Relationship Management: Knowing and Communicating with Your Key Publics

Many organizations actively engage in 'Issues Management.' For most, this involves scanning the news, developing communications strategies around relevant issues and trends, and then communicating their messages back through the media.

However, effective communications is more than just managing issues through the media. Companies and organizations must also be aware of their external publics – the people and groups outside of an organization's sphere that affect, or are affected by, what that organization does.

This is known as 'Relationship Management.' It is the discipline of identifying key publics and establishing strategies for building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with those publics.

Identifying External Publics

Like most organizations, there is a good chance you are already using media monitoring to track the issues that affect your organization. This is Communications 101.

You may even be taking it one step further and conducting some kind of media analysis, including assigning tones like positive, negative or neutral to news stories. And if you're not, you should be. Without proper analysis and evaluation, your communications team is not doing its job properly.

But where it really gets interesting is when you take your existing monitoring and analysis and add another dimension to it. One of the best examples of this is tracking and analyzing quotes.

Tracking quotes helps you identify your key publics. You can see exactly what they are thinking, what they are saying, what they are doing.

And by taking further small steps, such as cross-referencing tone with quotes, you can easily identify the type of relationship that exists between your organization and its different key publics. You can get a picture of what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong, and, where necessary, develop a plan to change the relationship.

Obviously, the more positive the quote or article, the greater the chance that the person being quoted is an ally to issues favorable to your organization. Conversely, the more negative the quote or article, the greater the chance that the person being quoted is opposed to issues favorable to your organization.

Furthermore, the more times a person is quoted, the greater the chance he or she is an Opinion Leader – a person that knowingly or unknowingly influences opinion. It's important that your organization try to have an open and professional dialogue with Opinion Leaders no matter what their position is.

Dealing with Key Publics

A lot of people feel the media ultimately control public opinion. There's no denying they do have an enormous influence, but they are only one piece of the PR puzzle.

It's important that PR professionals not limit themselves to just the media. Sometimes it's best to communicate right to the source, if possible. Remember, as a professional communicator, your primary job is to disseminate information, not necessarily to deal with the media or write news releases. How you get the information to your publics is not what matters; what matters is that they get the information. Using the media and writing news releases are simply a means to an end.

According to Statistics Canada, 61 per cent of Canadians belong to a group or organization, including organizations unions, religious groups, professional associations, etc. Opinion Leaders are a very important component of these groups.

Once you have identified the groups and their Opinion Leaders, it's important to develop consistent messages that will clearly state your organization's position on key issues. Without that consistency, you run the risk of looking hypocritical or insincere. The last thing you want is to be communicating different messages regarding the same issue.

If you want people to trust you and your organization, consistency is a must. Trust is the first step in developing a relationship with the Opinion Leaders and your key publics.

Honesty is Always the Best Policy

Remember, when it comes to any type of communications, honesty is always the best policy. Trying to manipulate the media or the public is a dangerous game. If you're honest, people might not always like what you have to say, but at least they'll believe you and have a greater respect for you in the long run.

Monitoring the Media Helps Ensure Honesty Prevails

Monitoring the media allows organizations to ensure everyone is on message, helping to prevent misunderstandings through inadvertent contradictions or an overly aggressive spokesperson. Also, proactive media analysis can gauge how well key publics and other influencers, such as the media, are accepting your organization's position on an issue.

Media Analysis is a Powerful Tool, but...

Media analysis can help identify miscommunication, and can also help identify the underlying reason for that miscommunication. It's also an effective way of identifying key publics and opinion leaders, gauging where they stand on an issue and finding out what they are saying.

However, it's important to remember ‘Relationship Management' is about dealing with people directly. Media analysis is just a tool to help ensure your organization is communicating honestly and effectively – the same way the media are just a vehicle for delivering your message.

But even if you have a top notch media analysis program in place, you should never stop communicating directly with your key publics to figure out where they stand on key issues and how they view your organization. After all, public relations and communications are all about communicating effectively, and nothing is more effective than getting your information straight from the source.

Managers: Should Your PR Budget Stress Tactics or Strategy?

If public relations tactics like special events, brochures, broadcast plugs and press releases dominate your answer, you’re missing the best PR has to offer.

Such a budget would tell us that you believe tactics ARE public relations. And that would be too bad, becauseit means you are not effectively planning to alterindividual perception among your key outside audienceswhich then would help you achieve your managerialobjectives.

It would also tell us that, even as a business, non-profit orassociation manager, you’re not planning to do anything positive about the behaviors of those important external audiences of yours that MOST affect your operation. Nor are you preparing to persuade those key outside folks to your way of thinking by helping to move them to take actions that allow your department, division or subsidiary to succeed.

So, it takes more than good intentions for you as a manager to alter individual, key-audience perception leading to changed behaviors. It takes a carefully structured plan dedicated to getting every member of the PR team working towards the same external audience behaviors insuring that the organization’s public relations effort stays sharply focused.

The absence of such a plan is always unfortunate because the right public relations planning really CAN alter individual perception and lead to changed behaviors among key outside audiences.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, try to remember that your PR effort must require more than special events, news releases and talk show tactics if you are to receive the quality public relations results you deserve.

The payoff can materialize faster than you may think in the form of welcome bounces in show room visits; customers beginning to make repeat purchases; capital givers or specifying sources beginning to look your way; membership applications on the rise; the appearance of new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures;politicians and legislators beginning to look at you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities; prospects actually starting to do business with you; and community leaders begin to seek you out.

It’s always nice to simply hire a survey firm to handle the opinion monitoring/data gathering phase of your effort. But that can cost real money. Luckily, your public relations professionals can often fill that bill because they are already in the perception and behavior business. But satisfy yourself that the PR staff really accepts why it’s SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. And be doubly certain they believe that perceptions almost always result in behaviors that can help or hurt your operation.

Share your plans with them for monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Ask questions like these: 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?

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.

It’s goal-setting time during which you will establish a goal calling for action on the most serious problem areas you uncovered during your key audience perception monitoring. You’ll want to straighten out that dangerous misconception? Correct that gross inaccuracy? Or, stop that potentially painful rumor cold?

Of course, setting your PR goal requires an equally specific strategy that tells you how to get there. Only three strategic options are 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. The wrong strategy pick will taste like onion gravy on your rhubarb pie. 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.

It’s always time for good writing, but never as now. You must prepare a persuasive message that will help move your key audience to your way of thinking. It must be a carefully-written message targeted directly at your key external audience. Select your very best writer because s/he must come up with 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.

Here’s where you need the communications tactics certain to carry your message to the attention of your target audience. There are many 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.

How you communicate, however, is always a major concern. The credibility of any message is always fragile. Which is why you’ll probably want to unveil your corrective message before smaller meetings and presentations rather than using higher-profile news releases.

When the need for a progress report appears, you’ll want to begin a second perception monitoring session with members of your external audience. You’ll certainly use many of the same questions used in the benchmark session. But now, you will be watchingclosely for signs that the bad news perception is finally moving positively in your direction.

Fortunately, if things slow down, you can always speed things up by adding more communications tactics as well as increasing their frequencies.

Allow the tacticians a free hand in selecting whether this tactic or that tactic should be used as the beast of burden needed to carry your message to your target audience.

You take a broader view of public relations and stress the strategic approach because it requires you as the manager to effectively plan to alter individual perception among your key outside audiences, thus helping you achieve your managerial objectives.

10 ways to identify if your public relations company is right for you

PR plays a key function in a successful business. And for PR to be productive you will need to trust more than friendship or basic instincts in choosing an "ideal" PR company. Since public relations are about communication and steering the company towards realistic targets, you must consider a number or crucial and tangible issues.

Be clear that PR cannot be handled just by the firm it is a partnership between you and the PR experts. It is your inputs that will provide the PR firm with direction. You must on your side provide complete and updated information, be available to advice on or check material put together by the firm and spend time with the PR team on ideation. Only when the grounding is laid clearly will PR be successful.

1.    The company must have worked for a business such as yours before or have at their fingertips the strategies they will employ to meet your PR objectives.

2.    The PR firm must have updated its systems to include all the latest in media and communications.

3.    The company must understand your business thoroughly and know in no uncertain terms how much strategic versus tactical support they can provide.

4.    Determine whether the staff deployed for your project has both experience as well as expertise. Find out about their successes and failures.

5.    Ascertain whether they can comfortably reach out to your target market and if they cab quantify their value.

6.    Study the proposals presented by them on your project and use your in depth knowledge of your business and the market to determine to what extent this will work.

7.      A dedicated PR firm will not hesitate to disagree with you on any aspects of your plan they are not in agreement with. They know the ins and outs of their business and know what works and what does not.

8.      The firm must not just have a series of meetings there should be constant interaction as well as reviews of work undertaken and subsequent results.

9.     The contract must be clear and transparent with no hidden clauses. The PR firm must have a system where it clearly understands and then delineates in a contract its responsibilities.

10.     Be sure to check their testimonials and credentials. Go through their case studies to determine their efficacy and do some research to find out their standing in the market.

The most apt definition of a PR relationship is that of the Counselors Academy of the Public Relations Society of America. It says, " a successful relationship between client and public relations firm or counselor has as a fundamental: a match of capabilities and needs, a 100% agreement on objectives, constant and instant accessibility, full information sharing, interaction at all levels, regular updates as well as progress review, and a clear contractual agreement."