Rethink and realign your roles, experts task PR practitioners
By Ibidunni Banjoko
Experts in the Public Relations sub-sector of the Nigerian Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) industry have urged practitioners to rethink and realign their role within the expectations of the practice.
During an exclusive interview with MARKETINGEDGE, the practitioners noted that PR is the most potent management tool for improving brand and business image while achieving business objectives.
Commenting, Austin Ayaosi, Lead Analyst at BrandImpact Consulting asserted that Public Relations is the most important part, yet the most undervalued aspect of integrated marketing communications. He added that PR has the least budget in the IMC mix and, unfortunately, the first option to consider during budget cuts in times of economic headwinds.
According to the Public Relations Measurement expert, proper measurement, evaluation, and research can be used to address the challenge and improve how PR is perceived by the decision-makers in the boardroom.
“PR managers need to rethink and realign their role with the expectations of the practice. Having the right measurement and evaluation framework starts from setting PR objectives and setting the right goals gives a clearer picture of what is most important to what is less important.
“Once there is a clear picture of business priorities, adopting the right measurement and evaluation metrics becomes even easier. Then performance can be tracked, measured, and to unlock insights in line with the established priorities to reveal what is working well, what is not working well, and how results can be improved upon,” he said.
Also commenting on this, Austin Chijioke, Immediate former General Secretary of the NIPR, noted that every PR campaign is preceded with a research to determine its workability, mode and means, adding that PR campaigns must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and concluded within a reasonable Time frame) and compliant.
“The objective of every PR campaign must be measured or evaluated at the end of the campaign to ascertain its success or otherwise. The evaluation thus leads to another round of research,” he stated.
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