Public Relations 101 Getting Your Message Out

Writen by Chris Robertson

Perhaps you'd like to promote your organization's event. Maybe you're trying to publicize your cause. Or maybe you're trying to get media attention for yourself or your product. Sometimes it's difficult to have your voice heard amidst the cacophony of competing messages.

The mainstream media often refers to today's information overload. After all, people get their information from more sources than ever before. There's broadcast news, cable news, newspapers, magazines, radio, online publications, bloggers, discussion boards, RSS streams, and more. It seems, however, that people aren't overwhelmed with information; they're simply customizing the way they receive information. As for the mainstream media's hype about overload, it may very well just be a case of sour grapes. When people turn to other sources for news and information, the market share of the mainstream media decreases.

When you're trying to get your message out to the masses, follow the lead of public relations professionals. Their approach to promotion is to use multiple channels, both in traditional media and in new media. By blanketing as many channels as possible, your efforts at public relations and promotion are bound to be successful.

When you want to get the word out, you first need to define your audience. Who is it that you're trying to reach? If you're trying to market your message to 18-34 year olds, you don't want to waste your time with media that draws an older crowd.

Once you define your audience, you need to craft your message. Indeed, if you are using multiple channels or trying to reach more than one audience, you may have to craft several messages. For each, it's important to try and see the world through the eyes of your intended audience, and the design a message that they will find appealing.

When you know your audience and have your message, it's time to distribute that message. Although that can seem like an obstacle for an amateur, there are actually many venues through which you can do public relations and promotion. There are even online marketing opportunities that allow you to post free press releases and offer free public relations services.

One such service is pr-inside.com. It's a free public relations service that helps you in promotion - whether you're promoting your online business, your organization, or yourself. You simply register and submit your free press releases. It takes about five minutes, after which the pr-inside.com team reviews your text and adds it to their public relations website.

There's no need to be intimidated by the competition from big public relations firms or the savvy mainstream media. With some forethought and a targeted message, you can publicize your message effectively using free online marketing tools.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Visit this Business and Entrepreneurs Website and Majon's Business and Entrepreneurs directory.

Not Getting The Pr Results You Want

Writen by Robert A. Kelly

The reason might be this simple: as a business, non-profit or association manager, you're too focused on communi- cations tactics and not on a workable blueprint for dealing with those important outside audiences whose behaviors most affect your department, division or subsidiary.

If this sounds familiar, the blueprint I refer to provides the tools required to persuade those key external stakeholders to your way of thinking. Then, hopefully, move them to take actions that lead to your success.

A blueprint, say, like this one: 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 accomplished.

And, by the way, this is a blueprint that can produce behaviors such as more prospects interested in your services or products, more proposals for joint ventures and strategic alliances, more frequent repeat purchases, or fresh, new capital contributions and membership applications.

If this is something you wish to pursue, the next move is yours. For example, take the time to enlist those public relations people assigned to your unit in a brand-new push to find out once and for all what those outside audiences – those with behaviors that actually affect your organization – really think about you.

That's where the rubber meets the road because target audience perceptions inevitably lead to behaviors that will either hinder or help you in reaching your objectives.

So, let's assume you and your PR team decide to prioritize your outside audiences, then monitor the perceptions of members of the #1 target audience on your list.

Here's the first "fork in the road." You can use your PR professionals – who after all are in the perception and behavior business – to interact with target audience members by asking a lot of questions. For instance, "What do you know about us? Have you ever had dealings with our organization? Was it, or they, satisfactory?"

Or, if you have access to an ample budget, you can engage the services of a professional survey firm to handle the perception monitoring chore for you. Keep in mind, however, that this activity is central to the success of a public relations effort.

Either way, the data assembled by this drill is the raw material used to create your public relations goal. And that goal might call for clearing up a troublesome misconception, fixing a serious inaccuracy or killing that budding rumor dead as a doornail.

But reaching that goal is another story. You need a strategy to show you the way, and when it comes to perceptions and opinion, there are only three strategies from which to choose: change existing opinion/perception, create it where none exists, or reinforce the perception. Trick is, be certain the strategy you select is a natural fit with your new public relations goal. For example, if you discovered a really negative perception among members of your target audience, you certainly wouldn't choose the "reinforce" strategy.

But the real "beast of burden" in this PR problem solving sequence is the message you will use to alter the offending perception you turned up during your audience monitoring drill. This is one message that must be very well written, clear as crystal, and supported by compelling and believable facts if it is to alter what some of your target audience members believe. In this way, the message can nudge perception in your direction, lead to the behaviors you have in mind, and help you achieve your unit objectives.

Final challenge? Get that message to the eyes and ears of members of your target audience. And that means selecting and employing the right communications tactics from the wide choice available to you. You can use personal contacts, special events, media interviews and speeches. Or, you might select from among news announcements, facility tours, newsletters, brochures, audience briefings and so many others. But be certain that the tactics you choose have a record of reaching people like the members of your target audience.

Soon, however, questions will be asked as to how the new public relations effort is faring. In other words, "Are we getting the PR results we want?"

A fair question and one that can be fairly answered by returning to the field for a follow up monitoring session. Once again, you as the manager, and/or your PR support staff, must ask questions similar to those you asked during your earlier benchmark perception monitoring session.

The difference now? You want to see evidence that your perception monitoring, your public relations goal and strategy as well as your carefully crafted corrective message and communications tactics have actually altered the offending perception as you planned.

Should results not come fast enough, additional communications tactics can be added, and their frequencies increased.

Bottom line: as the department, division or subsidiary manager for a business, non-profit or association, if the primary focus of your public relations effort is tactics, you are well-advised to make a shift in favor of this kind of workable PR blueprint that gives you the best chance of achieving your unit's operating objectives.

About The Author

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. 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.

The Press Pack Is Chasing You Give Them Room

Writen by George Hopkin

There's good news for public relations execs, marketing professionals and even one-man-band entrepreneurs: journalists are surfing your sites looking for news.

It's true - while some PR people spend months trying to win over cynical reporters in order to wrangle a company profile or CEO interview (and get nowhere), an army of journalists are proactively hunting for facts, figures and interview candidates.

Now the bad news: these same journalists say most online press rooms suck. Big time. If you're thinking to yourself: 'Uh-oh, we don't have a press room,' chances are you're missing out on important media opportunities. If you're thinking: 'What's a press room?' you need to act fast.

In an ideal world, a press room is a vibrant, constantly updated section of your corporate website including company backgrounders, executive profiles, news releases (with a comprehensive, searchable archive), media mailing list and - perhaps most importantly - clear and concise contact information if journalists need to get in touch.

Want to see a great press room? As usual, Google pulls it off by keeping things nice and simple:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/index.html

If you haven't got the time or resources to put together a world-class press room like that, here are a couple of strategies that can help you in the short-term. But keep in mind these are suggested as temporary measures - an accessible, professional press room is no longer a luxury for a company that considers itself professional, it's an absolute necessity.

• Blog It!

Sign up for a blog at one of the big free providers such as Blogger (http://www.blogger.com). These services are template based and you can have their standard layouts look and feel like your own site in a jiffy. To be honest, even if you use the standard template, change the title and give it the odd tweak here and there you've still covered the important bases.

Then place a link on your corporate website to the new blog (perhaps label it as 'News Blog' or plain old 'News Room' or 'Press Room') and you're ready to promote your news. Be sure to include full contact details in the blog's bio section - remember, journalists are always on one deadline or another and they want your input NOW! If you're worried about spambots gathering your email address, include them as 'name <-at-> domain dot com'. If a journalist can't work that out you probably don't want to hear from them anyway!

Once your blog is up and running, turn it over to one or two key members of your staff. Have them post news releases - and shorter news updates - to the blog as often as possible. The beauty of this solution is that you get free XML/RSS feeds thrown in via the Blogger engine. If you don't go for Blogger, be sure to check on XML/RSS feeds before you select a suitable service.

• The Single-Click Press Room

Even if your corporate website is a few pages of plain HTML a friend knocked together as a favour and you're unwilling to make any drastic changes to it in order to add a press room, you can still provide visitors with a full list of your press releases with the addition of a single link to your main site.

First of all, ensure you're making full use of one of the free press release distribution services. For the sake of this example I hope nobody objects if I use our own, ClickPress (http://www.clickpress.com).

Enter your company name in quotes as a search term - for example: "Vegetarian Society". Hit search and you will be presented with the results: press releases about or including references to your company. Click on the link below for a live example using "Vegetarian Society":

http://www.clickpress.com/cgi-bin/releases/search.cgi?query=% 22Vegetarian+Society%22

A search for "Your Company" will look something like this:

http://www.clickpress.com/cgi-bin/releases/search.cgi?query=% 22Your +Company%22

Copy that URL (with your own company's name, of course) and there you have it. Well, almost, you still need to add it to your site. Add a link to the URL, label the link 'Recent Press Releases' and every time you add a new press release to the news distribution site it will be included in the dynamic search - you've got an automatic, single-click press room.

• Contacts, Contacts, Contacts

Perhaps the most regular criticism made by web-savvy journalists is a lack of media contact info on most corporate sites. If you do nothing else to your site you should add a few lines explaining who journalists should contact at your company and how they should do it.

If you're worried about spam, encrypt email addresses as explained above or include them as a graphic rather than a hot link. Provide a landline number and explain between what hours someone will be available to take calls (and be sure to include your time zone, unless you're happy to field calls at three in the morning from a journalist half way around the world).

There are a wealth of additional cost-free additions you could make to your site to make it media friendly (a press release mailing list hosted by Yahoo! Groups or Topica perhaps), so be sure to check out what other companies are doing.

Best place to find them? In the results of a news search engine, because they're the ones who have probably secured media coverage thanks to a proper press room.

Copyright © 2005 George Hopkin

George Hopkin is a freelance journalist and CEO of ClickPress (http://www.clickpress.com), a free press release distribution service which distributes content to some of the world's most influential news and web search engines. ClickPress is a propery of Pressventures, a provider of free and fee-based services to PR professionals.