As we continue our examination of the strategies and tactics that can be utilized to pull off incredible public relations plans, it’s time to turn our attention to the value of the public relations survey.

Public Relations surveys serve as an extraordinary strategy because they allow PR pros, marketers and market researchers to create content for brands that can foster conversations, book media, and continue creating value long after the survey results are garnered.

We’ve already discussed what makes a great PR plan. When thinking about what strategies can hold meaning, it’s important to also consider your greater goals and objectives, then ask yourself how a public relations survey as part of your PR plan can play into those.

What does a win look like? Where can a PR survey help you meet measurable objectives?

Let’s consider a hypothetical. A brand comes to your team and wants to procure earned media coverage as part of a campaign. You might wonder whether or not a PR survey makes sense as a greater part of your PR plan. You have some hints.

The brand goal is to procure earned media coverage – which means that it should be your goal, too. Turns out, a good PR survey can do a phenomenal job of securing earned coverage by creating mediagenic stats that can be used in tons of valuable tactics. More on that in a minute.

But to continue creating a plan, you might want to set some objectives, and then see if you think a PR survey could help meet those. Remember, objectives are the ‘measurable’ part of your PR plan – they establish what a ‘win’ would really mean. So you may say ‘get earned coverage in nine top-20 media markets.’ Then you may ask ‘does a PR survey help me do that?’

In our opinion, the answer is a resounding yes.

Once you’ve established that the PR survey is one of several strategies that can help you accomplish your objective, it’s time to get excited. We’re gonna talk tactics.

First, you have to write a great survey. Consider question and answer order. Think about crafting your questionnaire with a logical flow. Make sure and write some fun questions in the hopes you can garner some truly mediagenic results.

After you’ve fielded the survey, you can utilize your results to pitch target markets across the country, creating a pitch founded on the strength of organic insights and real research results. But the joy ought not stop there. Here’s a list of other tactics you can use survey data for:

  • Pitch the media.
  • Write some great copy of your own.
  • Create fascinating social media graphics.
  • Build an infographic to present the results.
  • Write the statistics into internal communications.

In the final assessment, the PR survey makes an incredible strategy as part of any PR plan, because it opens the door to an incredible number of tactics that are all valuable in building a brand up.