Qualitative market research is a public relations and marketing professional’s best friend. It provides evidence and insights which inform communication strategies. It identifies issues and content to be addressed or included. And because the generation of qual is also an iterative, exploratory process, when an excellent researcher is interacting with the interviewee, the information gained can become very profound and useful.

A tried, tested and proven means of generating compelling content, securing consistent quality media coverage and enhancing organisational reputation is creating a research-based index – featuring headline grabbing statistics and insights – then providing expert insight on the findings.

Many people fail to perceive the seriousness of public relations; how it provides balance to discussions and often contributes insights into complex, multi-layered issues that, otherwise, would not have been generated. This takes place just as much in issues and crisis management, which might be the immediate domain that comes to mind, as it does it reputation building, positioning and differentiation which are, generally speaking, more proactive kinds of strategic communication.

The importance and influence of listening on positive organisational reputation is emphasised in a crisis, with social media being particularly useful in this regard to help: identify emerging issues and key stakeholders and influencers; enable speedy communication during the crisis; and to provide information to improve future crisis operational and communication processes (as well as broader business operations).

The ‘challenger’ role PR plays helps mitigate the likelihood of the detrimental effect of groupthink taking place. Evidence-based market research helps it do this, as does its role in identifying, exploring and articulating organisational narratives – a pillar of public relations and why it can help organisations engage with its stakeholders.

Over the 14 month existence of this blog I, and you the readers and participants, have been fortunate to be entertained and informed by a number of intelligent, insightful guest blogger posts, as well as by interviews with public relations, marketing and other business communication professionals that have covered topics as diverse as market research and setting KPIs, visual communication, getting the best out of annual reports and what it takes to be successful in a PR career. This post revisits some of these memorable posts that have each provided highly useful advice.

The excellent reasons for undertaking market research, and including it in any public relations strategic process, include that it generates information to create the best possible comms strategy, it helps determine appropriate benchmarks against which communication activity can be measured and it uncovers a range of issues that can be leveraged in PR programs.

For Angela Sinickas, measuring business communication is all about creating a “chain of evidence”, linking the tactical activities we do on a daily basis to the financial bottom line of the organisation. This is chain is created by looking at: communication activities, audience perceptions, audience actions and the financial impact on organisational goals. Paul Cheal analyses a ‘Measuring ROI on Communications’ workshop.

“Relationships are a means to getting more of the behaviors companies want. I think most PR people don’t realize this and therefore don’t build the right relationships or build them in ways that will directly benefit the organization tangibly, not just intangibly,” said renowned public relations exponent, and a passionate advocate for the setting of objectives, Angela Sinickas, in a this interview. She also purported that behavioral change is the ultimate form of impact for PR programs.

Setting public relations objectives that are directly related to an organisation’s mission and operating or business plan is, so it seems, one of PR’s great challenges. It simply does not occur with any consistently applied methodology. But there are ways to create objectives – or KPIs – that are inherently and profoundly relevant to what an organisation is actually trying to achieve – let’s learn some ’secrets’…with internationally renowned public relations exponent and a passionate advocate for the setting of objectives, Angela Sinickas.