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 770
including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2003.

Ignore PR at Your Peril!

If you do, it means:

1. you don’t value tracking the perceptions of important
outside audiences whose behaviors could sink your ship:

2. you don’t care about setting a public relations goal
designed to correct misconceptions, inaccuracies or rumors
that can hurt you;

3. you care even less about strategies to get you from here to
that PR goal you already don’t care about;

4. and you certainly don’t value the persuasive messages you
need to convince your key outside audiences that their
damaging perceptions of your enterprise are dead wrong.

Man, that’s risky and an awful lot not to care about!

Actually, I don’t believe you don’t care, and I don’t believe
you’re really ignoring public relations. If you were, by now
your organization would be on its last legs, Kaput!, Morto!

In fact, you may be a closet PR person who knows better. Why
you may even buy the fundamental premise of 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 those
people whose behaviors affect the organization, the public
relations mission is accomplished.”

I’ll bet you’re also pretty darn good at monitoring what that
#1 external audience thinks about you and your organization.
And that you regularly interact with them asking questions
like What do you think of us? Why? while watching for
negative undertones, wrong-headed beliefs or misconceptions.

And that means you’ll be anxious to create a public relations
goal that corrects such misconceptions because they can lead
directly to negative behaviors that will hurt you.

In practice, your goal may be focused on pacifying an
activist group, reinforcing prospect interest in your
product or service, or even countering a painful rumor.

You’re probably ahead of me in forming the strategy
you need to reach that goal. For better or worse, there are
only three ways to deal with opinion or perception
problems. Create some all-new opinion where none
exists, change existing opinion, or reinforce it.

With goal and strategy both in hand, you now have some
real work to do. What will you need to say to your key
audience members to persuade them to your way of thinking?
You must be clear about what should be corrected or
clarified. You must also be persuasive, and your facts and
figures believable. And if appropriate, try to be compelling,
perhaps with a certain sense of urgency.

Your “foot soldiers” – communications tactics – can now
carry that hard-won message to the attention of your #1 target
audience, and there are scads of them just waiting for you to
send them into action. For example, speeches, news releases,
brochures, special events, radio interviews and one-on-one
meetings.

One question remains. How do you tell whether or not you
are making any headway with your public relations effort?

You again interact with members of that key audience of
yours. And yes, with questions very similar to those you
asked during your original information gathering exercise
at the start of the program. Only this time, you are more
interested in whether your communications tactics have
moved perceptions in your direction.

Do the new responses show signs that your were successful
in changing that inaccurate belief? Or correcting that
misconception? Or killing that dangerous rumor for good?

Not enough movement? Take another look at your message
to see if it is really compelling. Is it honestly persuasive?
Are your facts supportive of your goal and strategy? Is it
written clearly enough?

I want to reemphasize that what you are looking for at this
stage is a strong indication that your efforts have clearly
moved perceptions and target audience behaviors in the
desired direction.

When this second monitoring drill allows that conclusion,
you will have good reason to value highly your public
relations goal, strategy, message and communications tactics.

Together, they will have made it possible for you to say,
as promised in the fundamental premise,“My public
relations mission is accomplished.”

end

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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