Decide once and for all that instead of your business, non-profit, government agency or association public relations staff spending most of their time moving messages from one point to another using simple communications tactics, you really want the best PR has to offer. And that almost always means doing something both positive and meaningful about the behaviors of those important outside audiences of yours whose behaviors MOST affect the departmental, divisional or subsidiary unit you manage. This assumes, by the way, that you are a manager who needs and wants the kind of public relations effort that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives. You can do this by persuading key outside folks of yours to your way of thinking by helping move them to take actions that help your department, group, division or subsidiary succeed. But it can only happen when you as a manager require more than tactics like special events, news releases and broadcast plugs. Thats when youll receive the quality public relations results you deserve. The good news is that theres a solid foundation under- pinning this approach to managerial public relations: 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 usually accomplished. More good news for managers lies in the kind of PR end-products that can come your way. For example, new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures start showing up; community leaders begin to seek you out; capital givers or specifying sources start to look your way; welcome bounces in show room visits occur; politicians and legislators begin looking at you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities; customers begin to make repeat purchases; and membership applications start to rise. Your public relations professionals are your shock troops in making this work. They are already in the perception and behavior business, and can handle your data gathering activity, an essential component of your new opinion monitoring project. However, you should satisfy yourself that your PR staff really accepts why its SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Essentially, be sure they truly believe that perceptions almost always result in behaviors that can help or hurt your operation. Invest some time in going over your plans for monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Propose that the staff consider questions like these: how much do you know about our organization? Have you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with the exchange? Are you familiar with our services or products and employees? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures? By the way, hiring survey pros to handle the opinion gathering work, can result in costs exceeding the cost of using your own staff people. But whether its your people or a survey firm asking the questions, the objective remains the same: identify untruths, false assumptions, unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions and any other negative perception that might translate into hurtful behaviors. As is always the case in administering programs, you need to establish a clearcut and realistic PR goal calling for action on the most serious problem areas you uncovered during your key audience perception monitoring. You may decide to straighten out that dangerous misconception, bring to an end that potentially painful rumor, or correct that gross inaccuracy. As you might suspect, it will be necessary to connect your new goal to an action-oriented strategy that shows how to get to where youre going. Actually, you have just three strategic options available to you when it comes to doing something about perception and opinion. Change existing perception, create perception where there may be none, or reinforce it. Needless to say, the wrong strategy pick will taste like red-eye gravy on your clams casino. So be sure your new strategy fits well with your new public relations goal. You certainly dont want to select change when the facts dictate a strategy of reinforcement. Moving a key audience to your way of thinking is never a cakewalk. The first step is certainly asking your teams best writer to prepare a persuasive message that will help move that key audience to your view of things. It has to be a carefully-written message targeted directly at your key external audience. S/he must produce some really corrective language that is not merely compelling, persuasive and believable, but clear and factual if they are to shift perception/opinion towards your point of view and lead to the behaviors you have in mind. Your message will be carried to the attention of your target audience by the right communications tactics. There are many tactics available from speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters, personal meetings and many others. But be certain that the tactics you pick are known to reach folks just like your audience members. As always, how you communicate your message remains a concern because its credibility is fragile and always suspect. Which is why you may wish initially to unveil your corrective message before smaller meetings through presentations rather than using higher-profile news releases. In due course, youll want to compare where you are now against the starting point to highlight progress made since the programs inception. First, youll be demonstrating, in the form of periodic progress reports, how the monies spent on public relations can pay off. However, its also an alert to start a second perception monitoring session with members of your external audience. Here, youll use many of the same questions used in the benchmark interviews. But now, you will be on strict alert for signs that the bad news perception is being altered in your direction. On occasion, the program will show signs of slowing down. Fortunately, adding more communications tactics, and/or increasing their frequencies, usually solves that problem. I asked up front: Managers, Why Stress Over your PR? Certainly, as outlined above, there will be little justification for angst or stress among business, non- profit, government agency or association managers who pursue public relations solutions that lead directly to achieving their managerial objectives. 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. Word count is 1200 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly 2006. |
