Certainly the most important aspect of any outreach campaign is to first know your target audience. Once you have clearly identified the target, all other aspects of your communications plan may readily fall into place. Some of the demographic identifiers most critical to a communicator are age, gender, and income level. Other useful demographic information includes education level, marital status, geographical location, culture, and psychographic information such as a person's hopes and fears. As we come to better understand our target audience, we are much better prepared to develop a public relations message and strategize how to disseminate this message. Publics and stakeholders are those who share some sort of interest in the issues and outcome of an endeavor; they could be stockholders, employees, customers, members of the community, government regulators, vendors, suppliers, distributors, or even competitors. Being a stakeholder does necessarily mean having a financial stake or even awareness that one may be connected to a company or program's work. Quite often, an organization's stakeholders have conflicting interests, such as a company's managers looking to reduce costs, while its workers demand higher pay and better benefits. As you consider the materials in this unit, try to imagine all of the people who may have an interest in a particular message or position and the different approaches you might take to communicate with them.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.
Read this chapter, which discusses the steps in identifying the publics you will want to build beneficial relationships with. Pay attention to the definitions of stakeholders and publics, their linkages to an organization, the ways publics may behave, and the useful public relations case study of how a company sought to build its corporate headquarters in a prestigious neighborhood.
Watch this video on publics and demographics. Among the most important aspects of a communication campaign is forming a clear picture of just who the targeted audience is. This video helps describe key publics, demographics, and segments we should identify early in our communication planning.
Review this international research resource for connections to domestic and global demographic data including gender, age, income, national profiles, and company reports. Among the most useful for international campaigns are the CIA World Factbook and the Economist Country Briefings, which provide extensive demographic, economic, and political detail on nations around the world. Share any useful findings by posting to the discussion forum.
Read these articles by public relations experts who specialize in connecting with diverse audiences. The articles cover topics like understanding the psychology of your target, the importance of skilled cross-cultural communications in a global marketplace, the effectiveness of bringing passion and zeal to your communications, and the varied and challenging environments you might encounter working in different countries.
Watch this video on international communication tactics, using themes and images that transcend cultural differences. If you publish a website, then you are positioned to reach a global audience. English may connect us in global business with a common language, but we still need to be sensitive to cultural differences.