NM4208 Lecture Notes: Audiences

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PR Audiences
Dr. Linda M. Perry

.Public Relations Publications

Controlled media designed for priority publics and target audiences.
- Targeting publics makes PR publications an effective tactic.
  - You must learn everything you can about your target public for each publication, especially demographics.
  - People read and view PR publications for specific information to meet specific needs.
    - Publications must be relevant to readers in design and content
    - Relevance clues — verbal or visual — catch readers' attention
A PR publication's design is based on the publication's purpose, objectives and target public.
- Must research target public to predict their design preferences and to tailor the message.
- Key message must be clear and compelling.
  - Visual and verbal communication should reinforce each other.

Publics v. Audiences

Mass media effects are determined by our individual differences and social categories.
Publications managers must understand who their publics, priority publics and target audiences are to effectively communicate an organization’s message.

Publics

Publics: Groups of people who
- are affected by or have an effect on the organization, and
- share common concerns or goals.
Basic publics:
- Active, aware or latent.
- Events can mobilize latent publics to become active.
Publics can
- emerge from geographic markets.
  - such as Singapore shoppers.
- be defined by their roles and positions,
  - such as editor, home owner, student, community leader, manager, parent, alumni, arts patron.
- be defined by their use of media:
  - subscribers, viewers or exposed to messages.
- be identified by their reactions to certain issues of concern to the organization.

Priority publics: Publics to whom a public relations campaign, program or effort is aimed.

Include employees, stockholders, customers, activists and media representatives.
Described with demographics, psychographics & sociographics.

Target audiences:

Groups to whom messages are directed, groups you need to reach with a specific message.
- Magazines, websites, fliers, brochures, and advertisements are most often aimed at target audiences.
- Also described with demographics, psychographics & sociographics.

Demographics

Facts about people that influence how they perceive messages
- such as age, gender, race, family size, socioeconomic status, income, education, occupation and geographic information.
- People are born with these characteristics, which change as they mature and change.
- Most countries' demographics are constantly changing.

Sociographics

Sociological characteristics that influence the way publics perceive messages,
- such as the groups that people belong to.
- Can be inferred from demographics.

Message Design

Design and other communication decisions should be informed by target public’s shared characteristics,
- although no group characteristic applies to all people in the group.
Creative Process
- Formulate the purpose of the publication and set objectives for each target public.
- Formulate key message and types of information to be included in the publication.
- Find design-solutions to best reach the target publics
  - Use the solutions consistently throughout the publication.

Selected resources

Internet
- Singapore demographics
- Others:
  - American FactFinder, U.S. Census Bureau, http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet.
  - Asian Demographics, http://www.asiandemographics.com/
  - Strategic Business Insights: VALS: http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/ustypes.shtml
  - TRAC Media Services, (for examples of demographics application), http://www.tracmedia.org