Can we all agree that managers MUST plan to do something good about the actions of their important external audiences that have the most impact on how their business runs?
Sure, you could measure the results of specific parts of your public relations program, such as special events, brochures, broadcast plugs, or press releases, but those results would be pretty small. On the other hand, as a manager of a business, non-profit, or association, you might be able to better measure the results of your strategic efforts to change the way your key outside audiences think and act, which will help you reach your managerial goals.
I mean, can we all agree that managers MUST make plans to change the behavior of their most important external audiences, whose actions have the most impact on their business?
And even more so when they can get key people outside the company to agree with them by helping them take steps that help their department, division, or subsidiary succeed.
But it takes more than good intentions for a manager to change the way a key audience member sees things and acts, which is something that ALL business, non-profit, and association managers should be very concerned about.
He or she needs a plan to make sure that everyone on the public relations team is working toward the same external audience behaviors. This keeps the organization's public relations efforts sharply focused.
The plan could be built on the idea that people act based on how they see the facts in front of them, which leads to predictable behavior that can be changed. Public relations goals are met when the people whose actions have the most impact on the organization are reached, persuaded, and moved to take the actions that the organization wants.
Results can happen more quickly than you might think.
For example, a rise in the number of people who visit their showrooms, new ideas for strategic alliances and joint ventures, customers who buy from them more than once, prospects who want to work with them, and a rise in the number of people who want to become members, and investors or people who need to be specified looking in their direction.
Watch how real artists do their jobs. They find out who among their most important external audiences is acting in a way that helps or hurts their goals. Then, they make a list of them based on how much their actions hurt their organization.
Next, they have to find out how most of this important outside audience thinks about the organization. If there aren't enough funds to pay for professional survey counsel, which could be expensive, Ms. or Mr. Manager and his or her PR colleagues will have to keep an eye on how people feel about the company themselves. In fact, PR people should already know how to collect and evaluate data on how people think and act.
To do this, you need to meet with people from that outside audience and ask them things like, "Are you familiar with our services or products?" "Have you ever talked to anyone who works for our group? Was it a good time?" And if you are that manager, you need to be sensitive to negative comments, especially evasive or hesitant answers. Watch out for wrong ideas, lies, misunderstandings, mistakes, and rumors that could hurt people. When you find such things, you will need to do something to fix them because they will always lead to bad behavior.
Now comes the hard part: choosing the specific perception you want to change, which will become your PR goal. You probably want to clear up those lies, mistakes, misunderstandings, or wrong ideas.
A PR goal without a plan for how to reach it is like corned beef and cabbage without the cabbage. This is the main point of the whole drill. It's just different. So, when you choose one of three strategies (designed to create a perception or opinion where there may not be one or to change or strengthen an existing one), you need to make sure that the goal and the strategy match up. You wouldn't want to choose "change existing perception" if the way people see you now is just right, which would mean you should choose "reinforce."
Now that you know what your public relations goal is, it's time to come up with a message that will change the way your key target audience thinks about you.
Don't forget that you can always combine your corrective message with another news story or presentation. This may give it more credibility by making it seem like the correction wasn't as important as it seemed.
The message must be compelling and make it clear what misconception needs to be cleared up or changed and why. If you want to keep the attention of your target audience and actually change their minds, you have to be honest and explain your point of view in a way that makes sense.
PR people sometimes call the communication strategies that are needed to get your message to that important outside audience "beasts of burden" because they have to carry your new, convincing ideas to the eyes and ears of those important outside people.
The list of tactics is long, so you have a lot to choose from. It has letters to the editor, brochures, press releases, speeches, and other things. You could also choose radio and newspaper interviews, personal contacts, tours of the facility, or briefings for customers. There are scores, and the only thing you need to make sure of is that the communication strategies you choose have a track record of reaching people who are just like the people in your key target audience.
You can always move things along by both adding more ways to communicate and making them happen more often.
About now, the topic of progress reports will come up, but you will already be hard at work monitoring how your target audience sees things to see how well your communications strategies are working. Using questions like the ones you asked during your first monitoring session, you'll now be on the lookout for signs that people are starting to see things your way.
Keep in mind that the main goal of this approach is to change the minds of the most important outside groups that have the most impact on your organization. Then try to get them to do things that will help your department, division, or subsidiary win.
So, instead of measuring the rather narrow results of your public relations program's tactical parts, like special events, brochures, broadcast plugs, or press releases, you will have found the only true measure of public relations: the results of your strategic efforts to change the way your key outside audiences see you, which leads to changes in behavior that help you reach your management goals.
