Successful Small Businesses Use PR

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including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2003.

Successful Small Businesses Use PR

It’s obvious when a small business has accepted the fact that
its most important outside audiences need lots of care and
feeding. They do something about it.

There’s a sense of urgency and a recognition that those “key
target publics” have behaviors that really impact the business,
and that they had BETTER do something about it!

What about you? Are you ready to follow the winners and get
public relations working for your small business?

The payoff can be significant – key audience behaviors that
directly support your business objectives and make the
difference between failure and success.

But, as always, there’s some work connected to reaching that
pot of gold, but it’s really worth the effort.

If you’re willing, begin by listing those most important outsiders
in a priority ranking. Probably, customers and prospects will
take #1 and #2 positions. But others rate a spot on that list
depending on how crucial they are to the success of your
business. In fact, an audience only makes the list if, left
unattended, its perceptions and behaviors actually can hurt your
business.

You’re at a disadvantage when you don’t know what those
important external audiences think of you and your small
business. And the only affordable way to find out is for you
and your colleagues to talk to members of that key audience
by interacting with them. Ask questions about what they think
of you, your business and its products or services. Especially
watch for any negativity, misconceptions, inaccuracies,
wrong-headed beliefs, or rumors. And monitor local print and
broadcast media, especially local talk shows and newspaper
pages, for similarly negative signs.

The responses you gather help you set your public relations
goal. For instance, correct that wrong-headed belief; fix that
inaccuracy; or straighten-out that misconception. The goal, by
the way, will also become your behavior modification marker
against which progress can be tracked.

But how do you get there? You select a strategy from the three
available to you: create perception/opinion where none may
exist, change existing perception/opinion, or reinforce it. The
public relations goal you just set will lead you directly to the
right choice of strategies.

The message you send to your target audience is crucial, and
writing it can be hard work because it must alter the negativity
you found when you interviewed audience members.

Above all, it must be persuasive while clearly presenting the
facts. It must be credible, believable and timely as it explains
truthfully what is at issue at that moment. In short, your
message must be compelling.

Getting that finished message to the right eyes and ears is your
next challenge. And that means selecting the right communi-
cations tactics, and you have dozens of them available to you.
Speeches, press releases, emails, meetings, radio and newspaper
interviews, action alerts, brochures, newsletters and so many
others.

Before long, you’ll be looking for indications that your new
public relations program is making progress.

After the communications effort has had six or eight weeks to
take effect, it seems obvious that the best way to determine
that is to go back to members of your key target audience,
interact with them again and ask more questions. The
difference this time, however, is that you are looking for
signs that your carefully prepared message is really altering
the negativity you discovered during your interviews with
those target audience members. And once again, keep an eye
and ear on local media for similar signs that your message
has been heard.

If you’re anxious to speed up the process, boost the number
and variety of the communications tactics you’re using, as
well as their frequencies.

What you want is for your second monitoring go-around to
show marked perception change which tells you clearly that the
behaviors you really want are on the way.

In the PR business, that creates success.

end