CHAPTER 9

The Public Relations Process—“RACE”

Strategic public relations is focused on achieving goals and objectives that contribute to the overall purpose and mission of an organization. To be strategic, public relations professionals need accurate information about the situation they face, the stakeholders, publics, and audiences they communicate with, the effectiveness of their communication efforts, and the overall impact the program has on building and maintaining relationships and building a good reputation. Public relations professionals may be tempted to start with tactics—such as press releases—but strategy as determined through research should always drive tactics.

Constructing the Strategic Plan for a
Public Relations Campaign

This process is primarily composed of four steps: using research to define the problem or situation, analyses for developing strategies that address the situation, implementing the strategies with goals and objectives leading to tactics, and measuring the results of the public relations efforts. The acronym RACE (Research, Analyses/Action planning, Communication, Evaluation) is used to describe the process.¹ The process always starts with research and ends with evaluation research. Attention to ethics and the CERT formula (Credibility, Ethics, Relationships, Trust) is embedded throughout all steps of the process.

The four steps of the well-known acronym RACE can be summarized as follows:

1. R: Use research to analyze the situation facing the organization and to accurately define the problem or opportunity in such a way that the public relations efforts can successfully address the cause of the issue and not just its symptoms. Formative research forms the understanding of the situation. Formal and informal, primary and secondary, and qualitative and quantitative research are used.
2. A: Conduct extensive analyses of the research and evaluate priorities. Develop a strategic action plan based on your analyses that addresses the issue that was analyzed in the first step. This action plan includes having an overall goal, measurable objectives, clearly identified publics, targeted strategies, and effective tactics. This book updates this step to Analyses from the classic formula Action to reflect an emphasis on strategy.
3. C: Execute the plan with communication tactics that contribute to reaching the overall goal with specifically planned strategies and numerous objectives.
4. E: Measure whether you were successful in meeting the goals using evaluation tools. Evaluation research can take the same forms as formative research to compare the amount of change attributable to your strategy.

Step 1: Formative Research to Analyze the Situation

The first step in the process is analyzing the problem or opportunity. This involves research, either formal (social-scientific research such as surveys) or informal (convenience, anecdotal, conversational), to gather information that best describes the issue. Research used to understand the situation and help formulate strategies is called formative research.

For example, Marathon Petroleum Corporation may be considering the route for a new natural gas pipeline. It must conduct research to understand what possible obstacles it could face. Are there any environmentally protected regions in the area? What is the area’s level of public support for natural gas and pipelines? Are there acceptable alternative routes for the planned pipeline? What groups should Marathon plan to speak with about these issues? All of these questions should be thoroughly and strategically considered before any communication is planned.

Formal research, such as surveys and focus groups, may be commissioned from a research firm. Much secondary information may already exist and may be accessible from an industry association or other agencies, and it is termed secondary research because it is not original data. For example, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America conducts useful surveys on public opinion and communication practices of pipeline companies. Research is also available through a review of academic, trade press, and professional literature. Secondary sources are the least expensive and often the fastest way to gain contextual knowledge.

Primary research is needed to generate original data. Marathon may need to conduct interviews or have focus groups with neighborhood associations, legislators, or environmental groups. They may consider surveys of homeowners and business located near the pipeline. Analysis of previous news stories about pipelines in this region would offer a good idea about the way in which this story might be framed by media. Analyses of social media analytics related to the issue, blogs, forums, and activist feeds about pipelines also would be a good idea. The purpose for gathering numerous forms of information is to help with understanding the complete situation, often by Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis.

Using a SWOT Analysis

This tool is popular for analyzing situations from multiple angles.
A SWOT analysis breaks down a situation by looking at the internal and external factors that could contribute to a situation before developing strategy. The internal factors are the Strengths and Weaknesses of the organization. The external factors are the Opportunities and Threats existing in the organization’s environment.

Look internally at the strengths and weakness of the organization, then examine the external possibilities and constraints. Internal factors include everything about the organization’s approach, management style, logistics, operations, employees, and labor issues. The external factors, as pressures from the system’s environment, are usually the reasons why an organization finds itself in the situation. For example, Marathon may find that it has strong relationships with investors, has good employee morale, is financially growing, and has a culture that values innovation. It may also find that it has good relations with landowners near current pipelines, weak relationships with environmental groups and members of the media, poor relationships with certain members of Congress and the Senate, and has critics on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. This information helps make it possible to construct a SWOT analysis of the situation to review the possible strategies that it needs to take regarding pipeline construction. Many communication professionals simply form a list under each area of the SWOT analysis, or draw a four-box matrix displaying the factors (see Figure 9.1).

A SWOT analysis offers a basic but good overview of a situation. After conducting the SWOT analysis, you can couple the internal factors with the external factors to suggest possible strategies. SWOT strategies are:

• SO strategies focus on using organizational strengths to capitalize on the external opportunities.
• ST strategies also use organizational strengths to counter external threats.
• WO strategies address and improve organizational weaknesses to be better prepared to take advantage of external opportunities.
• WT strategies attempt to correct organizational weaknesses to defend against external threats.

Combinations using each type of strategy form the most thorough response. Although a SWOT analysis is quite basic, it is helpful in forming a situation analysis.

Constructing a Situation Analysis

Strategic plans normally begin with a situation analysis. Once enough data and information has been collected so that you understand the core contributing factors—not just make assumptions or surface conditions—then write a two-paragraph statement that summarizes the situation. The first paragraph should redefine the situation using the data collected by your research. Highlight the insights gained through formal and informal research. The second paragraph should identify the problems, difficulties, and potential barriers to resolving the issue. These also should have been identified in the research and SWOT (if one was conducted; they are optional). Thorough analyses of the research should help recommend strategies that are solutions to these barriers.

After the description paragraphs, a succinct one-sentence problem/ opportunity statement is written that cuts to the core of the situation and identifies the consequences of not dealing with the issue. For example,

Environmental groups and politicians have been influential in stopping pipeline projects in the past in similar regions; we have the opportunity to improve relationships with key members of the community and government so that we can complete a pipeline that delivers natural gas to customers.

These concise statements usually form the beginning of a strategic plan document, but should be backed up by copious amounts of research.

Step 2: Analyses and Strategic Action Planning

The strategic plan should be focused on resolving or capitalizing on the situation identified in the problem/opportunity statement and crystallized through analyses. Strategic action planning then turns the problem/opportunity statement into a goal. In the case of Marathon, the goal might be the following:

To build better relationships with the community through employee ambassadors and effectively engage in the public policy process to negotiate benefits that politicians and citizens want (i.e., job creation, taxes, low fuel costs, energy independence) to reduce obstacles and earn support for the new pipeline.

Notice that there is room for an interactive change in the organization with the pipeline plans in this goal statement. Care should be taken not to write goals that suggest that publics will do something that you want them to do. Instead, focus on what is within your ability to achieve.

The goal provides direction for the strategic plan. Strategies provide the means of moving toward the goal. Objectives provide the specific and measurable outcomes necessary to meet the goal. A good objective is specific and meets the following criteria: an outcome that contributes to a larger goal should be used; it should be measurable; it should have a time frame; and it should identify the public or stakeholder targeted for the outcome.

• Specify an outcome: An objective should be an outcome that contributes to the goal. There are three possible outcomes for these objectives: cognitive (awareness, understanding, remembering),
  attitudinal (create attitudes, reinforce positive attitudes, change negative attitudes), and behavioral (create behaviors, reinforce positive behaviors, change negative behaviors).²
• Measurable: Objectives need formative research to offer a “before” number so that the initiative can take place and evaluation research can find an “after” number to document the change. An objective cannot be set to increase awareness by 20 percent if the current level of awareness is unknown. For example, a good objective that is measurable is:

  To increase awareness of pipeline plans among multi-acre land owners in Montana from 10% to 30% (up by 20%) within the next 6 months.

• Time frame: When will the objective be met? A time frame must be specified so that evaluation research can be planned.
• Identify the public or stakeholder: Numerous objectives are part of a strategic plan, each reaching different publics for stakeholders with information designed specifically for that group. Different publics will be at different levels of awareness, attitudes, and behaviors.

Generally, there is a hierarchy to the different levels of objectives. There are three levels of objectives: outputs, outtakes, and outcomes. Output objectives are simply focused on the effectiveness of getting the message conveyed to publics and stakeholders. This is a means to potentially increase awareness, but simply looking at the output does not measure the impact of the message. Outtake objectives are focused on increasing awareness, understanding, and retention of the key message points. Was the sent message attended to, remembered, and understood? Outcome objectives are perhaps the most important, but also the most difficult to achieve, because they measure if publics acted on a behavior.³

Tie Strategy to Objective

Too often public relations programs have been primarily tactical and have skipped the strategic step of using analyses to create objectives. What makes public relations strategic is having the action tied to the real needs of the organization and its publics. If you come up with a clever tactic but it does not help meet any of the objectives, it should be reconsidered. Often many resources are wasted on creative tactics and fall short of addressing the needs of the issue. A thorough evaluation of the research data in terms of the organization’s mission, vision, values, and goals to resolve this specific problem is needed. Are all potential strategic publics, stakeholders, and partners considered in the strategy? How should each public be communicated with and what are their information needs? What are the ethical responsibilities involved in the issue? Will each communication strategy make a change in the issue? Strategy should help the organization ultimately move toward its mission.

Segment Publics and Stakeholders

All groups within the publics and stakeholders should be differentiated based on common characteristics such as demographics, geographics, netgraphics, or psychographics. Demographics include variables such as physical descriptors. Geographics describe your public by their location. People living within a quarter-mile of a pipeline may have different attitudes toward energy companies than those who live a mile or more away from those lines. Netgraphics segment your audience by social media use. Psychographics segment your audience based on their values and lifestyles. It is important to segment your key publics, because it will help you identify the information they need from the organization.

Create Communication Based on Self-Interests

People pay more attention to communications that are tied to their values, needs, and goals. You should ask what your publics value and care about (based on research). Knowing the demographic, geographic, netgraphic, and/or psychographic differences of key publics, you can create a message that connects them to your program. Once self-interests have been identified, a primary message can be created that will give direction to the communication efforts. For example, the “Click it or Ticket” campaign uses the threat of police enforcement to encourage seat belt compliance. Yet, for adventurous drivers it may be more effective to have a message from race car drivers to explain how they rely on seatbelts.

Plan Communication Channels

Identifying the channel or medium through which you can reach target publics is essential to avoid efforts wasted on tactics that will not come into contact with the right people. The channels can be mass media, such as newspapers or television or radio programming. They can be transmitted by other mediated channels such as e-mail, blogs, or Twitter. They can also be town hall meetings, mediated slide shows, and face-to-face (interpersonal) communication. Sometimes the channel is a group of people, usually opinion leaders, such as professors, scientists, or other third-party influencers or experts. Usually the target public is reached through multiple points of contact to reinforce the message with different tactics.

Step 3: Communication Implementation

A strategic plan is created by public relations professionals and implemented by specialists in the technician role who create tactics. Tactics are the specific communication tools and tasks that are used to execute the strategy. They could be news releases, speeches, websites, social media posts, talk show appearances, contacting YouTube influencers, and so on. The challenge is to create tactics that cut through the clutter of all the messages competing for a public’s attention. A cardinal rule is to always evaluate tactics within the established strategies and objectives.

The best public relations programs include both communication and action. Sometimes an organization needs to act, or react, before it can communicate. For example, if employees are not attending training seminars, it might not be enough to try more creative and persuasive messages. The seminars might need to be more relevant and interesting for the employees, before their behavior will change.

Two additional components to the public relations process usually are developed during the communication stage: the planning calendar and the budget. Once the tactics have been determined, it is best to plan the development and execution of the tactics using a calendaring tool such as a Gantt chart (see Figure 9.2). A Gantt chart is a horizontal flow chart that provides a graphic illustration of when tactics should begin and end in comparison to all other tasks.

The costs for developing, distributing, and executing the tactics should also be determined in a budget. Some tactics may be eliminated when you project their costs against their potential of meeting objectives. Focus on tactics that will provide the greatest return on investment.

Step 4: Evaluation

Evaluation is often conducted several times during an initiative. Four steps should be addressed when evaluating the effectiveness of an initiative:

• Define your benchmark.
• Select a measurement tool.
• Analyze data, draw actionable conclusions, and make recommendations.
• Make changes and measure again.⁴

If you have followed the steps in the strategic planning process, you have already identified your strategic publics and stakeholders and established objectives for each. When objectives are measurable you already have the criteria by which to evaluate the success of your program—a “before” or a benchmark. The benchmark compares your current situation to your past to measure the amount of change, or the “after.”

A research firm can be hired to do multiple measurements in multiple phases along the course of an initiative, so that objectives can indicate where strategy can be adjusted retooled or when objectives are met. Multiple points of evaluation research can ultimately save the organization money by eliminating communications that are not working or focusing on those that are. Generally, the same research tools that helped establish the benchmark data are used (e.g., surveys, focus groups). Intentions that shape behavior and preferences for purchasing can also be measured through surveys, providing statistics on people’s inclinations. Behaviors can also be measured against benchmarks. Increases in employee retention, increased donations, and improved sales and investments could all be used to measure behaviors.

Many research firms tailor a data display “dashboard” to examine the measures that each client seeks. They can also analyze media coverage to evaluate the percentage of articles that contain program key messages, the prominence of the message (for a press release, where it appeared); in a broadcast, how much time was allocated to the story and where it appears in the program), the tone of the message (positive, neutral, negative), and how the media efforts compare with key competitors (share of voice).⁵ Much secondary data is also for sale, in which you can specifically target publics and stakeholders based on their social media use, purchasing habits, and so on.

However, to know if these communications actually affected people’s awareness, understanding, attitudes, or behaviors, primary research such as surveys always needs to be conducted. Getting the communication into various channels is only the means to the goal of affecting attitudes, opinions, and behaviors. The outcomes need to be measured in order to tie back to goals and strategy.

Chapter Summary

This chapter reviewed the process by which strategic public relations ­efforts are accomplished. The process is structured and summarized by the acronym RACE. R: Research is conducted for formative (and evaluative) purposes including a situation analysis. A: Analyses and action planning of strategy based on research findings. This phase requires connecting communication efforts with goals, objectives, and strategies. C: Communication implementation of the actual tactics or tools to convey messages.
E: Evaluation research compares the amount of change attributable to communication activities. Campaigns are usually organized along these phases.

Research and analyses comprise roughly 75 percent of the strategic public relations process. This process should be ingrained, if the public relations professional is to become a truly strategic communication manager and a contributor to achieving organizational mission through strategic operations.