What is RPIE and Why Is It Important For Successful Strategic Communications Plans in Sports PR?

May 28

If you’re reading this, I am fully aware that you’re not new to the world of strategic communications within sports. Sometimes, though, when you’re knee deep in it every single day, you can lose track of the finer details of a critical concept in strategic communications.

In a rush, we often jump to what I call “shooting from the hip” and we skip to tactics that we know are likely to work but blow right through previous mile markers of not just defining strategies but that first water station before mile one: research and planning.

So when I come here to ask you to get back to basics and use a comprehensive strategic comms model in your sports PR efforts, it can feel remedial if it’s been a minute since you took a breathe and looked at the course from 30,00 feet.

Fear not, that’s what this specific post from me is for.

I am going to outline the RPIE model (Research, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation) and why you and your team need to all be discussing it for comms plans big in length (annual, monthly) and small (weekly or a one-off announcements). And I promise, simply writing down “RPIE” on your legal pad or whiteboard as a starting point is the best first step you can take that will make you more likely, in less time, to reach the outcomes your team seeks.

What is RPIE?

At its most basic, RPIE (pronounced “are-pie” – I know sports comms pros love a good pronunciation guide!) is one of many framework acronyms out there.

For strategic communications planning to be foundational, it needs to focus on research, planning, implementation and evaluation. From soup to nuts, it guides a PR pro through a replicable process that incorporates elements that are so often missing from true PR plans: research, specific objectives and how you’ll evaluate success.

I like RPIE because it is the acronym used by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Universal Accreditation Board (UAB) who created the Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) designation - think CPA for accountants. Something I was proud to accomplish in 2021 and hope to help as many sports PR pros look into securing for themselves.

Let's add a little more depth to that—if you are really, really solid in your strategies and tactics, that is awesome. How did you land on those? How did you decide on when/what/how and what current and concrete research can you point to if your colleagues have questions?

Oh, shoot. Research. X’s out article tab. Aint nobody got time for that…

Hang with me here.

If we’re not using formal or informal research - be it primary (we conducted it), or secondar (others in the industry did it), how are we making informed decisions about our audience and what we want them to think, feel or do?

And finally, for those subject matter experts among you, if we aren’t using true evaluation in our comms efforts, we are likely only able to show a very surface level of “what” (we did) to the brass, leaving them often with the desire for “so what” and “now what” that our peers in marketing, ticketing and sponsorships can readily provide because their work ties back to business objectives.

Comms work can do this too and I’ll be talking about that more in detail in the future as well as measurement, leadership, media relations/ops and innovation in our field.

If you're only at the first level of understanding of PR and have become really, really good at the tactics you’re crushing (writing press releases, coordinating interviews, pitching media), rest assured, investing your time in learning RPIE is simple and will make you a lot better at tying back the “why” you’re setting out to do what you do often subconsciously during those crazy stretches of gamedays and weekends and off-day (?) work (!).

If you’re a head of comms and you’ve got your acronyms or simply have your systems in place, I don’t doubt that you’ve found success doing what you do to date. But if you’re not using RPIE and not teaching your team to think RPIE, you run the risk of missing clear vision for your plans that stay on the paper and never get implemented (or those plans that get executed, but never put to paper, and then are distant memories come recap time).

Do you want to learn more from me? In addition to more blog posts and the increased LinkedIn activity you perhaps have seen, I’ll be launching my own newsletter in the coming weeks and free resources for Sports PR pros at every stage of their journey.

If you know already that you are going to want on that list, make sure you’re following me on LinkedIn if you aren’t already.

Why Should You Care About RPIE?

I'm all about finding what works for you as a PR pro and I surely can’t make you deeply care about RPIE like I do, but let me give you three compelling reasons to make it part of your comms strategy - and you can try it with your next player announcement.

RPIE is important because:

Reason #1 - it forces you to focus on your target audience (hint: not “everyone”, and most often not “media” given they are a channel to your target audience).
Reason #2 – planning audience specific objectives that focus on outputs rather than outputs or outtakes allows you to show impact in what you do and why it matters
Reason #3 – the work you do to set out what you’ll measure (in advance) allows you to create a virtuous cycle of using evaluation as research in the next time you are faced with a similar (or different) situation.

Important: Don't think that this needs to be an elaborate, multi-month planning process that we all know every year our “in-season” becomes blurred with what we thought might be a slower “offseason”.

The truth is, even starting by spelling out RPIE on the board gets you and your team to quickly move through what research is available to you (resources!), a potential path/timeline (clarity!) and the ever-critical “how will we know if we’ve found success on this” (hint: not “we survived, put this out and advanced to the next day. Fear not, I used to also live this way).

RPIE in Context

How you might start with RPIE is just as important as understanding strategic planning and why it’s critical. For me, I love to start with guiding questions.

Let me give you a real-world example of an RPIE checklist I found when I was beginning my accreditation (APR) journey, which coincided with more intentional RPIE work.

The checklist can quickly be modified for a real-world example of perhaps a player signing as discussed earlier:

R - RESEARCH. Gathering info on the situation (signing a player) and determining the public (who we’re looking to reach)

What do we know about this player?
What does our audience need?
What other departments have already done research we could use (ticketing, sponsorships, marketing, team operations/sporting side)?
Who do we want to reach? Are there secondary audiences (other teams/leagues/agents/coaches)?
What do we know about them?
Where do we find them?
What do we want them to do? (think-feel-say-do)

P - PLANNING: Making sure we have goals, objectives, strategies and tactics.

(Goals - aspirational, future-facing).

how do we wish to have our team/organization described in the future in the minds of our target audiences?

(Objectives - shorter-term, measurable) …

Who are we trying to reach? What are we trying to change about them (awareness, attitude or action).
How much will we achieve (percent increase of [awareness] of top-ranked athletes in league on team)
When will this happen (over the course of the summer signing window?)

Outcome objectives - are we trying to change someone’s awareness of something, their attitude on something or getting them to do something? Hint: the same comms plan can have awareness, attitude and action objectives for the same audience. Start with something super simple “think-feel-do” questions and get more formal from there.
Strategies: describe HOW we’ll reach objectives while Tactics are the WHAT you’ll do

I - IMPLEMENTATION: the actual execution phase of the plan. See how often we might just skip to this?

What are the messages being sent through which comms channels
How many reached target audiences?
Monitoring tools for execution?
Who internally - and then externally - is going to do what and when
What is our timeline and budget? Our materials and delivery methods?

E - EVALUATION : the actual execution phase of the plan. See how often we might just skip to this?

Did we accomplish our objectives? Prove it.
Can we adjust, improve for the future?
How did we measure effectiveness against our objectives?
Did we get key messages out and heard?
How can we use this as research for our next phase/campaign/announcement?

These questions are adapted from the Study Guide for Examination for Accreditation in Public Relations. It’s a tough test, but before studying I don’t recall truly asking myself some of those questions! But now I do - and you can too!

Hat tip to Richie Escovedo for their checklist below that I pulled from above.

3 Tips for Giving RPIE a Try Today

Raise your hand if you are still thinking you aren’t going to be able to apply this? Be honest! 👋

Don’t sweat it; I’ve got three extra tips to get you started:

Tip #1: Don’t over-think the R of research if you’ve not relied on it much (or at all) before. Yes, there’s likely more research that you might need over time but starting now there is a wealth of secondary research out there to peruse. Also: maybe this is a good motivation to start asking around for research from your colleagues and break down silos so you can all collectively benefit from (and push the organization for richer insights that can inform decisions). Writing a press release on a player signing? You likely are compiling a ton of secondary research on the player (stats, articles, videos, biographies). What do you think your target audience (here: probably season ticket holders and casual sports fans) care about? My guess: winning, making the team better, something they can connect to make this new person feel like he/she is “one of us.”
Tip #2: Remember that measurement is an ongoing journey but starting your measurement journey (or how you will evaluate success) is a lot like creating a meaningful budget. Sometimes we can be afraid that if we actually look at the numbers that we might not be doing “it” right. But the alternative is not looking at all and falling behind and knowing you need to.
Tip #3: Consider walking through with me on how you’re currently mapping out your strategic comms plans in a more private initial discovery call. I’m here to listen and help and when you get outside viewpoints on your “routine” for setting out a comms plan, actionable steps can become a lot more clear - making your day to day that much more focused.

For an in-depth look at RPIE, you can also check out a strategic planning workshop. Or just keep coming back with a willingness to improve your comms efforts.

Key Takeaways

Let's wrap this up, shall we? The key takeaways to remember from this post are that implementing an RPIE model can foundationally change how you set yourself, your PR dept and your organization up for success in communications by using research, planning, implementation and evaluation.

At Miller PR Solutions, I help communications professionals in sports organizations enhance their strategic communication capabilities with innovative training programs and solutions, enabling them to connect with fans, boost brand visibility, and drive growth.

If you would like to work with me or know more, please drop me a line on Linkedin, please drop me a line here. I love hearing from communications professionals and especially those who have made working in sports their niche.

Pssst, you can also book a free introductory call to talk through this more.

Click here to book a free introductory call..

Oh, and come say hi on Linkedin and join me in our journey together to make strategic communications in sports more impactful and fun.

Until next time…remember why you do what you do, be open to growth and be kind to others and yourself.

Hannah McClatchey