Open the gate to your target market with a custom & strategic public relations plan for your brand.

This is the time to build your business via “word-of-mouse” marketing tactics and focus on outcomes vs. output.

Public relations is no longer something that just happens; how a company or corporation is perceived in the public eye, particularly in the eye of the company's shareholders or potential customers, isn't something that's left to chance. Companies have entire departments and large budgets in place to ensure that they will be viewed in a positive light by the public.

In its simplest form, the idea of public relations is to get the word out to the public concerning all of the positive things that a company or organization may be involved in, and to enhance the company's overall image, while at the same time downplaying anything that could potential be viewed as a negative action in the public eye.

Public relations is kind of like advertising's less obtrusive brother. Where advertising's main goal is to stick a product in the face of a potential customer and give them every reason to buy it, the public relations approach is a lot less direct.

Public relations will let your target consumer know what else you've got going on besides your product or service – like what kind of good you are doing in the community and how you plan to help more in the future. Though it's not as bold as advertising, a good public relations department can aid in building profits just as much as advertising.

There are any number of ways that a company or organization can positively use public relations to enhance their image in the eye of the public:

A company can donate either time or money to a charitable cause or they could hold a charity event to raise money for a particular cause. Potential customers and share holders want to know if a company cares, and they want to know what it is that the company cares about and supports.

Another approach to public relations is to have a company representative speak at an industry conference or seminar. The speaker can go over with an audience, packed with the very people that the company wants to reach, details of all of the latest activities as well as all of the future plans that will be implemented and what kind of positive impact those plans will have on the industry and the community.

This is kind of like issuing a personal press release, where the company representative can get out the exact message that needs to be distributed to exactly the right people, and can then answer any potential questions that may arise. A press release is a great tool, but its content is definitive, any questions that arise from a press release will remain until another company statement is made, with a live statement questions can be addressed and answered appropriately right form the start.

Though I've just pointed out some of the negatives of a press release, that doesn't mean that it's not a very effective tool of public relations. A press release mat not be personal, and it may or may not leave small questions in the minds of some readers, but what it can do is reach a tremendous amount of people giving them a good idea of your mission statement or telling them of a recent award or accomplishment of the company.

A well written press release can reach thousands of thousands of people that wouldn't have known of your accomplishment any other way – and press releases come at a much cheaper price than any form of advertising. You'd never be able to reach the same portion of your target audience with public speaking as you would with a high quality press release.

A company's image can mean everything – one big negative event, even if it's only perceived as a negative event in the public eye, can literally destroy a company. If a company or organization wants to become successful and stay successful, it has to build up and protect its positive image – the only way to really do that effectively is through good public relations.

Marketing Green

While the movement to protect our planet from pollution dates back to the '60s, the corporate world has been slow to catch on, until recently. Thanks to consumers spending a significant enough amount on green products and on doing business with green-minded companies, corporate America is waking up to the fact that going green is not only good for our planet, it's good for their bottom line.

The 2009 Cone Consumer Environmental Survey indicates that even in the recession, consumers are inclined to hold companies accountable for their environmental commitments today and in the future.

* 35 percent of Americans have higher interest in the environment today than they did one year ago.

* 35 percent of Americans have higher expectations for companies to make and sell environmentally responsible products and services during the economic downturn.

* 70 percent of Americans indicate that they are paying attention to what companies are doing with regard to the environment today, even if they cannot buy until the future.

While many polls are taken by green industry companies, this one was conducted by Opinion Research Company, a demographic, health, and market research company, co-founded in 1938 by the pollster of polls, George Gallup.

The Boston Consulting Group reports that more shoppers in North America, Europe, China, and Japan systematically purchased green products in 2008 than in 2007. In the United States, one in six consumers selectively shopped for green products in 2008. Some 61 percent of Americans said the environment needs help.

As GreenBiz.com blogger, Joel Makower, writes: "The marketplace is getting greener — way greener." Of course some of those polled greenwash (or whitewash) their replies, feeling that they should be shopping greener than they do. Bottom line though for business is that going green has proven to increase profits.

Instead of, or in addition to, carving out a green niche, there are a variety of ways Internet marketers are harnessing the power of green. Environmentally conscious consumers are not just buying more green, they are seeking and choosing companies with green business practices over their less green competitors.

Consultation services specializing in green Internet marketing are sprouting up, advising businesses to begin replacing pollution-generating advertising mediums such as newspapers, print magazines, billboards, business cards, paper coupons, etc., with cleaner digital and Internet-based advertising and marketing, such as organic search, social networking, pay per click, mobile marketing, etc.

As an Internet marketer, whether promoting an online based or brick and mortar business, you're already on the greener, marketing path.

Market your Business' Eco-Friendliness

Don't be shy about waving your business' green flag! Many of your site's visitors want to know if you are a green business because patronizing green businesses is a way for them to play a part, making them feel greener too.

"More and more, consumers and even businesses using the products and services of other businesses are willing to pay a premium and loyalty to businesses that are green," says Michal Ann Strahilevitz, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing at Golden Gate University ("It's Not Easy Being Green" DMNews).

You can view an example of an Internet marketing company waving their green flag: at Intra-Designs.com. In a clear, bullet list, visitors see all that Intra-Designs does to help the environment. Using recyclable materials, telecommuting, and electronic billing are among their contributions to a healthier planet.

Green in the Search Engine World

Green search is growing by leaps and bounds and will continue to increase, so it's wise to learn how you can market greener on the search channel. Consider that standards in green keywords are not yet established. So do your long tail searches, and do them frequently, as "the times they are a-changin'."

Familiarity of the consumers who are searching for green is not yet very well established either. Internet marketers are doing their best by establishing a broad presence across both the general as well as green vertical search engines.

The popularity of green vertical search engines is growing. Here are just a few examples: Green Maven, Greener, GreenGamma, LiveGreenOrDie, GreenLinkCentral, EcoEarth, EcoSeeker, GreenPoweredSearch and Earthle. A part of any successful green marketing campaign should include getting indexed by these green vertical search engines.

Those searching green on the general engines are predominantly using Google and Yahoo. Given Google's competitiveness, it will be interesting to see how they compete with this outcropping of green vertical search engines.

Green filters are emerging that allow consumers to get more relevant results when search for green products, services, and businesses. One of the most popular of these filters is Palore, which enables consumers to quickly identify green merchants when using Google's search engine.

Additionally, green portals such as Care2 are good places to get green niche pages listed.

So again, it's important to optimize and promote your green pages, whether they're products, services, or simply an About Us page that talks about the green steps your business is taking to reduce the carbon footprint.

Informative Content

Yet another way to market green is in the area of content. Consumers want to gain more knowledge about green products and are searching for credible sources of information online. To garner more traffic from the green market, you can provide them with well-researched information (relevant to your site of course). Take note that communitypowered search engines, social media, and green search engines are often used by those seeking this information. To learn more about the green industry and marketing green, check out GreenBiz.com .

I certainly hope you're a better online marketer than my cat is. I realized recently, though, that my cat has a lot in common with many online marketers I meet on Internet marketing forums.

The marketers I mean are noticeable chiefly for their tendency to complain bitterly over every obstacle that sits in their path. Google doesn't rank them high enough. Visitors aren't buying. It's too hard to do this. It's too hard to do that.

They find that Internet marketing isn't the no-effort pot of gold they dreamed it was when they first started their business. So they complain.

Those indignant yowls, though, remind me a lot of my cat. Yep, good old Rusty lives his life wandering from one comfortable nap spot to another. What does he contribute? He contributes nothing, unless you have a weird fondness for hairballs.

And when something doesn't go exactly as he thinks it should, you definitely hear about it. YOWL! (feed me). YOWL! (pick me up). YOWL! (play with me). YOWL! (scratch my ears).

In Rusty's eyes, the world owes him everything he wants whenever he wants it. At least he's cute. And he purrs. That means he provides some kind of value for what he gets.

Many new business owners aren't even willing to provide that much. Too many go into business with the same, me-first philosophy. They think the world owes them everything they want. They think the world should require nothing from them in return. They think the world is stacked against them when it doesn't behave exactly as they want it to.

People like that will always exist. Some of them will mistakenly wander into Internet marketing. After all, the hype about Internet marketing would lead you to believe that it's a place that's obligated to reward you handsomely just for showing up there.

Are you a better marketer than my cat? I certainly hope so. You don't have to fall into the same trap of self-absorption.

Business is and always has been about solving others' problems. No, business is not totally altruistic. You are allowed to make a profit. You absolutely need to make a profit in order to stay in business.

A good business finds ways to solve people's problems, though. It simply finds a way to do so in way that leads people to reward you for your solutions.

Ultimately, running a business is about solving other people's problems. If you're not solving somebody's problem, nobody has any reason to pay you for the solution.

Next time you're ready to yowl over how things aren't going the way you expected them, think instead, "How can I enrich others? And how can I do it so well that they're happy to reward me for my efforts?"

You'll get much better results than a yowling cat would.

About The Author:
Most new business owners fail because they don't understand the way a business owner needs to think. Set yourself up for success. Get a free report on making the jump from employee to entrepreneur.
http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/ebooks/E2E.htm

Online Marketing: The Face of The 21st Century Marketing

At the onset of the 21st century, the media for marketing has tremendously change. At a certain point in time, businesses relies on business cards, yellow page ads and brochures, newspapers, radio and television for their marketing. These are still part of the marketing drives of companies today but a bigger part of the marketing efforts now are focused on the so called "Online Marketing".

Online marketing also referred as i-marketing, web-marketing or e-Marketing is the marketing of products or services through the internet. This form of marketing rooted from the shift in searching behavior of the customers at the present time. Most people now search for products and services online from desktops, laptops and cell phones. In line with this, companies whether small or big must carefully regard this fact. Below are some of the reasons why companies should tone up their online marketing campaigns:

1. When the modern day consumers need services or needs to buy something, their first stop is the internet. Good online marketing tactics will make sure that it is your site that they will find when they are shopping for your product or service.

2. Compared to traditional marketing strategies, marketing over the internet enables companies to reach highly targeted audience, quickly and more cost-effectively.

3. Online marketing allows you to have instant conversions at any time of the day from anywhere in the world. Your costumers can purchase your products and services instantly.

4. Online marketing lets small and big companies to compete in the market at the same level.

As it appears, online marketing is not just effective in todays business world, it is essential.

To get you going with your online marketing efforts, you can consider different tactics depending on your priorities on your business. If you have adequate budget you can employ the service of online marketing companies and if not there are some things you can perform on your own. These includes making simple optimization on your website, participating in blogs and forums and submitting your website to open directories.

Learn more how good
Online Marketing Strategies also called
Internet Marketing can boost your business sale for life!

No matter how great your products or services are, unless someone knows about them and they will sit ON the shelf or wherever and your bank account will still be empty at the end of the day. So and here are 5 Musts to create a magical marketing message that dramatically increase sales because you receive bunches and bunches of qualified leads.

Must #1 – Compelling and succinct message

People have changed. With the advent of 30 second sound bytes and attention spans are far shorter than years gone by. You must have a compelling message that stops your potential qualified customers (a.k.a qualified prospects) dead in their tracks. What you say must also be succinct because time is of the essence and the marketplace is very crowed with a lot of noise.

Must #2 – Showcase your value compared to the competition

Knocking the competition is never a good strategy. However and what you can do is to demonstrate value that your products or services bring or have brought to your clients. This is a perfect place to share some of those collected testimonials from your existing loyal customers.

Must #3 – Exploit emotions

Brain research indicates our primitive brain is the initial receptor for all interactions. This is where emotions lie in wait for that fight or flight response. Your words can exploit these feelings to your benefit. Then link the emotions to logic because people buy ON emotions and justify those actions with logic.

Must #4 – Think investment versus cost

Cost is a word that conjures negative emotions. Use the word investment instead as this word suggests positive feelings along with a sense of sustainability.

Must #5 – Be results focused

Stephen Covey is often quoted with Begin with the end in mind. Focus ON the results you have delivered to your clients.

When you take these 5 Musts and infuse them into your marketing messages and the results may truly seem magical from more customers to achieving that goal to increase sales.

Free
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Thousands of people from all over the world use the internet every day and time. This allows us to use the internet as a tool advertises our business. There are some things you should consider on
so that will be effective are:

1. Make sure you use your money wisely. Business owners routinely spend money to advertise on web sites that generate a lot of unique hits but did not attract paying customers to their businesses. Track the effectiveness of your ad campaigns, and stop the ads on any site that does not provide quality leads that convert into sales.

2. Avoiding the pop-up ads that are generally not effective. So far these ads makes them turn away and do not attract your prospects. The growing popularity and effectiveness of pop-up utility to make pop-ups that bought a losing proposition.

3. Avoid spamming. If you send unsolicited emails, you can send SPAM, which can ultimately hurt your business. Email marketing is probably the most effective tool in the shed, but must be used correctly. You should generally only market to people who have been included in your letter.

4. Using appropriate copywriter. Web copywriting is not rocket science. A smart, creative young copywriter with fresh ideas can often do jobs of comparable or better than a veteran writer. There is no shortage of young writers who want to build a portfolio of their work. If you work with a copywriter and not getting the results you want, try another writer.

5. Using force in accordance with the substance. Hollywood puts forward the substance of the ads, but internet advertising is an extreme case. Flash animation and other high-tech "glitter" is no substitute to say something significant about your product or service.

6. There was a call to action. For effective advertising, you should tell people what to do. Putting your name in front of your target audience on a regular basis is half the battle, the next step is to let them know what you want them to do. A call to action can be as simple "Click here to learn more," but each ad must have one.

7. Ads fresh and new. The same boring ad does not improve your brand, and may even damage your brand equity. While well-established brand, slogan or logo can be your brand for years, you still need to remain active and continue to include creative variations on the theme.

8. Utilize all online and offline opportunities. Although you do not want to "junk up" on the site or your newsletter with too many ads, you need to strategically place advertisements and promotions in the right place for best results. Too often, the page headers and footers, and other important locations underutilized. Ad your own products, both on-and offline, is very important.

9. Having a friendly appearance. Just like your website must be user friendly, it also should be easy on the eyes. Readers should be able to get the message is clear without being interrupted by blinking ads, text blocks enforce, or another design faux-pas.

10. Perfect placement. If you do not know where your ad will be placed, do not spend a dime on it. When you buy ads on your website or in the newsletter, find out where and when your ad will appear. Make sure your ads appear as it should, appear where you want, and when you are expected to run. Follow-up and tracking is very important for all advertising campaigns.

By considering the above points, you can start to check the current
use and make the appropriate changes.

Coman Goodson is the owner of
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A single industry of any type is far to large for any individual business to tackle all on its own. Even the largest corporations cannot cover a whole market by themselves. This is where niche marketing becomes a businessperson’s best friend for making potential much more manageable. If you develop your own niche marketing strategy, then your business will offer specialized goods and services, and you will be able to target specific niche groups of prospective clients.

But what does niche marketing actually mean for your own unique business? By understanding your own business niche, it means that you gain the capability for mastering your own special corner of the marketplace. Your niche marketing strategy will bring about a better ability for catering to specific customer interest so that you can capitalize upon it. You’ll have your own unique niche in the business world in which you will stand out the most.

Think about your business niche carefully before deciding upon it, as you will dedicate yourself to it rather exclusively from that point on. You’ll need to make sure that it is a niche marketing strategy that is indeed achievable.

Once you’ve chosen how you will be niche marketing, you will need to ask yourself certain questions about how you will develop this into a niche marketing strategy. These questions should include:

? How is my business most effective? What are my special skills and strengths? When answering this question, go over both your own abilities, and the abilities of your company as a whole. List your strengths and skills. You may find this process to be quite enlightening. It includes things that you’ve always known, but may not have actually recognized for their full potential.

? What do you and your other team members enjoy doing? The more you like what you’re doing, the more you’ll naturally be able to dedicate to its success. If you don’t like your business niche, there may not even be profit available, because you’ll be held back on a subconscious level. To begin answering this question, one of the best places to look is at your hobbies and the things that you already do for enjoyment. Instead of only working with your dreams – which may or not be what they expect them to be in reality – look at what you’ve already tried and already liked. These are the tried, tested, and true activities for you, and are those to which you’re most likely to motivate you the most. This passion can only translate to added profit. Not only will this make your company a more enjoyable venture, but it will give you endurance and focus that you may never have known you had. This level of stamina and motivation is vital to starting up a fresh company, or changing a business that already exists.

? What do you need to make this niche work? It’s all well and good to choose a niche marketing strategy, but it’s another to recognize what is involved to make the theory a reality. You’ve identified your strengths and what you enjoy, now it’s time to assess them with customers in mind. How can you use this information in a way that will make customers buy something? To answer this question, look at your potential customers. What do they already buy, and what are they likely to buy in the future?

Now you’re ready to come up with your niche marketing plan. The last step is to make certain that it doesn’t interfere or conflict with any business plan that you already have in place. The niche marketing strategy is only valuable if it can be made to function within your own company’s potential.

Niche marketing is among the best things you can do to maximize your success potential in a staggeringly large marketplace. Begin today and reap the rewards that are so close to being yours.

All marketing typically works in stages, but this is even truer for marketing a new product. From the first inception of the product to its eventual release, you need to have specific marketing plans laid out to garner the best results.

This is just as true for the follow up marketing after the product has been released. Eventually the boost of marketing that came with the product hitting the streets will start to fade and your product is going to become just another in a long list of products you carry. However, if you allow it to fade quickly into obscurity you will be doing your first marketing efforts an extreme disservice.

The best kinds of follow up marketing involving building on whatever the original success was of the initial release, and turning that into the major selling point.

Was there a lot of excitement surrounding the product’s release? Why not get some postcard printing done focusing on that very point. I think movies are a good thing to look at right here.

What happens after a movie is release? They start up new ads mentioning that a movie was number one in the country that weekend, or maybe it was the number one comedy. They start taking snippets from reviews of the movie in order to emphasize it even more. They say things like, “Come see the movie that everyone is talking about.”

They build on that first success in order to draw in more people. They point out that this was a popular movie, and so why would a person not want to see what the excitement is all about?

This is what your postcard printing needs to be focused on. Find every strength you can from your product release and use that to bring in even more people than before. Turn your product release into a much longer promotional event rather than a onetime thing.

To do this you need to have your follow up marketing already planned out to an extent well before you actually release your product. Let us face it, good marketing can take quite a while to develop. In addition, time might cause something that would lose the air of excitement around your product.

Therefore, you must design ahead of time with a few key phrases missing that you add in once the product has hit the shelves. Now you can quickly fill in the blanks, take care of the printing, and get those advertisements out to your customers as fast as possible.

Strong marketing for a new product is a package deal that involves a lot more than just a single marketing push. You need to be sure that you are ready for every stage of your marketing, or else you will not be able to create the best kind of marketing push for your new products.

Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of developments in the postcard printing industry and how these improvements can benefit small to medium-scale businesses. Visit http://www.printplace.com/printing/postcard-printing.aspx for more information.

For those business, non-profit and association managers committed to PR tactics like radio and newspaper plugs, it can come as a surprise to discover where public relations value REALLY lies.

Truth is, your PR budget can deliver results far beyond such limited publicity placements.

For example by embracing the kind of PR plan that persuades those important outside audiences to your way of thinking, and moving them to take actions that help your department, division or subsidiary succeed.

Then by using the high-impact, fundamental premise of public relations to deliver external stakeholder behavior change the kind that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives.

And finally by revving up the creative potential of your assigned PR team or agency and involving them in a way that positively impacts the behaviors of the very outside audiences that MOST affect your unit.

Perhaps then you will find yourself with a basketful of results such as prospects starting to do business with you; community leaders beginning to seek you out; newly arrived proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; customers starting to make repeat purchases; membership applications on the rise; politicians and legislators beginning to think of you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities; welcome bounces in show room visits; and even capital givers or specifying sources starting to look your way.

Spend a moment here and read that fundamental public relations blueprint referred to above: 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.

This lets you broaden your public relations field of fire, putting its primary focus where it belongs, on your units key external stakeholder behaviors.

A caveat here: be sure that the public relations personnel assigned to your unit really believe deep down — why its SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Be certain they accept the reality that perceptions almost always lead to behaviors that can help or hurt your unit.

Review with them your blueprint for monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Questions like these: How much do you know about our services or products and employees? How much do you know about our chief executive? Have you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with the interchange? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?

When you think of it, youre fortunate that your PR folks already are in the perception and behavior business so they can jump right on the perception monitoring assignment. If your budget can handle it, you can always use a professional survey firm, but they can be very expensive. Nevertheless, whether its your people or a survey firm asking the questions, your objective is to identify untruths if not outright lies, false assumptions, unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, and misconceptions .

Now you must carefully select which of the above aberrations qualifies as your corrective public relations goal for example, clarify the misconception, spike that rumor, correct the false assumption or fix certain other inaccuracies.

Now, if you pick the wrong strategy to show you how to reach your goal, it will feel like youre eating Roast Turkey without the stuffing. Fact is, you can only achieve your PR goal by picking the right strategy from the three choices available to you, change existing perception, create perception where there may be none, or reinforce it. And take care that your new strategy is a natural fit with that new public relations goal.

Sooner or later you will have to address your key stakeholder audience in a way that will help persuade them to your way of thinking. So assign the task to your very best writer because s/he must put together some very special, corrective language. Words, by the way, that are not only 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 targeted.

Here you take an easy step select the communications tactics needed to carry your message to the attention of your target audience. Checking, of course, that the tactics you select are known to reach folks like your audience members. Dozens are available from speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters, personal meetings and many others.

Because HOW one communicates often affects the believability of the message, you may wish to deliver it in smaller meetings or presentations rather than high-profile media such as a news release..

Questions will arise as to indications of progress. That will be your signal to schedule a second perception monitoring session with members of your external audience. You will use many of the same questions as in the first benchmark session. But you will now be watching carefully for signs that the offending perception is actually moving in your direction.

A fortunate reality in the public relations business is that these matters usually can be accelerated by adding more communications tactics as well as increasing their frequencies.

Yes, as a manager, it may surprise you that a workable public relations blueprint like this one will help you persuade your most important outside stakeholders to your way of thinking, then move them to behave in a way that leads to the success of your department, division or subsidiary.

But its no surprise that the people you deal with behave like everyone else they act upon their perceptions of the facts they hear about you and your operation. Leaving you little choice but to deal promptly and effectively with those perceptions by doing what is necessary to reach and move those key external audiences to action.

end

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 1110 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly 2004.

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 communi- cations, 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. bobkelly@TNI.net. Visit: http://www.prcommentary.com

Leaders in the business world need public relations big time, and they show it every day.

How? By staying in touch with their most important external audiences and by carefully monitoring their perceptions about the company, audience member feelings about hot topics at issue, and the behaviors that inevitably follow.

Could there be an angle here for your business?

What I mean is, once you interact with, then learn what that key target audience of yours believes about you and your organization, a corrective public relations goal a specific behavior change — can be established.

Which then requires that you identify a strategy. There are just three choices here, create opinion where none exists, change existing opinion, or reinforce it.

Its a logical sequence. With your goal and strategy now set, you need persuasive messages with a good chance of moving perceptions (and thus behaviors) in your organizations direction. But you must make sure the messages talk not only to the current topic at issue, but to any misconceptions or inaccuracies encountered during your information gathering, and to any problems that might be brewing.

What will you do with your new message? You will carry it to the attention of your priority audience. Youll use communications tactics that are credible in the eyes of the receiver, and effective in reaching him or her. Youll also want tactics that stand a good chance of moving opinion in that target audience, on the topic at issue, in your direction.

Fortunately, there are many communications tactics to choose from: newsworthy announcements, letters-to-the-editor, news releases, radio and newspaper interviews, brochures, speeches and on and on.

Now, youre back to the monitoring mode as you interact once again with members of the key target audience. With your communications tactics hammering away, you keep one eye peeled for signs of target audience opinion shifts in your direction. The other eye, (and ears) stay alert for any references by print and broadcast media, or other local thoughtleaders to your carefully prepared message.

The bottom line is, are perceptions and behaviors within the target audience being modified? If not, adjustments to your communications tactics often a big increase in, and wider selection — must be made. Your message may also need to be sharpened and its factual basis strengthened.

Gradually, youll begin to notice changes in opinion starting to appear along with a growing receptiveness to those messages of yours. This is real progress.

Should you still need encouragement to hang in there with your brand new public relations program, consider this. A single issue for example, a potentially dangerous, unattended perception among a key audience — can spread like wildfire nudging any business closer to failure than success.

That statistic alone should make you feel pretty good about public relations.

end

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks about the fundamental premise of public relations. 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

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. Net word count is 565 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly 2003.