Why planning is important?

when there is much to do why don t we just do? Reasons for planning:
It focuses effort It improves effectiveness It encourages long term view It helps demonstrate value for money It minimizes mishaps It reconciles conflicts It facilitates pro activity.

Focus:
working smart working hard Unnecessary excluded Efficiency and effective priorities.

Effectiveness:
Defined objectives achieved. Time and money saved. Saying no to unplanned. Prioritising.

 Long-term view:
To plan is to look ahead. Longer perspective than immediate.

Demonstrate value for money:

Fight for budget demonstrating past achievement Argue your way to case of money.

Minimizing mishaps:
considering different scenarios.

 Reconciles conflicts:
Conflict and differences. Better at planning stage than at program

Facilitates proactivity:
Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty

Public relation policies

Idea of policy is not to be regulative and restrictive, but to give rules of engagement so that everyone knows where responsibility lies, where lines of demarcation are and, ultimately, who is accountable for what activity.

Basic questions in planning

Thinking of things in advance. Breakdown things into manageable sequence Five basic questions:
What do I want to achieve? (objective) Who do I want to talk to (who are your publics?) What do I want to say? (message) How shall I say it? (what mechanism to use?) How do I know I ve got it right? ( evaluation)

 Influence behaviour in some way. Information:

Finding out about the task in hand Careful research and analysis.

Strategy:
Using info. to identify guiding principles and main thrust of programs.

 4 is info seeking and research, only 1 is actually working. 80% of time should be spent on info seeking. All planning models follow a basic pattern.
Awareness(analysis) Formulation(strategy) Implementation(implement) Evaluation(assessment)

10 stages of planning
Analysis Objective Publics Message Strategy Tactics Timescales Resources Evaluation review.

 Analysis and objective interchangeable.

ex. Int. than ext. employ policy internal communication.

Lack of detail from client side. Conflicting priorities and diverting energy and resource. If large program split it into simple programs.

 Plan must be flexible , or being developed upon or scrapped altogether. Having a frame work provides structure and coherence. 4 advantages
Professionalism accountability Security stability

PEST
Questions to ask?
Environmental factors Which of these are currently important Most important for next four years

EPISTLE.

PEST
POLITICAL: factors are how and to what degree a government intervenes in the economy. Economic factors include economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and the inflation rate Legal factors include discrimination law, consumer law, antitrust law, employment law, and health and safety law. Environmental factors include ecological and environmental aspects such as weather, climate, and climate change, which may especially affect industries such as tourism, farming, and insurance.

 Social factors include the cultural aspects and include health consciousness, population growth rate, age distribution, career attitudes and emphasis on safety.

Technological factors include technological aspects such as R&D activity, automation, technology incentives and the rate of technological change. They can determine barriers to entry, minimum efficient production level and influence outsourcing decisions. Furthermore, technological shifts can affect costs, quality, and lead to innovation.

Political
Environmental legislation Empolment legislation Change and continuance og govt. Social Population shift Lifestyle Income /wealth distribution Purchasing trends

economic
Interst rate Inflation Money supply Employment Disposable income

Technology New discovry Rate of change Investment ion technology Impact of technology

 LARGE COMPANIES:
SINGLE PROBLEM. ANTICIPATION /LONG TERM MANAGEMENT. ANTICIPATING AND PLANNING.

The PEST factors, combined with external microenvironmental factors and internal drivers, can be classified as opportunities and threats in a SWOT analysis

SWOT
Swot analysis: Strength ,weakness, opportunity , threat, these are the basic elements of swot analysis. Strength and weakness are internalfactors while opportunity and threat are external factors. Opportunity and threat through PEST. ex

Who should undertake research?

Good research done by trained personnel No point in paying for biased data Trained experts undertake statistically valid research. Quick and dirty research Mixing the two.

Research techniques
There are several different types of research; quantitative and qualitative research . Quantitative research gives result in numbers while qualitative research give result as opinions reactions attitudes etc. Continuous or tracking research is research which is done with a same group of people or similar profile people in a regular or frequent interval with the same questions.this is helpful in measuring trends etc.

 Secondary research: desk research colecting information from already published sources. trick is knowing where to find it. Primary research: finding the information you want first handed. It is called primary research Buying research data internet

 Self-competing questionnaires
Cheap way to contact large number of people over a widespread geographical area. People difficult to contact. Complement. Post, person, magazine. They should clear and as short as possible. If the questionnaire is complex there should be a research supervisor to answer any questions or doubts that may arise. Mass data / but also qualitative.

1-1 interview
This is a excellent technique for collecting qualitative data. It is time consuming and expensive if mass data is required. Ther are also done surveys of which their results can be bought. Athough it is expensive the quality and quantity of the data that can be gatherered from the interview is high.

 Omnibus survey is cheaper. Software available to analyze data.

Telephone interview
This is partially suitable for collecting structured information. It is a quick way to get the data. CATI system allows researchers to input answers to questions very quicky and instant analysis is possible.

Focus groups
They are discussion groups consisting of carefully selected individuals (may be with same profile, age, gender)etc. Running a successful focused goup is a highly skilled activity and requires a competent coordinator .A skilled coordinator can get far more information than one-on-one interview. expensive

Internet groups
As well as gathering information on the internet, it is easy to undertake one-to one or group research. Visitor to your website may be asked to fill in short questionnairs. The use of email, intranet, and extranet means that contacting and obtaining information from people is simple and fast.

Informal research
Chance encounters informal discussions with a whole range of publics associated with organization such as competitors, specialist journalist, neighbors and suppliers can be very interesting. We can do informal research by listening to a current affairs program or by reading an article .etc. Saving hospital.

Media research
It is important not only to know your organization and the relevant issues, but to investigate the channels of communication too. The written and broadcast media provide information on readership profiles, circulation effectiveness of advertisement and so on.

Communication audit:
Apart from researching issues affecting an organization or the facts surrounding a particular campaign , it is vitally important for a pr professiona to examine in detail their communication process itself. Communication audits identify those public vital to an organizations success. It investigates scope of communication to determine weather all existing publics are being covered.it identifies communication gaps and unexploited opportunities, as well as information needs of all the key publics. Audit pinpoints resource and skill needed to run a sucessful campaign. It's a snapshot of an organization's communication strategies, activities and programs.

Interpreting findings
After getting data interpret it. Simple statistics.