Managers: Paying for PR-Lite?

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Robert A. Kelly © 2004.

Managers: Paying for PR-Lite?

As a business, non-profit or association manager, your
public relations expenditure may give you names in the
newspaper or product plugs on radio. But what about key
stakeholder behavior change – the kind that leads directly
to achieving your managerial objectives?

Since that’s public relations’ strongest suit, shouldn’t you
be getting that first, THEN incremental publicity exposure?
Especially when persuading those important outside folks
to your way of thinking can move many of them to take
actions that help you achieve your department, division or
subsidiary objectives?

Bounce this notion off the public relations team assigned to
your unit: 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 they buy into it, you’ll have a simple blueprint that gets
everyone working towards the same external audience
behaviors insuring that your public relations effort stays
on track.

Consider the possible payoffs: customers starting to make
repeat purchases; community leaders beginning to seek you
out; welcome bounces in show room visits; membership
applications on the rise; prospects starting to do business
with you; fresh proposals for strategic alliances and joint
ventures; higher employee retention rates, capital givers or
specifying sources beginning to look your way, and even
politicians and legislators starting to view you as a key
member of the business, non-profit or association
communities

But, like everything else, there’s no free lunch in PR either,
and the work looks like this. You need to find out who
among your important outside audiences is behaving in ways
that help or hinder the achievement of your objectives. And
then, list them according to how severely their behaviors affect
your organization.

Of course it’s unlikely that you have the facts and figures you
need to pull this off because you aren’t real certain just how
most members of that key outside audience perceive your
organization.

There’s also a good chance you don’t have the budget to
accommodate expensive professional survey work. So you and
your PR colleagues (they should be quite familiar with
perception and behavior matters) must monitor those perceptions
yourself.

Meet with members of that outside audience and ask
questions like “Are you familiar with our services or products?”
“Have you ever had contact with anyone from our organization?
Was it a satisfactory experience?” Stay alert to negative statements,
especially evasive or hesitant replies. Watch carefully for false
assumptions, untruths, misconceptions, inaccuracies and
potentially damaging rumors. Any of which will need to be
corrected, because experience shows they usually lead to
negative behaviors.

So, because the obvious objective here is to correct those
same untruths, inaccuracies, misconceptions and false
assumptions, you now select the specific perception to be
altered, and that becomes your public relations goal.

But a PR goal without a strategy to show you how to get
there, is like champagne without the peaches. That’s why
you must select one of three strategies especially designed
to create perception or opinion where there may be none,
or change existing perception, or reinforce it. The challenge
here (albeit small) is to insure that the goal and its strategy
match each other. You wouldn’t want to select “change
existing perception” when current perception is just right
suggesting a “reinforce” strategy.

Your writers step forward here to create a compelling
message carefully designed to alter your key target audience’s
perception, as called for by your public relations goal.

Stay flexible as to message delivery because combining your
corrective message with another presentation or newsworthy
announcement of a new product, service or employee may
lend more credibility by not overemphasizing the need for
such a correction.

The new message must be very clear about what perception
needs clarification or correction, and why. Your facts must
be truthful and your position must be logically explained and
believable if it is to hold the attention of members of that
target audience, and actually move perception in your direction.
It’s clear that your message must be compelling.

I call the communications tactics you will use to move your
message to the attention of that key external audience “beasts
of burden” because they must carry your persuasive new
thoughts to the eyes and ears of those important outside people.

You’re in luck here because the list of tactics is a long one. It
includes letters-to-the-editor, brochures, press releases and
speeches. Or, you might select radio and newspaper interviews,
personal contacts, facility tours or customer briefings. There are
dozens in waiting and the only selection requirement is that
those tactics you choose have a record of reaching people just
like the members of your key target audience.

Your associates will soon want to know if any progress is being
made. Of course you’ll already be hard at work remonitoring
perceptions among your target audience members. Using
questions similar to those used during your earlier monitoring
session, you’ll now be on the lookout for indications that
audience perceptions are beginning to move the way you want
them to move.

Things can always be moved along at a faster clip by adding
more communications tactics, AND by increasing their
frequencies.

The only way to be certain you are buying full-bodied public
relations results and not the “Lite” version, is to undertake an
aggressive public relations plan that targets the kind of key
stakeholder behavior change that leads directly to achieving
your department, division or subsidiary objectives.

end