Research as a source for a press release? Our new step-by-step plan!
A press release based on research results. A common phenomenon in communication land. But how do you properly handle a survey and research results? We recently received a lesson and learned from it. That is why we have adapted our way of working.
Several of our clients do research or have research done for them. Sometimes these are heavy market surveys that yield very valuable insights, other times they are smaller samples of the target group. And yet another time it is opinion surveys to find out what the Dutchman thinks. We are regularly (closely) involved in these surveys. Not infrequently, research lends itself well to communication around the research topic. Often, (part of) the research is used for external communication, especially when it has sufficient news value. Other data are mainly relevant to the organisation in question and may provide a competitive advantage.
How do you achieve PR success?
So how do you handle research data in press releases? This is a question that has been occupying us strongly in recent weeks. And all because some journalists have labelled a press release (and actually, in particular, a headline above the press release in question) as incorrect. Rightly so, it turned out. One of my highly esteemed colleagues had interpreted the research data too freely and in fact concluded something that could not be concluded as such. After all, if young men 'prefer to work under a man', that does not mean they 'prefer not to work under a woman' - that was the point. Several media outlets had picked up the message as well as the news from the headline of the press release. PR success you might think, but it wasn't accurate and we were rightly criticised for that. Criticism is to learn from, so we do.
Four steps towards successful research PR
How do we avoid making the same mistake again in the future? We have drawn up a step-by-step plan for ourselves - and for every communication professional who can benefit from it - which we will follow meticulously from now on. From now on, we will handle research data as follows:
Draw factual conclusions
We only draw conclusions that are literally evident from the research questions or statements. This prevents us from being wrong again and drawing unjustified conclusions. Internally, we do a double check on this.
Add research justification
We always add a research justification to the press release. That way, there can never be any ambiguity about how we arrived at the research results.
Have the research checked
We have our press releases checked by the people who conducted the research - we are dealing with professional researchers who know very well what they have and have not researched and how to interpret the results. So this provides an extra quality check.
Be transparent towards journalists
We allow journalists to see the research results to which the press release refers. Until recently, we were generally reluctant to share all results - especially in an online environment where one can also access (competition) sensitive data and/or other research data. But journalists need to have access to this data in order to form a proper opinion on the value of the message. From now on, we will ensure that the results we use are shareable with journalists.
Using the steps above, we will from now on act when making press releases in response to research. In doing so, we will help ourselves and hopefully also the media. Above all, they should remain critical, because that is their role. It is up to us to learn from the criticism and ensure that our press releases contain the right news.
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