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. Net word count is 765 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2003. PR Buyers Beware!
It can bite you and waste your public relations budget when
program emphasizes communications tactics instead of how to make certain your key outside audiences understand who and what you are.
Especially sad when tactics are placed in motion before you really know how your key target audience views your organization, and exactly at whom those tactics should be directed. Things can really fall apart if you then fail to decide up front what changes in perceptions, and thus behaviors you desire at end of program.
That’s no way to structure a public relations program.
Instead, before pulling any triggers, ask one big question. Who is my #1 public relations target? Focus on that certain outside audience that you know affects your organization more than any other. It makes sense because that particular external “public” probably will have a big say about survival of your organization.
Keep in mind that your other external audiences will need similar care and feeding as you move forward.
So, with your target in sight, you need to interact with members of that key audience and get inside their heads. What, if anything, do they think about you and your organization? As you talk to them, do negative feelings or observations come to surface? Why? What appears to need correction? Are there inaccuracies? Misconceptions? For that matter, is there a dangerous rumor loose out there that badly needs neutralizing?
The answers are solid gold because they let you form a public relations goal which, when achieved, corrects what’s wrong. Your goal could be to knock down that rumor, clarify that misconception, or correct that inaccuracy.
In setting your goal, stay alert to fact that altering perceptions of that target audience recognizes that perceptions almost always lead to predictable behaviors that can either hurt or help you achieve your objectives.
Now you need a roadmap that tells you how to get to that goal. In other words, a strategy. In dealing with personal opinion, we only have three strategic choices. Create, change or reinforce that perception, i.e., that opinion.
