering and evaluating public relations campaigns
Credits
Further reading
Produced by Pearson on behalf of the
Skills Funding Agency.
Bussey, C. (2011) Brilliant PR, Harlow: Pearson Prentice Hall.
The publisher would like to thank the
following for their kind permission
to reproduce images: Neil Guegan/
Image Source Ltd, Monkey Business
Images/Veer/Corbis.
Morris, T. and Goldworthy, S. (2012) PR Today, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
9.1: Clarifying objectives and planning actions
15