Public relation’s obvious values not only justify their expense, they make one wonder why any organization intent on achieving its goals and objectives would want to pursue them without
support of a first-class public relations effort.True, some values may be less obvious, but they are just as useful to organization life and operations as those public relations values that jump right off page.
Fundamental Value
Just look at fundamental premise of public relations: People act on their perception of facts leading to behaviors about which something can be done. When public relations creates, changes or reinforces that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action those people whose behaviors affect organization, public relations mission is accomplished.
Reading those words, can anyone seriously question whether any organization – business, non-profit or public entity – should embrace this discipline?
I believe gold medal value is contained in that very fundamental premise – i.e., behaviors of your key audiences are crucial to success of your organization. If those audiences don’t behave as you would like them to, achieving your organization’s most important goals and objectives will be immensely more difficult. The fundamental premise tells us that precisely because public relations zeros in on altering perceptions, and thus behaviors of your key target audiences, it helps you get to where you want to be. Which strongly suggests that proper application of public relations can be central not only to your organization’s success, but possibly to its very survival.
Strategic Value
Public opinion is leverage that allows us to succeed. But our most significant contribution to organizational achievement is strategic ability to create, change or reinforce existing public perception and behaviors. It is this capability, this talent if you will, that can lead an employer/client to organization success.
Tactical Value
Equally valuable is public relation’s ability to follow with carefully selected tactics tailored to reach target audiences with effective communications, to create and also tailor persuasive messages designed to influence their perception/behavior, and to gain momentum and impact by implementing those tactics with pinpoint accuracy and timing.
In process, employer/client receives value and benefits when public relations gains and holds understanding and acceptance of those audiences, those publics, without which his or her organization cannot prosper.
Reputational Value
Concurrently in process, organization’s reputation is burnished delivering value that only strengthens its ability to pursue successfully its goals and objectives.
A successful business benefitting from public relations values such as these is more able to meet its obligations to society as a good corporate citizen, taxpayer, employer and reliable maker/supplier of quality, fairly-priced goods or services – thus delivering enormous value by serving public interest.
Public relations problems and challenges are usually defined by what people THINK about a set of facts versus truth of matter. Often, this is off-putting to people – somehow, it seems to mean that public relations is without substance. But key factor to remember here is that how people PERCEIVE facts leads inevitably to very real, predictable behaviors which can, and often do create clear and present public relations problems to which we commit our resources.
