Forget about Random press releases; targeted media is the way to go

As the press conference came to an end, the CEO and the Corporate Communications boss walked to my table; they had one mission, to give me the list of the media houses that they wanted the story to be featured. They were keen on the two top publications, one mass market television channel and several vernacular stations.

To cut the long story short, the client was trying to change my much targeted media event to an irrelevant general media one.

What is the essence of broadcasting news about a newly launched elevator system on a vernacular station? I pondered.

One of the most essential components of PR is not only understanding your target audience but understanding them in a better way. To understand your target audience better, you should know who your target audiences are. For example if you own a firm dealing in beauty products then you should analyze which age segment your beauty products cater to. After analyzing this only you can use media in a better way. A slight mistake in this could create havoc for your company.

To understand your target audience better, there in need to clearly understand their current attitudes, opinions as well as interests. This could be known through market research and by watching the trend of the public demand. On the basis of these information, you should formulate public relations campaign in such a way that it caters to their attitudes, opinions, and interests. It is very important to know your target audience right from the inception of the project and the more you know about your target audiences, the better impact you can create on them through your PR campaign. Knowing your target audience better helps you in the execution of your next step in your PR plan i.e. targeting the right media channel. For example if your beauty product is an anti wrinkle beauty cream then your communiqué should not be targeting  One FM or Homeboyz radio which are mediums with a  young audience base, as this will not help your cause.

After knowing your target audience and preparing a list of potential media targets for your PR campaign, you should rate each of media you are going to use on the basis of how good it fits with your target market, and then go for the ones that fit best to your need. You should not attach much importance to their popularity or circulation.

Young PR Kenya Speak; Customers are the backbone of any business, so knowing the target audience well will help you to gain the optimum results from your PR campaigns. It would also help you in generating a positive impact of the organization on not only the regular customers, but also on potential customers.