How do you research and plan for Public Relations?

The question could have been more specific, like how do you plan and research for public relations campaigns, strategies or others. In addition to all that has been said, I think Researching Media Outlets: If media coverage is part of your PR strategy, research relevant media outlets, journalists, and influencers in your industry. Understand their content preferences, writing style, and previous coverage to tailor your pitches. Also, plan outreach and engagement: Based on your research, plan how to reach out to media, influencers, and your target audience. Develop compelling pitches, press releases, social media posts, and other materials that align with your key messages.

You need to monitor your public relations using a media monitoring package. Without this you won't have any way to measure your results. This is fine in a large organisation which have the budget and would know to do this but it's different in a small to medium sized enterprise. You have to convince management that they need to outlay on monitoring. Another tool you should consider is a wire service. This is an old-school service but it's still used by the media to pick up stories. You can develop your stories into targeted categories for the wire where you know everyone in your industry will be watching.

Strategic approach and execution comes to mind once you’ve identified your PR purpose. How are you going to successfully execute this plan? What tactics and channels will you use to communicate your message? There are so many new and innovative ways to do this like: social media, influencers, strategic partnerships, owned platforms, and many more, that aren’t in the traditional approach of PR. Simply put, it’s important to stay true to the practice of public relations, but also to leverage new and relevant ways of creating visibility.

The key to successful PR is to tailor your ideas to your brand's unique identity and goals. Keep an eye on emerging trends, listen to your audience, and be open to adapting your strategies as needed.

Honestly, I didn't embark on this at all, for me it was about forging relationships with journalists and those in the media, cultivating those relationships by letting people know what your company is up to, and releasing periodic press releases to market which are interesting and accurate

The best strategy for the company where I worked in Public Relations successfully for 12 years was to get one press release out to market with accurate data every month.. that was the target. Any more than that and you've risked saturation, any less than that and you weren't offering your company the best results feasible. By doing this every year it meant we could cross-compare years easily, and it meant we knew that if our coverage fell-off in a given year it wasn't because we put out less stories, it had to be for some other reason

You have to have media monitoring and you have to analyse the results at year-end. It involves everyone on the team.. you need to know how many hits you got in the media, you need to know which stories did best, and you need to know what your competitors are doing and how they performed.. yes, you have to monitor your competitors as well, it's no use just looking out for yourself.

the best Public Relations Stories I did were the quirky ones.. like I remember we released a story on the vehicle in Ireland that had the highest number of owner changes.. it was something ridiculous like 40 owners.. and the press loved it.. radio especially liked that one. Other stories that done well were those with a message where the data really starts to tell a story that's interesting to everyone