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A Managerial PR System you will Love

Written by: Bob Kelly

Article Overview: Managers: resolve to do something meaningful about the behaviors of those outside audiences that MOST affect your unit, and see what happens.

A Managerial PR System you will Love

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 1265 including guidelines and resource box.
Robert A. Kelly © 2006.

A Managerial PR System You Will Love

It’s a happy day indeed when business, non-profit, government
agency or association managers end their preoccupation with,
and dependence upon, the simple mechanics of press releases,
broadcast plugs and special events. What they’ve decided is,
they no longer wish to be denied the best public relations has
to offer, preferring instead to pursue the quality public relations
results they believe they deserve.

Thus they begin construction of a workable managerial PR
system by putting in place a high-impact action plan designed
to do something meaningful about the behaviors of those
important outside audiences that MOST affect the departmental,
divisional or subsidiary units they manage.

Inevitably, the new plan helps create the kind of external
stakeholder behavior change that leads directly to achieving
their managerial objectives; in this case by persuading those
key outside folks to the manager’s way of thinking by helping
move audience members to take actions that help the
manager’s unit succeed.

It rapidly becomes apparent to these managers that the good
news implicit in PR’s underlying premise is the reality that
good public relations planning really CAN alter individual
perception and result in changed behaviors among key outside
audiences.

But what about PR’s underlying premise? As a manager, see
if you can live with it: 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.

This way, a variety of results can soon appear: capital givers
or specifying sources begin to look your way; membership
applications start to rise; customers begin to make repeat
purchases; new prospects actually start to do business with
you; politicians and legislators begin looking at you as a key
member of the business, non-profit or association communities;
welcome bounces in show room visits occur; community
leaders begin to seek you out; and new proposals for strategic
alliances and joint ventures start showing up.

It will be your good fortune that the PR people assigned to
your unit come from an agency, parent company or are direct
hires, because they are already in the perception and behavior
business. So look first to them to manage your data gathering
activity. But be certain that they really accept why it’s SO
important to know how your most important outside audiences
perceive your operations, products or services. In a word or
two, be sure they believe that perceptions almost always result
in behaviors that can help or hurt your operation.

Block out the necessary time to caucus with your PR people
and analyze your plans for monitoring and gathering
perceptions by questioning members of your most important
outside audiences. Suggest, and discuss queries along these
lines: how much do you know about our organization? Have
you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with the
interchange? Are you familiar with our services or products
and employees? Have you experienced problems with our
people or procedures?

Remain conscious of the fact that using a professional survey
firm to do the opinion gathering work, can be an expensive
alternative to using those PR folks of yours in that monitoring
capacity. But whether it’s 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.

Now is the moment to set down a clearcut and realistic public
relations goal. One that calls 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 awful inaccuracy.

In my experience, a successful goal seldom occurs absent an
action-oriented strategy that shows how to get to where you’re
going. But you have only 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 barbecue sauce on your gooseberry
tart. So be sure your new strategy fits well with your new
public relations goal. You certainly don’t want to select
“change” when the facts dictate a strategy of reinforcement.

The reality here, is that someone on your public relations staff
is going to have to prepare a persuasive message that will help
move your key audience to your way of thinking. So ask the best
writer on your team to prepare 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 “beasts of burden” – communications tactics -- will carry
your message to the attention of your target audience, and there
are many such 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.

Just HOW you choose to move your message to your target
audience will largely determine its credibility, which is often
fragile and always suspect in the eyes of an audience. Too
much hoopla, and believability suffers. Thus, initially, you
may wish to unveil your corrective message before smaller
meetings rather than using higher profile news releases.

Progress reports can demonstrate, well, how much progress
your PR program has made when measured against your
starting point. First, it’ll show how the monies spent on public
relations can pay off. And it will serve as an alert to start a
second perception monitoring session with members of your
external audience. Here, you’ll use many of the same questions
used in the benchmark interviews. Only difference now is,
you will be on strict alert for signs that the bad news
perception is being altered in your direction.

As sometimes happens, the program’s forward movement can
slow which will send a strong signal that you had best add more communications tactics, and/or increase their frequencies.

At this point, you may well conclude that you’ve undertaken
a public relations effort that bodes well to succeed in a big way.
Because you are a manager, it should move you beyond
preoccupation with communications tactics, freeing you to use
the right PR system to alter the perceptions of your most
important outside audiences, leading directly to achieving your
managerial objectives.

end

Bob Kelly counsels and writes for business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has published 245 articles on the subject which are listed at EzineArticles.com, click Expert Author, click Robert A. Kelly. 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. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University, major in public relations. mailto: bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:http://www.PRCommentary.com

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