Are You a PR Chowderhead?

Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your
ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would
be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net. Word count is 850
including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2003.

Are You a PR Chowderhead?

You are if you stand by while your public relations people
futz around with communications tactics instead of nailing
down those outside audience behaviors that help you reach
your objectives.

No slap at communications tactics. They come in real handy
at the right time, as noted later in this piece.

But the real public relations opportunity lies with this reality:
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 those
people whose behaviors affect the organization, the public
relations mission is accomplished.

What it does for you, is put the spotlight where it belongs by
delivering the key external audience behaviors you need to
help achieve your mission objectives. So look at tactics for
what they are -- no substitute for a primary public relations
effort.

For example, change perceptions and, thus, behaviors among
those important outside audiences of yours, then watch for
activity like customers making repeat purchases, capital
givers or specifying sources looking your way, prospects
starting to do business with you, community leaders seeking
you out, organizations proposing strategic alliances and joint
ventures, and legislators and political leaders viewing you as
a key member of the business, non-profit or association
communities.

It just isn’t that hard to do it right.

Check out the PR work underway in your unit for activities
like these. Has anyone listed those outside audiences with the
greatest impact on your specific operation? Has that list been
prioritized according to the severity of those impacts?

Do you have any real idea of how those key target audiences
at the top of the list perceive your organization? That’s really
important because, as the fundamental premise cited earlier
notes, those perceptions inevitably morph into behaviors that
can help or hurt achieving your unit objectives.

Of course there’s work involved in pulling this off. You, your
colleagues or somebody, must get out there and interact with
members of that key target audience.

And ask a lot of questions like “Have you heard of us? Have
you had contact with us? Was it satisfactory in all regards?”
Of course, all this time you are listening carefully for any
negativity while staying alert for evasive or hesitant responses,
and especially for untruths, inaccuracies, rumors or
misconceptions.

The data you collect, you will use to establish your public
relations goal, i.e., the specific perception to be altered,
followed by the desired behavior change. In other words,
your objective here is to correct those untruths, inaccuracies,
misconceptions and rumors.

But goals are worthless without strategies. Happily you have
three of them to choose from: create perception/opinion where
there isn’t any, change existing perception, or reinforce it.
Let your public relations goal point to the obvious choice.

Now you put on your writer’s hat and write a really persuasive
bit of prose – the corrective message you will use to create,
change or reinforce individual opinion among members of
that target audience. Clarity is really important, as is accuracy
and believability. The more compelling the message is, the
more it helps alter what a lot of people believe, so try hard to
“compel” the reader.

Luckily, you have a herd of “beasts of burden” – the
communications tactics mentioned earlier – that will carry
your “message of inspiration” to the eyes and ears of your
target audience.

The tactics range from newsworthy surveys, all kinds of
speeches and letters-to-the-editor to press releases, brochures,
radio and newspaper interviews and just about everything
in between. One caveat: make sure the tactics you select have
a proven record of reaching people like those in your target
audience.

Pretty soon you will ask yourself, “Are we making any
progress in altering the offending perception?” Assuming you
don’t want to spend a lot of money on professional opinion
surveys, (any more than you did earlier in this drill), you’ll
have to remonitor that target audience’s perceptions.

Big difference this time is, you’ll be watching carefully to see,
while asking the same questions again, to what degree the
offending perception has now been altered. In other words, how
much that perception is actually moving in your direction,
AND how likely it is to deliver the behaviors you really want.

That is to say, you have no chance of becoming a chowderhead
when you use the fundmental realities of public relations to
safely nail down the outside audience behaviors that help you
reach your objectives.

end