What are Publics and How to Address the Right Publics in PR
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Public Relations would be nothing without the public, obviously. I mean “public” is literally the first word in the industry title. But that doesn’t mean the entire world is the public for every campaign for every business. Identifying the right publics for clients is at the center of our jobs, it drives every strategy and message we curate and every platform and media we utilize.
No matter our agency niche, or area expertise, we all have to start by asking the same questions: “What public is right for this client/campaign?” and “How do we address and influence them?”
What is a public?
To understand how to address the key publics, you first have to understand what a public is.
A public is defined by Smith (2021) in the sixth edition of Strategic Planning for Public Relations as “a group of people that shares a common interest vis-a-vis an organization, recognizes its significance, and sets out to do something about it.” (p. 150)
Publics and other Important Audience Groupings
Publics aren’t the only way to define groups of people businesses hope to target. These other groups of people also have an awareness of the issue or organization, but react to it differently and therefore, require different methods to reach. Besides publics, people are grouped into Market, Audience and Stakeholders.
A market is a smaller group of the population that are categorized by demographic sections such as age, income or lifestyle. The purpose of people in this category is to achieve the business or organizations customer-focused goal. They could already be customers or possess the same characteristics of currently customers, making them a good fit to grow the customer base.
An audience group is further removed than the two previous groups. They pay more attention to a certain medium such as a newspaper company or website and receive messages that way. They have no deeper connection with the issue or organization.
A stakeholder is a group or individual who pays attention to the issue or organization because they have a vested interest in what it can do for them. This can be in the form of consequences such as certain press, partnerships or financial backing.
Each of these groups are important to know because they take specific targeted messages. You cannot efficiently reach all of these groups with one message strategy.
Choosing Key Publics
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Publics are usually aware of their connection with a certain issue or organization which can help you identify the key publics and reach them better.
A key public is a specific public that is determined to be the most important and therefore the focus of the campaign or project for the business or organization. There are usually multiple key publics for any one strategic project. According to Pavillion, you center your objectives, strategies, tactics, themes and messages around your key publics and prioritize communication to them.
Key publics need to be specific and have a specific goal to achieve. Types of key publics include customers, producers, enablers and limiters. Each of these categories serves a specific purpose and can determine how to address your key publics.
A Cheat Sheet to Reaching Any Key Public
Identify your public
This might be an obvious step, but you need to use your analysis of the situation to determine who your publics are, which groups are already in tune with your situation, company or organization.
Narrow your public
Narrowing your publics can also be called finding your key publics. These are groups or individuals that you want to engage with your message. Spend time reaching out to the groups that already have a connection to your issue, organization or business.
Analyze all your publics
According to Prada Campaign, analyzing your publics allows for more opportunities and a lower chance of wasting organizational or company resources that could benefit your campaign or project.
Analyzing your publics includes understanding all their characteristics. There are six characteristics to look at: public relations situation, the organization, the public’s communication behavior, readability level, demographics and personality. According to Doctor Spin, identifying these characteristics can help segment your publics which helps further identify and analyze how to address them.
References:
Smith, R.D. (2020). Strategic Planning for Public Relations (6th ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003024071
