Public Relations

Goals, Objectives, and Target Publics

Assignment: Create the Goal, Objectives, and Target Publics for your PR Plan.

Section 1 (One short paragraph): 

• The definition of macro-level campaign goal(s): Specify at least one overarching goal for your plan (e.g., "The American Heart Association seeks to educate people about the importance of pro-actively taking care of their heart health.").  Your goal should be broad without being too broad (e.g., The American Heart Association wants everyone to have a healthy heart) while still telegraphing a direction for related communication efforts.

Section 2 (Three paragraphs): 

• The identification of three target publics affected by this situation: Address audiences in strategic terms (e.g., in order of importance to the organization or those most greatly affected by the situation). Explain why each public is appropriate and important to the client’s goal.  Provide general demographic descriptions of each audience (e.g., age, sex, race, income levels, education, political affiliations, etc.), assuming this information is relevant to the situation.  The U.S. Census Bureau’s website may be helpful for that.  Then, offer some psychographics  (values, beliefs, hobbies, media and shopping habits, etc.) based on your observations.

 Section 3 (three complete, separate sentences).

• The articulation of three campaign objectives: Objectives must correspond to your campaign goal and your target public(s).  State objectives in realistic and measurable terms.  For example, don’t just say that you hope to “raise public awareness” about an issue; instead, quantify the amount or percent of change you hope to achieve (e.g., “Raise awareness of issue X among <TARGET PUBLIC> by 25 percent by <DATE>.”).   Remember that objectives reflect the change you want to see in publics’ awareness, attitudes and beliefs (so, increasing the number of press releases from the org or fixing the client’s website would NOT be objectives: they are activities or tactics that the org can use to meet objectives, and we’ll get to that later).

This might seem like a short assignment, length-wise.  But it's important to carefully consider and fine-tune each section!  Think back to the insights you learned from your research and let that be your guide.