And not results you can measure only in terms of magazinecirculation, TV audience numbers, or news release pickups.

But rather, results that come from a public relations effort thatcreates the kind of key stakeholder behavior change that leadsdirectly to achieving your managerial objectives.

In other words, results that come from doing something positiveabout those important outside audiences whose behaviors mostaffect your operation. Particularly as you persuade those keyexternal audiences to your way of thinking by nudging themto take actions that allow your department, division orsubsidiary to succeed.

When you think about it, public relations boils down to theserealities: the right PR really CAN alter individual perceptionand lead to changed behaviors that help you win. But your publicrelations effort must involve more than parties, videos, bookletsand column mentions if you really want to get your money'sworth. What you need is a basic schematic that gets everyoneworking towards the same external audience behaviors insuringthat the organization's public relations effort stays sharplyfocused.

Coincidentally, here is such a schematic! People act on theirown perception of the facts before them, which leads topredictable 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 peoplewhose behaviors affect the organization the most, the publicrelations mission is usually accomplished.

Look at some real results that can come from this approachto public relations. Membership applications on the rise;customers making repeat purchases; capital givers or specifyingsources looking your way; new proposals for strategic alliancesand joint ventures; prospects starting to work with you; andeven bounces in showroom visits.

You may be forgiven for wondering how such managers deliver those kinds of results.

They take the time to analyze who among their most importantoutside audiences behaves in ways that help or hinder theachievement of their objectives. Then, they list them accordingto how severely those behaviors affect their organization.

On the point, just how do most members of your key outsideaudiences perceive your organization? If paying for professionalsurvey counsel isn't in the cards (or in the budget!), your PRcolleagues will have to monitor those perceptions themselves.Actually, they should be quite familiar with perception andbehavior matters since they're already in that business.

So you meet with some of those outside folks asking questionslike "Are you familiar with our services or products? Have youever had contact with anyone from our organization? Was it asatisfactory encounter?" And if you are that manager, you must besensitive to negative statements, especially evasive orhesitant replies. And watch carefully for false assumptions,untruths, misconceptions, inaccuracies and potentiallydamaging rumors. When you find such, they will need to becorrected, as they inevitably lead to negative behaviors.

Big job now is to pick out the actual, offending perceptionto be changed, and that becomes your public relations goal.You obviously want to correct those untruths, inaccuracies,misconceptions or false assumptions.

The toughest part of this exercise is that a PR goal withouta strategy to show you how to get there, will taste likehot sauce on your yogurt. So, as you select one of threestrategies (create perception or opinion where there maybe none, or change or reinforce it,) what you want to dois insure that the goal and its strategy match each other.You wouldn't want to select "change existing perception"when current perception is just right suggesting a"reinforce" strategy.

With your strategy in hand, you and your PR staff mustcreate a compelling message carefully written to alter yourkey target audience's perception, as required by your publicrelations goal.

An idea to keep in mind: remember that you can alwayscombine your corrective message with another newsannouncement or presentation which may give it morecredibility by reducing the apparent need for such acorrection.

The art in preparing such a message lies in the fact that themessage you convey must be not only compelling, butquite clear about what perception needs clarification orcorrection, and why. Of course you must be truthful andyour position logically explained and believable if it is tohold the attention of members of that target audience, andactually move perception in your direction.

It's understandable when some folks refer to the communicationstactics necessary to move your message to the attention of thatkey external audience, as "beasts of burden." In reality, theymust carry your persuasive new thoughts to the eyes and earsof those important outside people.

The good news is that you have a really wide choice ofcommunications tactics because the list is a long one. Itincludes letters-to-the-editor, brochures, press releases andspeeches. Or, you might choose radio and newspaperinterviews, personal contacts, facility tours or customerbriefings. There are scores available and the only selectionrequirement is that the tactics you choose have a record ofreaching people just like the members of your key target audience.

By the way, you can always speed up things by adding more communications tactics, AND by increasing their frequencies.

Around this time, someone is bound to mention progress reports.But you will already be hard at work remonitoring perceptionsamong your target audience members to test the effectivenessof your communications tactics. Using questions similar tothose used during your earlier monitoring session, you'll nowbecome cross-eyed looking for signs that audience perceptionsare beginning to move in your general direction.

You need actual changes in behaviors among your most important external audiences, and that's no small matter. In myview, the quality of your public relations results will, and shouldbe directly dependent on whether you spend your PR budgetprimarily on communications tactics, or the creation of keystakeholder behavior change that leads directly to achievingyour managerial objectives.

end

Please feel free to publish this article and resource boxin your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website.A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net.Word count is 1110 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2005.

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit andassociation managers about using the fundamental premise of publicrelations 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 communi- cations, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant presssecretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degreefrom Columbia University, major in public relations.mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:http://www.prcommentary.com