December 28th, 2012

Generate Statistics For Your PR – But Give Them A Sexy Treatment!

One of Lancashire-based Catapult PR’s many PR awards was earned for ‘Best Use of Research’, which may sound odd to people outside the profession, because why should a PR person be involved with research?  The answer can be summed up in two words “news angles”!

Research findings are a great way of generating news angles on behalf of clients, though there is a trick to this.  Having a creative PR person write the survey in the first place is far more productive than just handing them a document that may not contain juicy material for the press.

On this basis, the best possible way to use research effectively in PR is by commissioning a bespoke piece of research that is specific to its purpose.

Personally, I love coming up with the news angles that can underpin the research survey and than analysing the resulting data and splitting it lots of ways – by gender and other demographics, by geo-demographics, by TV region and by social type. At times, one piece of research has led to me writing over 30 different press releases, all tailored to the needs of individual journalists.

In handling campaigns for motor insurance clients, I have carried out research in places like the ABI (Association of British Insurers) offices in London, while these days ‘desk research’ via the internet can produce all manner of findings that can be used within campaigns.

Create sizzling statistics and you are on to a PR winner, if you get the strategy right before the survey is commissioned.  End up with dull data and you might need a miracle.  From there, make sure you have a creative mind handling the statistics at your disposal and cutting them lots of ways for the media.  There’s no point having statistics without sexy treatment. If that’s out of your comfort zone, you know where to come!