As time permits, meet with members of each audience and jot down their impressions of your business, especially problem areas. Be sure to ask questions about their feelings and perceptions of your products and services. Stay alert to inaccuracies, misconceptions or rumors. Here, you’ll have a chance to decide to what degree you will try to alter perceptions among each audience. Later, this will become behavior modification goal against which you will measure progress for each target audience.

Next, prepare persuasive messages that not only provide details about your product and service quality, but address problems that surfaced during your conversations with key audience members. Identify what is really at issue at moment; impart a sense of credibility to your comments; and regularly assess how opinion is currently running among that group, constantly adjusting your message.

Then, consider most effective means for communicating each message to each audience. This may include simple face-to-face meetings, briefings, news releases, news announcement luncheons, media interviews, facility tours, targeted speeches, a brochure, special events like open houses and awards, and a variety of other communications tactics.

As you look for signs that your aggressive efforts are changing perceptions for better, especially important in a recession, you should begin to notice increased awareness of your organization, especially progress in marketplace; increased receptiveness to your messages; a growing public perception of role your organization plays in its industry and in community; and, of course, growing numbers of prospects.

These signs of progress are tracked by speaking once again, and on a regular basis with people among each of your key audiences, by monitoring print and broadcast media for mentions of your messages or viewpoints, by interaction with key customers and prospects and, if resources permit, modest opinion sampling.

Especially during hard times, remember that people in your community or marketing area behave like everyone else – they take actions based on their perception of facts they hear about you and your business.

Which means that you must deal promptly and effectively with those perceptions by doing what is necessary to reach them. Especially during recession, you must persuade your stakeholders to your way of thinking, thus moving them to take actions that lead to success of your organization.

end

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks 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

You can do site updates weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Work out a special rate with your designer for this when that person does your original site design.

3. How much will it cost to host your site?

You can expect to pay a monthly fee to a hosting company to host your site. Some companies only quote a quarterly rather than monthly fee, so you'll need to translate that into a monthly cost.

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Ask friends and colleagues for recommendations for good hosting services.

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5. How much will it cost for a merchant account?

You'll need a merchant account if you're serious about doing business on web. A merchant account enables you to accept purchases online.

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Monthly statement fee $15 - $25

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