Make Your PR Budget Work Harder

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Word count is 800 including guidelines and resource box.
Robert A. Kelly © 2003.

Make Your PR Budget Work Harder

Do it by restructuring your business, non-profit or association
public relations program so that it delivers the stakeholder
behavior changes you want. Changes that lead directly to
achieving your objectives.

A good first step is to base the restructure on a reality like
this: People act on their own perception of the facts before
them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which
something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce
that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired
-action the very people whose behaviors affect the
organization the most, the public relations mission is
accomplished.

Then, if you haven’t done so already, think about your
important outside audiences and how their behaviors can
help or hinder your organization. List them in order of
damage severity, and let’s talk about #1 on the roster.

Obviously, before you decide how to deal with external
audience perceptions and, thus, behaviors, it makes sense
to find out what members of that target audience really
think about your organization.

If you are not equipped with a budget to pay for professional
survey work, you and your colleagues,have little choice
but to interact with audience members and that means using
penetrating questions – “What do you think of us? How
much do you know about us? Have you ever had contact
with our people? If so, was it a positive experience?” Stay
alert to negativities, and watch closely for inaccuracies,
misconceptions, and exaggerations.

The data you gather from such monitoring activity let’s
you identify the most severe perception problem, then
establish it as your corrective public relations goal.
Which allows you to straighten out that misconception,
correct that inaccuracy or deflate that exaggeration.

Your goal isn’t worth much by itself. It needs a buddy,
and that buddy is a strategy that shows you what you
must do to achieve the goal. Luckily, there are only three
strategies to choose from when it comes to perceptions
and opinions. Reinforce existing opinion, change it, or
create perception where none exists. Here, by the way,
you must take care that your chosen strategy fits naturally
with your new goal.

Writing the message – especially one burdened with the
job of altering perception – is never an easy job. In other
words, it must change the opinion of a key target audience
and that can be a challenging writing assignment.

All at the same time, the message must be persuasive and
compelling. And to do that, it must be clear about what is
to be altered and why. It must be truthful, of course, and
believable if it is to move target audience perception towards
your view. On occasion, you may wish to avoid the
showcase effect of a separate news release leading you to
either piggyback your message on another operating
announcement, or deliver it live at one of your newsmaker
special events or media interviews.

Since the message will do very little simply looking back
at you from the word processor, you must round up your
“beasts of burden” to carry your message to the right eyes
and ears among your target audience. These are
communications tactics and there are scores of them ready
to help. They range from emails, speeches, and press releases
to radio/newspaper interviews, newsletters, facility tours and
many more. Only caution here is, make certain any
communications tactics you use come with proof that they
reaches folks similar to those in your target audience.

Questions will soon be raised as to whether your public
relations effort is succeeding. Which will send you and
your colleagues back into the field to question your target
audience members once again.

Only this time, you’re on the lookout for change in the form
of perceptions altered, and opinions modified in your
direction, as you planned.

It’s also comforting to know that a lagging effort can be
accelerated, and its impact increased, by adding more
communications tactics to the mix. Further, their frequencies
can be bumped up as well.

All of which increases the chances you will succeed in
changing the behaviors of your key external audiences.
Behavior change that you want and need, and that leads
directly to achieving your primary operating objectives.

end