What is Public Opinion Research? Why Should You Do It?

For any brand, its public opinion and relations are integral to its overall growth. Having one critic would lead many to hamper the reputation of an emerging or established brand. And Public Relations is meant for saving the lives of brands in toil. Today, businesses are becoming smarter and wiser in product development and marketing, but somewhere lagging in positively and effectively communicating with their target groups. This has led to an increase in the thriving of PR agencies in Delhi, Bangalore, and other metro cities which can manage a brand’s public visibility and image. But even before devising PR strategies, we must conduct Public Opinion Research to examine the attitude and perception of the people towards a brand. In this blog, we will look at what Public Opinion Research is and why you should do it.

As Baus said, Public Relations is surely a perfect blend of language, psychology, and communication in a human understanding. So before moving forward to strategies for PR agendas and activities, PR consultants and brands should do Public Opinion Research for a clear understanding.

Public Opinion Research is a means of evaluating the perception, image, or opinion regarding a brand shared by the public. It would answer all essential questions such as:

What does the public think of an organization?

What’s the attitude of the public towards an organization’s products & services?

To what extent public like the offerings?

Is the organization successful in delivering satisfactory experiences to the public?

Is the brand message rightly communicated to the public until now?

Is it possible to entirely reshape a brand’s image?

What does Public Opinion Research involve?

Image Study:

Under the brand image study, how a brand is viewed and recognized is analyzed. We compare the desired brand image and the existing one to find where and how the two images overlap or deviate from each other. What a brand thinks of it, and what its public sees it as is evaluated through suitable data collection methods. The emotions, feelings, expectations, and impact of the brand on the public are the goals while collecting data through interviews, surveys, and focus groups. This helps PR professionals identify the objectives of a brand and to what extent they have achieved those.

Motivational Research:

In motivational research, consumer behavior or interaction with the brand is analyzed to comprehend not only the conscious actions and decisions but also the unconscious ones. How an individual decides what to behave when the brand name is spelled out, how to make decisions when the choice of two brands is offered, why he favors one brand and not the other one, what emotions come into play, etc. This again can be done through qualitative data collection tools such as observation, interviews, focus groups, etc.

Does Public Opinion Research Matter?

Yes, of course!  Before embarking on a PR campaign, the research would join all the dots and helps in crafting an intuitive PR strategy for uplifting the brand. This will also help in quantifying the PR success if the research and survey are done post-campaign completion. The before-after data collected and analyzed through surveys is a useful metric for both PR companies in Delhi and brands (especially for startups).

Public Relation is a combination of philosophy, sociology, economics, language, psychology, journalism, communication, and other knowledge into a system of human understanding.

-Herbert M. Baus

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