How to Assess Research to Develop a Communications Plan

Research is key when developing an effective communications plan. Not only does it help to define your audience, messages and tactics, it can provide you with some ideas of how people may receive your efforts and the potential problem areas you may need to prepare for.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Poll results
• Focus group results, if available
• Media clippings
• Correspondence

1. Compose a document that compiles both the research results and the assessment.
2. Read through poll results on your communications plan issue. You are looking for reactions and opinions from your target audience on the issue or item you are planning to communicate. Look at both the negative and positive reactions carefully and to use recent polling data.
3. Conduct a media analysis. If you are communicating an issue or topic at the general population, then read a wide variety of media coverage. If you are aiming at a more specific audience, then limit the analysis to the media outlets that reach your audience.
4. Find correspondence on the issue or topic in your communications plan. Companies, public figures, governments and organizations receive emails and letters on issues. Look for positive and negative trends, make notes and add the results to your document.
5. Include results from focus groups. A topic similar to yours may have been tested with a group of people representing the target audience.
6. Analyze all the information in your document, and look for trends. You may see, for instance, that media coverage confirms what the poll results say, but that correspondence is somewhat different. Note the similarities, differences and what cannot be explained but seems important.
7. Extract the strategic aspects of the research. For instance, if there is an active environmental organization in your area that gets a high level of media coverage and you are communicating a new housing development, you want to highlight messages about the environmental aspects of the project.

Tips & Warnings

• Companies and organizations often commission and pay for polling data. You may need permission to get more than top line results, or prepare to pay a fee.
• Companies and organizations closely guard focus group results.
• Governments often post poll results online or must make them available on request.
• It is easy to fall into the trap of paying more attention to the research that supports your position than the results that might conflict with what you want to do, or what your superiors want to do. Scrutinize both the good and the bad, and make sure everyone involved in your communications efforts understands the negative aspects.

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