Over the years hundreds of highly respected professionals and educators have developed comprehensive and often complicated descriptions of what makes effective corporate communications. There have been heated discussions regarding the separation of public relations from advertising, public relations from marketing and the very role public relations should play of the organization.
What has been most counter-productive has been public relations desire to distance itself from the distasteful task of actually “selling” the company, its propositions, its products, its technologies and its services. If it doesn’t help perpetuate the company what value does it serve…regardless of the definition?
We recently read one of the clearest, most concise and easiest to understand descriptions of public relations. It stripped away all of the rhetoric and all of the lofty philosophy…”effective public relations is simply applied common sense.”
Common sense says that a company must achieve sales and must produce profit if it is to survive. If it doesn’t survive then it stands for nothing and is worth nothing. Done properly public relations adds value by employing people, by providing a return to shareholders, by delivering product/service value to customers and even by supporting our governmental institutions.
Common sense says that for programs to be successful they must be founded on business objectives, not “PR” objectives. They must focus on the company’s brand equity, not on individual products. This branding activity must extend beyond media relations, charitable giving, legislative relations and other niches.
Accomplishing all of this is no easy task. It means that the firm’s public relations activities – internal or external – have to understand – and be involved in – building and promoting the company’s brand franchise. Some people like to refer to this process as integrated marketing communications (IMC). We prefer not to apply some self-limiting label but rather to think of it as doing what is necessary to ensure the company survives and prospers.
It requires the company to have a public relations team that is involved in building trust with all of the firm’s buyers and sellers. Public relations can’t simply go to senior management, plead their case and get a mandate to be responsible for the establishment and vocalization of the company’s total activities… won’t happen.
They need to start slow and take small steps. Public relations is a service and support function, not a policy direction activity. PR people need to advise and assist in branding activities online and offline. They need to become involved in assisting purchasing, HR, sales activities, face-to-face encounter training, trade show activities, web activities including customer service/customer support and other efforts that involve the company’s brand franchise and the organization’s bottom line results.
Too frequently PR people waste their efforts because they are so busy “practicing” public relations they forget their primary mission. All too often the success or failure of their “practice” is weighed by the pound…how many print, audio and video clips and how many web site mentions/hits. Since they weigh more, too many PR people rationalize that fifty hits that don’t further the company’s goals are obviously worth more than five that support and extend the company’s brand franchise.
Wrong!
Effective public relations is much like a three-legged stool: a) understanding the company’s anchor value, b) understanding the customer value proposition(s) and c) understanding the marketplace positioning of the products or services. Understanding the three will help the company will help tangibly produce sales and profits and long-term benefits.
Anchor Values
The company’s anchor values should control and guide every strategic and tactical PR activity. From the day it opens its doors every firm is based on specific purposeful and fundamental values that highlight the company’s strategic ambition, direction and plan for the future.
Without a good understanding of these values it is impossible for public relations to honestly and effectively deliver for the company. Without a clear understanding of what the company is trying to achieve public relations simply goes through the motions. But by being on the same wavelength they can ensure the right basic message is always delivered, that it is delivered to and through the right channels and that it achieves the desired impact and objective.
Customer Values
The second leg of a sound PR program is to clearly understand what the anchor values mean to the consuming public. This means you have to translate the company’s values into general and product/service specific customer values and benefits.
All too frequently PR people tend to list the tangible, technical and functional benefits and stop. Referred to as specsmanship, the focus is a one way stream from the company to the marketplace rather than taking the time and effort to understand and project this information in consumer terms.
More importantly PR people often list the tangible values and stop. Even in business-to-business there are intangible values – the emotional areas that must be satisfied. In the early computer days there was a common – never listed line item on purchase orders – the intangible value that no one was ever fired for buying from IBM. In recent history, Intel Inside has been used by PC and notebook manufacturers to give the buying public added reassurance with their system purchases.
Intangible and tangible customer values must continuously support each other and support/reinforce the company’s anchor values.
Positioning
The third leg of the PR program is product/service positioning which will vary from market segment to market segment. If the dotcom trials and tribulations of the past year have shown us anything it is that there is no such thing as one global market.
Using Intel as an example, there is a different positioning proposition for dealers, first time buyers, corporate buyers, professional users, software developers, video/multimedia developers, computer manufacturer management, engineers and buyers as well as other micro markets.
The same positioning process holds true for consumer products and business/consumer services. Auto manufacturers tailor different messages for dealers, fleet buyers, people in different age groups, men and women and even different nationalities. Online services that survive are quickly learning to micro manage their positioning messages. Service organizations like legal, financial, venture capital, market research and yes even public relations are tailoring their messages to specific market and client segments.
A Program with Legs
When a PR program is based on clearly defined anchor values, customer values and positioning; the actual implementation and tactics are easier to manage and carry out. Or to put it in the vernacular of the day…it’s a program with legs or a program with traction.
Suddenly it becomes easier to establish and manage the relationship with the company’s many audiences. Not slam-dunk easy but easier.
The most difficult aspect of the program will be the internal management issue. We increasingly live and operate in an instant results, instant gratification environment. No part of the public relations or communications program is instant. It requires consistency and continuity.
Too frequently management is willing to approve a given tactic or activity and immediately expect positive results – sales, favorable legislation, increased stock valuation or a similar ripple in the time/space continuum.
The effort or activity may build awareness but awareness seldom develops an initial relationship and certainly doesn’t develop a long-term relationship. That only comes with a consistent and continuous program.
At the same time public relations people have to continuously manage, monitor and question every tactical aspect of their programs and the individual messages. Internal and external forces are in a constant state of flux. What was effective last month or yesterday can be totally ineffective – or worse counterproductive –today.
That’s one of the key reasons that applied common sense delivers value in your organization’s public relations and communications program.
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Successful Company Communications Is All About Delivering Value - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Marken's Website.
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