After a fun summer of teaching Questionnaire Design at the University of Michigan, I’m on an education high and excited to get the word out about doing great research. I’ll be in New York the week of September 15th and would love to visit a PR agency or two to offer a 45-minute training on “Using Research in PR.”

I’ve done this a few times as a “lunch and learn” and it’s always been well-received, even by people who have experience using research; usually they don’t know what they don’t know.

A typical training starts with a conversation: How have you used research? What do your clients ask for? What do you wish you could offer them?

Then I’ll give an overview of some specific topics and how they can help you and your clients:

• Uses of research in PR: measurement, message testing, content generation
• Overview of different methodologies
• A walk through the research process (what the account team does, what I do, what the vendor does)
• Common pitfalls– so you can avoid them
• Some rough ideas of what things cost

Most of the folks I know in PR (after a few years in the trenches at Edelman and Ogilvy are really smart and give amazing client service. I’d argue that learning just 45 minutes worth of new ideas on research will give them opportunities to look even smarter and serve their clients even better.

Does this sound like something that might be a good fit for your agency? Leave a comment, or email me.