Mark Schlarbaum on Public Relations

Public Relations, Endorsements and Moral Character Considered

By: Lance Winslow
Public relations and goodwill of your brand often involves strategies which include endorsements from celebrities and sports heroes and in these contracts there are always clauses of moral turpitude and in these clauses often even if the claims against the person are not proven the company or corporation providing the endorsement can cancel the contract and get as far away from that person as possible.

For instance OJ Simpson was never convicted but obviously Hertz Rent-a-Car did not want him running thru any more airports for their commercials any longer right? We have seen athletes and celebrities do some down right stupid things from drunk driving, throwing M-80 Fire Crackers into a crowd to literally punching someone out on camera.

Although professional athletes are among the top industry where corporations look for endorsements from a public relation standpoint they are also the most problematic. Perhaps it is all that testosterone running inside of their bodies that allows them to be such great athletes and unfortunately seems to also get them in the most trouble.

Corporations that use athletes and endorsements must understand that those athletes are also roll models for younger generations. If those role models are fouled out and cause problematic situations in which their integrity is questioned or in which the mass media hysteria revisits their lack of moral character and judgment, it is generally time for those corporations to cancel such endorsements. Please consider all this in 2006.

By John Logar

Q: I can see how the “big boys” can generate PR, but how does a business like mine attract the interest of newspapers, radio or TV?

A: Some of the most powerful marketing strategies involve third party endorsements – testimonials, word of mouth, strategic alliances etc. But probably the most compelling “third party endorsement” of all is PR. Getting your story into the media is an almost fool proof way to guarantee customer attention!

As an example, I recall the impact that positive media exposure had on the level of enquiry when I was consulting in the investment industry. For a consortium of investment products, I worked tirelessly with the media to let them know all the great things that were happening to their investors. Every now and then they’d run a story on them … and when they did, the phones would run hot with qualified and almost pre-sold prospects. The sales teams loved these days!

So how do you go about getting this sort of publicity … and what do you do with it once you’ve got it?

As with most marketing activities, PR is not an exact science. You need to test and measure to find the approach that will work best for you. Having said that, there are some fundamentals that you must address to give your PR campaign a chance of success. You’ll dramatically improve outcome by approaching PR as you would any marketing campaign and that is to have a strategic plan of attack. The following is a list (by no means comprehensive) of 7 things you must do to ensure the success of your PR campaign…

1. Find an Angle – Find an angle that will generate public interest in you, your product or your business. It could be that you have a “world-first” product; that you’re supporting the community; or perhaps that you’re just doing something so “quirky” that the media will be able to have some fun with it.

2. Target – Make sure you identify the right vehicle for your PR activities. When I say this, I’m not just talking about whether you choose Newspaper, Radio or TV. I’m suggesting that you identify specific publications or programs that are of interest to your target market, find out who the appropriate editor or journalist is and approach them directly. You can access media guides that have all this information.

3. Make it easy – Make it easy for the journalist to run your story. The less work they have to do, the more likely they will be to run your story. For instance, you may issue a media release written as if it was ready to appear in their publication. You should also have photo’s available for them. Remember journalists and editors are inundated with hundreds of releases every day and at any given time they can only follow-up a handful of these. “Stand out from the crowd and be media friendly”

4. Follow-up – Once you’ve made your initial approach, make sure you follow-up. Always call to make sure that they’ve received your media alert or release. It gives you an excuse to explain your angle in more detail, and also gets your story pulled out from the pile of other stories they are considering. It’s important to follow up however, for your own benefit, don’t hound them. Nobody likes a nag, journalists least of all.

5. Say Thanks – If you are lucky enough to get coverage, make sure you thank the journalist for the coverage. If you’ve built a good working relationship, quite often you’ll be able to plant the seed of a follow-up story!

6. Be Persistent – As the famous saying goes … “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again”. Getting PR is all about timing. Keep trying and one day it will all fall into place. More importantly, if you consistently send information to the media about your industry or topic they will identify you as a source of expertise and may seek you out for stories in the future.

7. “As featured on …” – Once you’ve got the coverage, tell everyone about it. Cut it out, frame it and put it up on your reception wall; email a copy to your existing clients; tell your prospects about it; and mention it in your promotional material.

Thanks to Janet Schlarbaum

By: James Copper
Maintaining public relations and therefore having a sound public relations strategy is important for any company be it an extremely small one or a large MNC with thousands of employees. This article gives you a nine step process that will help you plan your public relations strategy perfectly and most productively. The steps are as follows:

• Identify your target audience- You must realize that you will never be able to sell your product to everyone. Therefore however strong a business you have, you must still identify, select a target audience and direct your communicative messages only towards them.

• Survey their present Knowledge levels- Either take a survey or use the internet to find out the present knowledge base and beliefs of your target audience. Google and online forums would be of great help to gauge their pulse.

• Observe how they are reacting- Keenly observe what opinions your target audience forms using their present knowledge base. How they are thinking and reacting is therefore important.

• Set specific goals for the campaign- Like with everything else in life, set achievable goals like increased web hits or changing governmental regulations etc for your public relations campaign as well.

• Select your public relations strategy- Devise your strategy keeping your goals in mind and work accordingly to use the strategy to fulfil the goals.

• How persuasive will the communication be- Formulate what thing or things you would like to communicate persuasively to the target audience. These should be things that they need to know and would want to know, in the process helping your business thrive and your goals fulfilled.

• Tactics and tools to be used- Zero in on executable forms for your public relations strategy. Decide whether you want a blog or take out a press release or join a forum as tactics to successfully execute your strategy.

• Look out for changes in knowledge and belief- Since public relations is all about creating a reputation or image and belief changing, you must monitor from time to time whether your PR strategy is being effective in enhancing your business’ reputation or making people believe in your company’s beliefs.

• Look out for a change in behaviour- The end result of your meticulous public relations strategies should be increased sales figures and peoples lives being affected by your products. The planning and the product or service offered should together be able to change the behaviour pattern of your target audience.

Every business venture should be backed by a proper and effective public relations plan which would be of great help to the business organization. If you thought your knowledge about public relation strategies was not so good, this article should be of great help to you. Hopefully after reading this, you will be able to implement some of these tips in your strategies and benefit from the outcome.

Posted by Janet Schlarbaum

By Samantha Johnson
Published by Janet Schlarbaum Philadelphia Pennsylvania
Pity those poor companies that’ve tried so hard to craft PR campaigns, only to see them land wide of the mark – or in some cases, fail outright – because they weren’t organized and cohesive enough to cut the mustard.

Professional public relations advisers have always believed that an organized, cohesive effort to develop a company’s reputation is likely to yield better results than one which happens without any thought or organization. It may seem an obvious truth, but many companies have in the past attempted to cut corners and do without it. And as we’ve already pointed out, many of them have failed miserably.

PR is a dedicated need that needs to be filled by a dedicated person and service. The person you approach to help you promote a product is probably quite different from the one you should be talking to about managing your lobbying of parliament or setting up a community relations program.

The good thing about PR is that it isn’t an all-in-one thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes and each version has a pricetag to match. You’ll have to judge the level of advice you need according to the problem you want to solve or the aspect of your communications you want to manage.

Frank Jefkin’s book “Public Relations for Your Business” seeks to teach readers exactly how to craft and implement the best PR campaign for a business. It aims to take the mystery out of PR, and present it as a practical aspect of good business. It demolishes a great many myths about PR and provides many examples of its successful application.

Areas covered by the book include corporate identity, getting media coverage, public relations on the internet, dealing with reporters and interviewers, sponsorship, corporate advertising, and good customer relations.

Posted By: Janet Schlarbaum, Pennsylvania
By: Ross Lincoln
According to the forecast of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States, the field of public relations will continue to reap thousands of job openings in the next few years. In fact, professionals even predicted that the growth rate of job opportunities in the field of public relations will continue to rate higher than the other fields.

With so many fields requiring the expertise of public relation officers, such as medicine, science, finance, etc., many people consider taking public relations careers to gain profits and recognition.

By definition, public relations is an ability and discipline of administering interaction or the process of exchanging ideas among individuals and organization that they belong to so as to supervise, create, and keep up its constructive representation.

One of the advantages of engaging into public relations is that people need to spice up their everyday task. With public relations, you can present ideas in a creative way and reap positive results.

Nowadays, people certainly need their creative outlets. The opportunities for creative expression are numerous. People just have to keep their minds and options open.

With public relations, an organization can boost their sales performance. Advertising alone cannot reap those greens.

Through public relations, you can create an information packet about your company. At the very least, you could overhaul the company’s image by incorporating branding tools into words and paragraphs.

So if you want to reap profits and build a totally changed image of your organization, get a public relations officer now and start building your future.

To get you started, here is what you have to do:

1. Research

The onset of public relations embarks on the setting up of research. Today, various disciplines know and accept the value of research.

In public relations, PR officers know the impact of research on their evaluation process, program development, and planning.

One must take note that before you can create a good public relations plan, you must first collect, classify, and deduce information according to their significance and relativity.

You can never start creating good public relations plan without doing research first.

2. Program Planning

Planning is vital to every activity. Nothing succeeds without the right plan. Hence, it is extremely important that you create a good program planning to facilitate the process of creating strategies and techniques through public relations.

Planning creates proper organizational skills. In this way, you are able to categorize and prioritize things according to their specific function and importance.

What most people do not know is that planning can actually make or unmake an organization. With proper planning, you can boost your company’s image and reap better sales. Wrong plans can bring your company down in a flash.

Programming planning incorporates the synchronization of various techniques, idea, and strategies to obtain positive and detailed results.

Systematic organization is the key to a successful program planning. You do not create actions and ideas based on what how they appear in the plan. With program planning, you take each step one by one and obtain feasible results concretely.

Indeed, communication is imperative in every endeavor and discipline. No wonder why public relations is viewed as something that people and organizations necessitate. Without public relations, advertising and other promotional tools will have no meaning and value.

So the next time you try to boost your company’s status, it is best that you use public relations programs and see the obtainable results yourself.

By Karen P Miller

PR can be a powerful tool to establish credibility, garner good will in the community and attract new business. Yet, too often organizations don’t show enthusiasm or interest for their own product or service. It brings to mind that classic line from the movie Jerry McGuire, “Help me help you!”

If you’re going to (wisely) invest valuable marketing dollars and hire PR professionals, make the most of your funds by learning how to be a “smart” client. Smart clients – those who get bang for their buck – are actively engaged in the public relations process.

The following characteristics will help you become a smart client and have positive results to show for it:

Assist your PR team in learning your business.

No one knows more about your organization than you. Take the time to educate your public relations team on your product, growth plans, target audiences and industry sector. Even if your PR pro has worked in that sector before, every organization is unique with its own story to tell.

Pass along trade magazines relevant to your industry sector.

There are literally thousands of industry specific magazines and e-newsletters available, and the number continues to grow (the Internet’s cost-effectiveness has enabled online publications to flourish). Don’t assume your PR person knows that a trade publication important to your organization even exists. In today’s day and age, there are just too many to keep track of unless they directly affect your business.

Be responsive to requests for information.

It’s flabbergasting to work with a client that asks for help promoting an item, idea or service, but doesn’t respond to requests for information about the topic. It’s this simple: a good PR consultant knows how to use the media and other outlets to help tell a story, but they need ammunition to do so.

Most clients have a wealth of information at their fingertips. Take a moment to jot down a few notes, pick up the phone or send an email to your PR person so they can learn about a particular topic and determine how to best position your organization for maximum visibility.

Show enthusiasm about your organization or project; it’s infectious.

Enthusiasm is contagious, inspirational and empowers your PR team to share your vision with key audiences. You hired public relations help because you think you have a worthwhile product or service. So, “pitch” your story to your PR people as if they were a potential customer or investor. This will enable your team to show a similar level of enthusiasm when pitching the story to reporters and other target audiences.

Let your PR team review your letters, sales pitches, collateral and web copy before it’s made public.

Public relations professionals specialize in copywriting. Take advantage of their expertise to ensure your organization has consistent, concise, grammatically correct, jargon-free and compelling content.

Remember to share information about your organization’s internal events and milestones.

You never know when a seemingly routine internal development might be newsworthy. A good public relations pro is always looking for ways to link your organization’s milestones or anomalies to current events – one of the most effective ways to get a reporter’s attention.

Realize that good PR is about building relationships. This takes time, patience and persistence.

Again, it comes down to a candid and constant flow of communication between you and your public relations team. Set up weekly conference calls, share information via email and meet in person periodically. The more your PR professionals understand your core business, the better job they’ll do in helping to showcase your organization with reporters and other influential audiences.