One of the most important steps in strategic and effective public relations is accurately identifying the publics with which you want to build mutually beneficial relationships. A popular axiom for public relations is that there is no such thing as a “general public.” In other words, an organization has a variety of key groups who bring different expectations for their relationship with the organization. These differences help an organization segment its publics into groups with similar values and expectations and to focus communication strategies.

Attached, you’ll find a short chapter you need to read that is titled “Identifying Stakeholders and Prioritizing Stakeholders and Publics.” This is going to be critical information that is required for completing your segmentation matrix. You can prioritize them three different ways:

By Attributes

Definitive Stakeholders – An expectant stakeholder who gains the relevant missing attribute. Often dominant stakeholders with an urgent issue, or dependent groups with powerful legal support. Finally those classed as dangerous could gain legitimacy e.g. democratic legitimacy achieved by a nationalist party.
Dominant Stakeholders – The group that many theories position as the only stakeholders of an organisation or project. Likely to have a formal mechanism in place acknowledging the relationship with the organisation or project e.g. Boards of directors, HR department, public relations.
Dependent Stakeholders – Stakeholders who are dependent on others to carry out their will, because they lack the power to enforce their stake. For example local residents & animals impacted by the BP oil spill. Advocacy of their interests by dominant stakeholders can make them definitive stakeholders.
Dangerous Stakeholders – Those with powerful and urgent claims will be coercive and possibly violent. For example employee sabotage or coercive/unlawful tactics used by activists. Note that Mitchell et al. identify these stakeholders, but don’t require them to be acknowledged & thus awarded legitimacy (ibid, p.878).
Dormant Stakeholders – Possess power to impose their will through coercive, utilitarian or symbolic means, but have little or no interaction /involvement as they lack legitimacy or urgency.
Discretionary Stakeholders – Likely to recipients of corporate philanthropy. No pressure on managers to engage with this group, but they may choose to do so. Examples are beneficiaries of charity.
Demanding Stakeholders – Those with urgent claims, but no legitimacy or power. Irritants for management, but not worth considering. Examples are people with unjustified grudges, serial complainers or low return customers.

http://www.stakeholdermap.com/stakeholder-analysis/stakeholder-salience.html

By Situation

Active publics. This group is highly involved and actively seek information and act on that information.
Aware publics. This group will process information and might act, but are limited by lower levels of involvement and problem recognition, or higher levels of constraint recognition
Aroused publics. This group has low levels of knowledge, but recognize a potential problem or issue. As their level of involvement is heightened, and they are more likely to begin seeking information.
Inactive publics. Inactive as groups of individuals with low levels of knowledge and involvement regarding an organization and its operation

By Communication Strategy

Advocate stakeholders. This is the group that you want involved in supportive actions such as third-party endorsements, letter-writing campaigns, donations, investments, and attendance at functions. Communication should be action and behavior oriented.
Dormant stakeholders. This is a group that is not ready to be involved. If inactivity is due to lack of knowledge, messages should focus on creating awareness and understanding of the issues that affect them. If the publics are aroused, but not active, then communication should address potential causes of apathy by reducing perceptions of constraints or using affective cues to increase emotional attachment.
Adversarial stakeholders. The initial response to this group is to be defensive. However, defensive communication will not work on this group, it will only entrench them in their position. Defensive communication is better intended for aroused publics who have not decided whether they are supportive or not. Instead, organizations should use conflict resolution strategies that involve nonsupportive stakeholders to seek win-win solutions.
Apathetic stakeholders. Again, the gut reaction to this group is to ignore it. But if this group faces an issue but is not aware of it or does not see its resonance yet, it may still move to an aroused, then aware, and then active public. A better strategy is to increase awareness of the issue with an invitation to collaborate with the organization on the issue before it becomes a problem or crisis. Since it would be difficult to get this group involved, most of the communication effort should be focused on increasing the salience of the issue and invitations for involvement.

From “Identifying and Prioritizing Stakeholders and Publics”, chapter 7 from the book Public Relations (v. 1.0). Licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 license.