What PR Does Best

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Robert A. Kelly © 2003.

What PR Does Best

As a manager working for a business, non-profit or
association, you have a right to expect your public relations
expenditure to help produce behaviors like these: attract the
confidence of your key target audiences; encourage them to
take actions that lead to your success; help achieve your
department, division or subsidiary objectives; increase
repeat purchases; boost capital giving and membership
applications, and build new community support.

Don’t see results like that? You may need to restructure
your unit’s public relations effort beginning with a new
foundation premise along these lines” 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.

If you and the PR team assigned to your unit buy that
fundamental premise of public relations, the action phase is
next. Sit down together and list those important outside
audiences whose behaviors affect your unit the most. Then
put them in priority order so that we can address your #1
audience in this article.

You need to know more about this key target audience. In
particular, the way its members perceive you, and that means
you and/or your public relations staff must interact with the
folks who make up that audience. In turn, that requires you to
ask a lot of questions. “What do you know about us? Have
you ever had contact with our people? Was it a positive
experience? Do you have any problems with our services or
products?”

The alternative here is the use of professional survey
specialists, but this can be quite expensive. Which is why
I suggest that you use the public relations folks assigned to
your unit, hopefully including yourself for this sensitive
assignment.

At any rate, you and your people must stay alert to hesitant
or evasive answers. Be on-guard as well for any negativities
such as exaggerations, untruths, misconceptions, rumors or
inaccuracies.

The result of these labors provide the data you need to create your
corrective public relations goal. Which usually looks like these:
replace the untruth with truth; calm the exaggeration; straighten
out the misconception; correct the inaccuracy.

Reaching your public relations goal, however, requires a
strategy that shows you HOW to get there. You may
be surprised that you have only three to choose from in these
matters of opinion and perception: create opinion where none
exists, change existing perception, or reinforce it. But always
make sure that the strategy you choose is an obvious fit with
your new public relations goal.

Good writing is always a prize, and always worth the effort.
Especially for you as you reposition your public relations effort
to influence the behaviors of your most important outside
audiences.

Your message is charged with changing the perception
of the people who make up that target audience, and that’s
no easy job. It must be clear about the errant perception and
why it is untrue, and thus unfair. It must be both persuasive
and compelling if it is to be believable. So take the time to
run a draft by a few colleagues so that it winds up making
your point in the most convincing manner.

Like a bullet, your message must be fired directly at the
members of your target audience using a delivery system
made up of communications tactics. Fortunately, they are
in good supply and include “weapons” like speeches,
newsletters, special events, newsletters, newspaper and
radio interviews, brochures, news announcements and many
others. By the way, for this very sensitive, corrective
message, you may wish to build it into other announcements
or presentations rather than using a high-profile news release.

Before questions are asked about the program’s progress,
you and the public relations team assigned to your unit must
return to the field and resume questioning members of your
target audience. While using questions similar to those
used in your earlier monitoring session, you’re now looking
for indications that the communications tactics have worked.
In other words, signs that the negative perception, and thus
behaviors, are being altered in your direction.

You always have the option of increasing the pace of the
program by adding new communications tactics to the mix,
as well as increasing their frequencies.

Whether you call it the fundamental premise of public
relations, or simply “best practice PR,” it lays out
a workable pathway to achieving many unit manager’s
operating objectives.

end