Photo by Kaitlyn Wynn
Kaitlyn Wynn
The Importance of Secondary Research
In public relations, research is vital to understanding the climate in which the organization is currently operating in and effectively creating a strategy to address the problem or opportunity at hand. Secondary research can contain valuable information to help your campaign succeed.
What is secondary research?
According to Strategic Planning for Public Relations by Ronald Smith, "secondary research involves re-analyzing existing information obtained by previous research for a new and specific purpose." Basically, it is about looking at information that already exists. You can discover a lot about an organization, public perception, target audiences, competitors, etc. by looking at information that is already available to you.
Where can you find this research?
The short answer- everywhere... but I like to start with the internet.
Social Media
You can find out a lot about your client and their current engagement with their audiences on their website and social medias. According to an article from The Search Engine Journal, there are 16 reasons why social media is so important to an organization, two of which are that it promotes content and drives traffic. By looking at an organization's social medias you can see...
How they are interacting with the public
How the public interacts with the organization
Consumer feedback
What audiences the organization is reaching
If the organization is reaching it's audience
So much more!
This will give you a good idea of the current relationship between client and publics and allow you to find areas for improvement.
Photo by Kaitlyn Wynn
Previous Campaigns
When you are creating a campaign for an organization, chances are there has been some organization at some point in history in a position similar to your own. Maybe your organization is working to promote a new product, reach a broader audience, address complaints, etc. Look at some strategies used by organizations similar to your own and critically think about how they handled the relationship.
What was their objective?
How did they go about achieving this?
Where they successful?
How did they measure success?
What could you do differently?
How can you make this unique to your organization?
Case studies specifically detail how other organization have handled other situations, both negatively and positively. These can be so helpful when assessing your own client's situation. According to the Library of Temple University, case studies are immensely helpful when you need to identify opportunities and challenges faced by another organization, when you need creative examples of how to solve a problem, and/or when you need to know what measurable results to use. Check out the link above to find a case study to help you.
Overall, secondary research can be so helpful to gaining valuable information about your organization. Plus, according to Smith's textbook, it is often much less time consuming and research draining that doing all primary research. When you create a campaign, it is important to critically look at all of the information available to you.
References
Morris, C. (2022, November 8). 16 reasons why social media is important to your company. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-social-media-is-important/285809/#close
Research guides: Public relations: Find case studies. Find Case Studies - Public Relations - Research Guides at Temple University. (2023). Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://guides.temple.edu/public_relations/casestudies
Smith, R. D. (2020). Strategic Planning for Public Relations (6th ed.). Taylor & Francis. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781000201468