Almost finished

Week 10

How smart am I?! I read the whole of chapter 7 through and thought “Wow PR repeats itself!” Heaps clever me didn’t realise we’ve actually already read that chapter previously until I went and checked on Blackboard that I’d read the right stuff. Anyways…

I’m going to attempt point form again after my weak effort last week and hopefully improve on it. (even though it only half worked...copying and pasteing from Word into here just didn't work very well and I got too stressed trying to fix it so it looks half decent)

Firstly, I found the key points in Chapter 7 to be:
It is a necessity for PR practitioners to think and practice strategically in order to be relevant in today’s organisations
Stages of strategic process in PR are:
Creation of vision and mission statements
Establishment of performance indicators
Budgeting
Writing a strategic PR plan
Scheduling of plan activities
· Strategy is not a series of campaign steps or tactics – it is the guide of these
· Strategies must be designed for all communications groups amongst PR (employees, government, community)
· Characteristics of excellent communication departments include; two way communication between top management and stakeholders; formal and informal research techniques to understand the organisation and identify key issues; and managers who accept responsibility for the success or failure of programs
· Chief executives set the tone for corporate communication
· The planning of a public relations strategy is crucial to business success in strategic plans
· Vision and mission statements are used to define and determine what you are doing and where your business is heading. Vision statements describe the future state of the organisation, mission statements describe the steps to be taken to reach this state
· Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were developed to gauge operational performance between one period and the next, measuring the most important performance results eg revenue
· Argued that KPIs are not well suited for PR strategies as results of public relations work can be intangible in nature
· The ten point structure of the communication plan looks a lot like Year 12 Business Studies reports
· Budgeting is crucial in a PR plan to help determine costs and limits. “No plan, no matter how strategic, can succeed without successful and effective budgeting”
· “No plan can be implemented without thorough scheduling”
· Lists allow organisation and keeping order to watch every step of the public relations process. They prevent anything being forgotten or starting too late.
· Flowcharts, Calenders and Gantt charts help in the organisation, planning, scheduling and structure of a PR plan and help to avoid mistakes and keep things running smoothly

It all came flooding back when I realised this chapter is Year 12 Business Studies all over again and that I’d mentioned that several times previously. So I won’t babble on about that again.

The key points I found in Chapter 8 were:
A huge range of tactics are available to PR practitioners including newsletters, direct mail, advertising, internet sites, media relations, competitions, videos, lobbying and meetings
Many campaigns owe their success to the use of tactics that are not overt (keeping out of the media spotlight)
Tactics can be broken up into two major groups – controlled and uncontrolled
Controlled tactics are those over which the PR practitioner maintains control over every aspect of the process
Uncontrolled tactics are those which can be altered or blocked completely
Methods of delivery of an item of communication (such as post mail, faxes, email, couriers, CD-ROMS, videos and personal delivery) actually play a critical role in determining impact and effectiveness
Research is one of the best known tools for forming and evaluating campaigns
Media relations requires careful consideration as it effects interest, news, coverage and message delivery
Brochures, leaflets, fliers and other printed material are some of the most commonly used tactics
Paper size is actually an important consideration, as is colours and embossing. These can be cost effective
I started getting lost when the section about binding came into it so I just left that part
Annual reports record the highlights and challenges experienced by an organisation
Newsletters and mail help in maintaining communication and interest when advertising messages and information
The designing of a document is crucial, down to font, typeface and size, colours, layouts and style of writing
A brand defines how a company wants to be perceived
Photographs are used as a visual medium

The end of this chapter started to get a little waffle like I noticed, with sections about celebrity spokespeople, advertising, events and presentations, and to take note on these was to state the obvious (like the photographs point) which I just didn’t see relevant and didn’t really help in my understanding as a lot of it was fairly general.

It was interesting to see how something as small as the method of delivery and paper size could have such an important effect on the campaign. There are so many tactics to be considered in a PR campaign and this week’s readings helped further my understanding of that. It is obvious grammar and text is an important feature, but to have four pages of it in a textbook is a tad extreme.