The data you collect, you will use to establish your public relations goal, i.e., specific perception to be altered, followed by 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 obvious choice.

Now you put on your writer’s hat and write a really persuasive bit of prose – 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 message is, more it helps alter what a lot of people believe, so try hard to “compel” reader.

Luckily, you have a herd of “beasts of burden” – communications tactics mentioned earlier – that will carry your “message of inspiration” to 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 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 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 same questions again, to what degree 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 behaviors you really want.

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

end

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to general management personnel about the fundamental premise of public relations. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:http://www.prcommentary.com

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But I have to have a "secure site" to accept these you might think, and you are right. You can do this in one of two ways that make sense. You can contract with a company that provides web space and get a "secure site" from them, but this requires a knowledge of HTML coding. You also have to manually enter credit card information, and you have little defense against a disputed claim, and may have "charge backs".

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There are many ways to capture a sale and if you find one that works for you, your online business will prosper.