Public Relations vs. Marketing

Who Stepped Up: The Green Bay Packers - Brett Favre debacle showed us two things: waffling about retirement can cause bad blood, and marketing is not public relations. 

For the legions of business people who could never quite put their finger on the difference between marketing and public relations, you can thank Brett Farve for the clear distinction.

If marketing were public relations, the Packers’ would have simply turned to their top-notch marketing team and said “fix this.”  Instead, they wisely hired public relations professional Ari Fleischer to get them through the media firestorm and to help them quickly regain the confidence and trust they lost with their fans.  Fleischer, a former White House spokesman, now runs Ari Fleischer Sports Communications.

Each day I execute marketing and public relations tactics for clients, and there is a major difference between the two.

The Packers hired a PR professional because their marketing team, while expert at creating, packaging, pricing, promoting and selling their product, could not:

- Create and execute a short-range and long-range public relations strategy that addresses the unforeseen bumps, or mountain, in the road.

- Arrange and manage a high-level press briefing with the world watching. (Trust me, this has been attempted, and it isn’t pretty.)

- Craft messages throughout each stage of the crisis that put the Packers’ best foot forward.  If the media chooses to look for the other foot, that’s their business.  Give them your best foot.  That’s human nature, not spin.

- Prep General Manager Ted Thompson and Coach Mike McCarthy on questions to expect and how to answer them; on how to answer follow-up questions; on how to handle absurd questions while the world is watching; on how to handle hypothetical questions; and on how to bridge back to main points in order to keep a tight, consistent message.

- Conduct media training for key players the media want access to.  When done correctly, the team leaders speak as one and quickly gain back fan confidence and respect which was lost at the beginning of the debacle.  Leaders need to lead when the chips are down.  The PR pro sets the stage for that to happen.  Letting everyone “say their piece” off the cuff makes for great media entertainment at your expense.

- Help management understand the long-range upside to staying engaged with and open to the media, even when they feel the media is causing the problem.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, if the media is at your doorstep, you’ve given them a reason.  Knowing how to work with them decides how much pain you’ll have to endure and how long you’ll have to endure it.

- Help reporters shape their stories, sometimes turning off unwanted stories by helping them see issues they were previously unaware of.

- Walk into a very intimidating editorial board and win or break even.

- Reach out to influential bloggers who may be willing to listen to the Packers’ side of the story, and make well-prepped management and stars available for interviews.

- Develop and maintain a blog or website that provides up-to-date information on the situation, and quickly dispels rumor with fact.

- Identify and reach out to groups that support the Packers’ decision and make sure their voice is heard through the Packers’ communications mechanisms, as well as the media.

Marketing is researching, creating, packaging, pricing, promoting and selling a product or service.

Public relations is the mechanism effective organizations use to adjust to current events and reach and persuade their critical audiences, and shore up their supporters.  When important people and groups lack understanding of an organization due to ignorance, prejudice, or third-party distortions, they need to be reached through appropriate channels with accurate and compelling information that connects with them. 

Are you using a marketing person for a public relations problem when you should be hiring an Ari Fleischer?

Website Design Determines Search Engine Results

Who Stepped In It: There’s nothing more disappointing than finding out your “great investment” wasn’t so great.  That’s the conversation I had several times in the past month with smart, successful business owners in Virginia Beach and Norfolk who came to realize the website they purchased for a great price wasn’t a great deal.

In essence, they bought a brick and mortar store for a great price, then found out it’s located in the middle of nowhere with no roads leading to it.  Invisible.  Nothing.  Zero.  Their location makes Timbuktu look local. 

These business owners want websites that rank high in major search engines in order to help with their branding, marketing and public relations.  However, their websites were built in “frames,” which means the websites will have problems being found by search engines. 

Search engine robots and spiders look for complete web pages which contain unique meta tags.  Websites designed with frames usually have none of these, making them blank slates and you invisible. 

The competition for page one and two of major search engines is intense.  You may have the desire to get there, but you better back it with a website designer who knows what he or she is doing or you’ll end up on page 27 — joining hands with members of the Invisible & Frustrated Web Club.

Good website design leads to good web marketing which leads to potential customers.  When hiring a website designer or web marketing company, ask the following three questions.  If the answer to all three is yes, you’re in good hands.  If not, you’ll be investing in a website design that will not rank high in major search engines and never create the web marketing and public relations you’re looking for.

Questions for website design companies:

- Do you understand how search engines operate on the technical level?

- Can you design a website that is search engine friendly?

- Can you demonstrate real-time search results you have achieved for your clients, nationally, regionally and locally over Google, Yahoo and MSN?

There are many businesses in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake with no desire to have a large web presence.  Their public relations strategy calls for driving potential customers directly to their website by listing the address in their marketing and advertising efforts. 

However, if your business plan calls for potential customers to find you through search engines, you’ll need a website designed to satisfy their spiders and robots.

Is your website designed to increase branding, leads and sales; or is it designed to make you the next Houdini?

Who Stepped Up

Money Follows Knowledge, So Blog:  If you like a huge return on investment and are an expert in your field, you may like blogging more than you think.  Blogs showcase your knowledge (and business) better than any public relations tool available — and they’re free.

An increasing number of professionals are stepping up to blog to increase their brand and public relations, and to help others.  However, a majority of professionals are still hesitant to blog because of some common misconceptions.  Following are some important facts to know about professional blogging:

Myth: I have to blog three to four times a week to be effective.
Fact:  You can blog once every two weeks and be very effective.

Myth: I have to be technically savvy to set up and operate a blog.
Fact:  Blogs can be set up in less than 20 minutes by someone who’s never done it before.  If you can operate a TV/DVD remote control, you can click through the blog set-up steps.  If you run into problems, ask your teenager, niece, nephew or neighbor. 

Myth:  I’m too busy to blog. 
Fact:   An hour or two every two weeks is all it takes.  Good blogs take less time and are more effective than many networking efforts.  You will reach more people and actually save time by blogging.

Myth: I’ll look silly if no one participates in my blog.
Fact:  The intent of your blog is to showcase your expertise and help those who need your information.  Whether 0 or 100 people jump into the conversation does not reflect on the impact of your blog or diminish the value of your expertise.  Most blogs have far more readers than participants.

Myth: Dealing with the comments will be time consuming.
Fact:  Comments from legitimate readers and annoying spammers will come to your e-mail inbox.  Delete them.  Every few days log into your blog and delete or accept the comments.  This takes less than five minutes.

Myth: Blogs look messy and have too many buttons and ads; I don’t want to present myself that way.
Fact: You don’t need ads.  The beauty of blogs is that you control it.  It can be clean, easy to read, and free of ads and other distracting items.  If you don’t want a busy looking blog, don’t add distractions.  Keep your content pure and your design simple.

Myth: I already have a good website.  Why do I need a blog?
Fact: Websites are a great 24/7 public relations tool, but for the most part they’re justifiably static and take way more effort and knowledge to update than a blog, which is click and post.  A blog gives potential clients and reporters a living document that showcases your expertise and line of thinking in a current context.  Plus, having two separate items that search engines can find, a blog and a website, gives you a powerful one-two punch when potential customers or reporters are looking for an expert.

Myth:  Blogs are dull and impersonal.
Fact:  Blogs allow your true personality to shine through.  Your audience will really get to know you and how you approach your business.  You will develop a connection with a large audience of potential customers in a manner that is second only to personal contact.

Positioning yourself as an expert in your industry with a blog offers many benefits with little downside, especially as more and more potential clients and influential reporters use search engines to find experts on everything under the sun. 

Internet territory and audiences are being developed and going quickly.  Have you staked your claim?

Who Stepped In It

Damage Control Techniques:  When the United Food and Commercial Workers Union failed twice in the last decade to unionize Smithfield Foods’ meat-processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., they should have recognized the brick wall ahead.  But, they didn’t.

Instead, according to a damage control article by Mary Worrell of Inside Business, the union took its public relations battle to the Washington, D.C., area and flooded buses, billboards, and local television and radio airwaves with a negative ad campaign aimed at Smithfield products — a roundabout way of influencing North Carolina families to unionize. 

This public relations campaign is a waste of the union’s effort and money, which brings into question their leadership and vision.  People the union could have persuaded may now feel alienated by a big media campaign out of D.C., which does not resemble the grassroots audience the union claims to represent.

If your company or organization comes under attack, here are some helpful damage control PR tips:

- Write, distribute and post on your website a news release or news releases that dissect the misinformation and present the facts.

-  Cite incorrect statements.  The union is saying a Smithfield worker sliced “thousands of hams a minute” which translates to a few dozen hams a second.  That’s impossible, and it calls into question the credibility of the complaints. No one likes unfounded attacks.

- Present the information on a well-designed, well-written website.  Every business that has the potential to end up on page one should have an off-line website that covers a variety of crisis scenarios and can be tweaked and on-line quickly.  Speed is the name of the game in our Internet-driven society.  If you are not proud of your website, you need to be before a crisis hits.

- Inform employees quickly of high-level anti-company public relations campaigns so they hear it from you first.  Let them be your ambassadors who knock down the attacks through their social networks and lend public relations help.

- Coordinate interviews with reporters covering the issue.  If the issue is important, reporters should talk with senior organizational leaders — not only the PR team.  The public relations team should prepare the battlefield, but leadership should be the on-the-record voices.

- Communicate openly with reporters, meet deadlines and always be accessible to address follow-up questions.

- Talk positives as often as possible, but address rumors, innuendo and misinformation.  Take the high ground as often as possible and focus on your organization’s strengths.

- Understand every element of the story.  Try to know all the people who will be sourced in the reporter’s coverage of the story.  Make sure you understand what each source is likely to contribute to the story.

- Invite reporters to your company to give them a firsthand look. 

- Have a strategy to engage in new media like blogs and YouTube.  Be prepared to provide responses in multiple venues. Communication opportunities are abundant and more people can enter the conversation. Protect your brand and use the situation to strengthen it.

- Realize when you need public relations help.

What you should not do when attacked
- Do not ignore the attack.  If you’ve been targeted by smear specialists you’ll need to take them on to either hold your ground or grain ground at their cost.

- Do not assume people will automatically dismiss the attacker.  Just because you’ve successfully developed a brand for years or decades, doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels.

- Do not repeat the negative.  If they accuse you of “employee abuse” do not say, “We do not abuse our employees,” which repeats the charge you haven’t committed.  Better to say, “The relationship between our company and employees is strong and our record shows it.” 

If your company’s 15 minutes of fame turns out to be damage control against absurd charges, are you prepared to successfully handle it and turn it to your advantage? 

Who Stepped Up

Strong Internal Relationships Create Great External PR: The results can be amazing when an organization’s public relations team embraces the important role of supporting other organizational functions and operational units by taking the time to understand their responsibilites and build relationships.

The public relations team at Tidewater Builders Association is a great example of doing it right and creating an explosion of positive public relations.

PR professional Mary Prier says one of the goals of the TBA’s public relations program is to support the Member Services and Builders Services divisions in creating a sense of community and making members feel they are part of the family.

Key to this approach is frequent communication to the association’s 1,200 members. 

“Frequent communication and the recognition it inherently generates for our members creates its own energy,” Prier says.  “People want to take on new projects or get involved because they know that besides doing something good, they’ll also be recognized for it.  Everybody loves recognition.”

Some of the internal PR tactics TBA uses include:

- Blast emails to members

- The Builder, a TBA membership magazine

- Social events, such as the TBA picnic and Oyster Roast

- Charitable projects such as The Charity House to benefit CHKD, and The Scholarship House to benefit the TBA Scholarship Foundation

- Quarterly builder breakfast forums

- Weekly builder briefing e-mails on developments likely to affect them in local municipalities

- Academic scholarship awards and young designer scholarships for vocational technical students

- Cooperation with other organizations like Habitat For Humanity, which in turn leads to membership involvement

The PR folks are the glue connecting all these moving parts.  They also seize the opportunity to communicate great internal stories to their external audiences.  Here’s a glimpse of what the TBA team recently accomplished in just one month:
 
- Blast email sent to TBA members generated $30,000 in donations for Tornado Relief in Suffolk

- Helped plan, coordinate and generate publicity in The Virginian-Pilot’s Home section for $85,000 in TBA scholarships to high school seniors

- Helped plan, coordinate and generate print, broadcast, radio and online publicity for Homearama

- Helped plan, coordinate and generate publicity in The Pilot’s Home section and WVEC TV-13 for the dedication of the Charity House at Homearama in the name of a CHKD patient

- Created a compelling video during Homearama and posted it to YouTube.  The video shows Chuck Miller of Miller Custom Homes demonstrating the strength of the concrete form walls he’s using to build “The Mothership” at this fall’s Homearama.  It features Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf using a Tornado Blaster to propel two-by-fours through wall panels, then at Chuck’s concrete form walls.

The video also shows innovative green features of Chuck’s home while it was still in its pre-drywall phase. In attendance were members of Virginia Beach’s Green Ribbon Task Force, inspectors, and other important TBA target audiences.  You can view the video here.

As you can see, a strong internal effort leads to great external visibility.

How dedicated is your public relations team to learning about and building relationships with other divisions in your company or organization?

Who Stepped In It

Betraying Trust:  In the public relations business, loyalty is a precious commodity coveted by CEO’s and business leaders.  The currency of their conversations is trust.   The CEO counts on his or her public relations professional as a consultant, sounding board and trusted advisor to navigate fickle publics, aggressive media, and instantaneous, worldwide communications.

Last week former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan released his book presenting a less than flattering view of his former boss, who is also the President of the United States.  This is a perfect example of what not to do when you have a seat in the boardroom and are trusted. 

Like an attorney-client relationship, good public relations consultants know what happens in the board room stays in the board room.  When the doors are closed and bad ideas are raised, THAT’S the time to address them and resolve them — BEFORE improper actions are taken. 

If any employer insists on doing something inappropriate, deceptive or illegal, it’s easy to find the door without guilt.  Many PR consultants do.  A recent client of mine wanted me to conduct a wide-ranging slur campaign against another company.  That client was dropped immediately.  I was out a fair amount of money - no big deal.  The world is loaded with great clients and business people.

Top-notch public relations consultants owe their clients loyalty in every respect regardless of where they stand in the lifecycle of their employment.

Good PR consultants view their clients as clients for life.  Much like a family member, good friend, or clergyman, when a client confides in you, you have an obligation to maintain that loyalty and trust.  When you’re on the inside, you take it to the grave. 

If you need attention, you’re in the wrong business.  Being a PR consultant is not about you; it’s about the CEO, the organization, and its publics.

If you’re a public relations professional with a desire for writing books, you should change careers now, pick good subjects and enjoy a long career.  Otherwise, you’ll write one tattletale book and be done.

Once you sell out the boss, how long do you think your PR career will last?  PR consultants live and die by reputation.  Would you want Scott McClellan on your team?

Who Stepped Up

The PR Avalanche:  When the PR avalanche starts, it’s a thing of beauty.  But like most avalanches, it takes a lot of building up before it can unleash its power.

That’s how Rourk Public Relations in Virginia ended up on primetime CNN with Wolf Blitzer, May 8.  Many pieces were put in place that prompted the call and turned the three minute piece into a success.

Following is a quick study on how the public relations opportunity unfolded.

CNN political reporter Carol Costello called me about noon asking, “Why would a sense of humor be important for a politician?”  John McCain had appeared on The Daily Show the evening before and that was her angle.  The reporter was on deadline and needed to quickly find her source.  I told her my staff political consultant and political campaign manager, Brian Kirwin, was one of the best in the business and he’d call her ASAP. 

Fortunately, Kirwin knew McCain was the record-setter for appearances on The Daily Show, and was able to quickly stream the video of his appearance on May 7.  He also took a few seconds to compose some communication points.

Within minutes Kirwin called the reporter back armed with three good talking points.  1)  McCain was the champion of The Daily Show  2)  Reagan, facing age questions like McCain is, had the famous debate one-liner that ended the questioning, and 3)  People watching traditional news are usually decided voters, and humor reaches to people less identified with strict party voting.

As Kirwin conversed with the reporter he floated each of these comm points to see if any triggered her story-sense.  She wasn’t so interested in how often McCain has appeared on The Daily Show, although several clips made it into the final CNN piece.  But she was totally intrigued about the theme of “McCain ripping a page out of Reagan’s playbook.”

She asked if Kirwin could be on camera in an hour.  “Yes” was through his lips faster than you can imagine. 

Kirwin arrived early enough to get as many details as possible about the shoot.  When would it air?  How long was the piece?  What would it follow?  All good intel that would determine how much specificity he needed.

The taped interview went well.  When it aired nationwide several hours later, we scored!

The reporter used most of Kirwin’s comm points as the story line, and not the one she had originally called for.  In fact 90% of the reporter’s dialogue was the information Kirwin gave her.  He was a little shocked that it turned out that way and his only on-air appearance was for two sentences.  The rest of the segment involved the reporter using the information Kirwin gave her along with video, which included the 1984 Reagan-Mondale debate.

At first, Kirwin was slightly mad.  I quickly backed him away from those feelings and had him follow up with the reporter with a gracious “thank you for calling, the piece was outstanding, call anytime you need anything else.”  Better to get two sentences 50 times, than two sentences once.  Our job is to help reporters do their job well and become a trusted resource for them.  Accomplish that and the media coverage will follow.

Kirwin’s appearance generated calls from many elected officials and McCain’s Virginia political campaign manager.  They were thrilled with the story and loved how we framed it.

Kirwin was on camera for about eight seconds, but the real value was the ability to help a reporter tell a story with real industry insight, the opportunity to be visual, the skill to link a current candidate with the most popular leader of our generation, and the avalanche that rained gold and further increased Rourk PR’s brand and credibility.

Following is snapshot of how we landed some great publicity.

The Build Up
Web Site Optimization: Rourk PR’s web site is optimized to the max several ways.  When CNN’s Carol Costello needed a political consultant to talk about McCain’s use of humor in the campaign, she Googled “political consultant, image” and Rourk PR was on page one.

Accessibility: I doubt we were CNN’s first call.  But we were immediately available to them (whether we really were or not).  Unless it’s a life and death situation, anytime a reporter calls — JUMP!  That’s the bread and butter of a public relations professional.

Preparation: The Internet makes it possible to quickly research anything, and be prepared in less than 10 minutes.  Learn to find and digest information quickly and pick the golden nuggets.

Comm Points:  You should never go into an interview without comm points that help you stay on track, make it easy for the reporter to follow and understand, and get your message across.  You can usually work these up in less than five minutes.

The Aftermath
Visibility: Calls from elected officials who we’ve worked for or are working for poured in. 

Trusted Resource: Because we were immediately available, and did a prompt and courteous thank you follow-up with the reporter, she may call again.  Kirwin established himself as a trusted resource and top-notch political consultant to this reporter.

Future Business: McCain’s Virginia political campaign manager and Kirwin had a great conversation.  I anticipate if McCain needs help in Virginia, we may be hearing from his campaign manager about this or future political campaigns he may be handling.  Kirwin has one of the brightest political minds in Virginia — that campaign manger now knows it.  The CNN appearance made the connection possible.

Credibility: The CNN piece in some form will be added to the Rourk Public Relations web site because it adds credibility and will appeal to anyone in the market for a PR agency or political consultant.

Are you doing the right things to build a PR avalanche that pours gold?

Who Stepped Up

Great Public Relations Opportunities Are Right Under Your Nose:  Most business owners and public relations professionals have the potential to generate some form of recurring publicity if they look hard enough and ask the right questions.

For instance, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens is a wonderful attraction in Norfolk, Virginia. But for many years, the only way they generated publicity was by adding a new attraction, which wasn’t that often. 

However, a stroke of public relations brilliance changed all that a few years ago. Management placed a web cam in the branches just above an eagle’s nest and instantly the entire world could watch how eagles lived and raised their young.  Reporters took notice!

The Eagle Cam sparked a renewed interest in the Norfolk attraction and has consistently generated positive publicity.  In late April, the local media covered the successful hatching of an eaglet.  The Virginian-Pilot ran a photo and six inch story in their popular “5 cities at a glance” section, and the editorial page did a seven inch piece. 

I believe every business has at least one built-in, golden marketing opportunity, whether that public relations opportunity involves knowledge or entertainment. 

Another example is Spectrum Printing in Virginia Beach.  New customers frequently told owner Dick Olenych that they would have used his print shop sooner if they had known he was right across from CopyMax on Virginia Beach Blvd., where they were paying the high rates and not receiving the personal service.  Dick, whose business is known as “The Happy Printers,” will soon station a yellow paint can mascot named Sonny in front of his building, ala, Liberty Tax.  It fits well and was right under his nose to discover.  The adventures of Sonny may be legendary, as I understand he’s a bit wily.

Tom Davidson of Davidson Leadership runs an email marketing campaign titled Leaderslips & Tips: The Good, The Bad & The Bungled.  He could easily draw from this product on a yearly basis and present his, or a panel’s, top three good and bad leadership moves.  That could easily turn into a recurring stream of publicity.

Keep your eyes open for businesses and organizations that consistently receive positive media coverage.  What built-in or one-off item from your product, service, issue or cause can you exploit to generate media coverage and brand awareness?

Who Stepped In It

News Releases Should Be Bright and Brief:  That crackling and clicking sound you hear in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake and across the nation is the sound of paper being crumpled and the delete button being hit by busy reporters and editors quickly clearing their enormous workloads of long, unclear news releases.

Every business or public relations agency that writes a press release longer than one page will soon find they’ve stepped in it.  How will they know? Their competition keeps getting the media coverage, and they keep making the excuses.

There are many formats to press releases — TV, radio, blog, web site, consumer, and more — but this PR tip will cover press releases to newspapers.

The most important thing to understand about your news release has nothing to do with your news release.  It has to do with understanding who you’re sending it to — the reporter or editor. 

A busy, overworked reporter on a daily deadline has no time to sift through your two-page news release, especially when your main point is buried on page two.

Your boss may really like the press release because it talks about all the wonderful things the company is doing or is about to do.  Your client may really like it because you’ve included every detail under the sun that they think is important.  But the person in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, or Chesapeake who decides what’s a story and what isn’t, does not have the time or inclination to read your brag sheet.

Understand a reporter’s world and you’ll understand how to write your press releases.

Good news releases:

- Respect a reporter’s time.  You exert the effort so they don’t have to.

- Have a headline that quickly and clearly tells your story.

- Get to the point in a single page or less.  Take the rest of the information and create a background or tip sheet.  When the reporter asks for more information, it’s already prepared.

- Pique a reporter’s interest; don’t tell the entire story.  The reporter will write the story.  They don’t need a public relations agency doing it for them.

- Shouldn’t be about turning 25 years old, holding a fundraiser, launching a new product, or opening a new location.  If you want to announce that, buy an ad.  Reporters will not find this newsworthy.  Do some digging, ask some questions and find something unique in that 25-year history, or about your upcoming yearly event.  Your angle could be about a huge obstacle overcome, the evolution of a product, a twist of fate — something emotive, amazing, interesting.  There’s always an intriguing story behind the story if you take the time to dig for it and craft it into a pitch.  It should take the reporter less than 15 seconds to say, yes, my readers will find that interesting, important, or entertaining.

- Are written from the reporter’s shoes, not the boss’. 

- Contain contact information at the beginning and the ending so a reporter can quickly make a phone call or send an email to the public relations professional who sent it.

- Never have a company logo on it.  Reporters are not in business to promote your business.  They report newsworthy items.  Making your news release look like an advertisement is a quick way to miss out on some outstanding media coverage.

How long were your last five news releases?  Did each generate media coverage in Virginia Beach, Norfolk or Chesapeake?

Who Stepped Up

Public Relations Campaigns Must Be Inclusive:  Public relations campaigns have changed faster than most CEOs and leaders would like to admit, but the quicker they get onboard the more success they’ll have.  The day of mass communications tools being owned or controlled by the government or corporations are long gone.  The fast rise of easy-to-use Web sites, blogs, podcasts, social networks, chat rooms, email campaigns and more have taken control from the elite and given it to the masses, and changed public relations communications forever. 

Public relations professionals can learn a valuable lesson from the U.S Navy’s challenges in this area. Every effort to secure a location for an outlying landing field for Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach has been met with well organized protesters, which generates media coverage.  But most importantly, key politicians are being pressured by these large citizen alliances that are Internet-driven.  And once politicians sense a group can cause harm, the group gets its way.

Citizens 1 - Navy 0.  However, the Navy isn’t done trying.  According to a recent article in The Virginian-Pilot, which covers Virginia Beach, Rear Adm David Anderson has convinced Navy leadership that there’s a better way to achieve their outlying landing field goal — with a consensus building campaign.  Hummm, now we’re getting somewhere.

The admiral said, “When you completely disregard and disrupt communities’ and individuals’ lives, with this air of arrogance, they’re going to call their elected officials now in a way they have never done in the past.”  And those elected leaders respond by cutting off federal funding, he said.

The admiral is correct and the Navy is smart for letting him work a customer-based public relations campaign to help the Virginia Beach master jet base.

Some PR tips for this type of public relations campaign include:

- It is easier to build bridges than put out fires. 

- The days of holding your cards close to the vest and hoping a poorly informed public will be duped are over.  The collision between technology and the Internet saw to that.

- Communities have learned how to join forces, pool resources and use political forces to their benefit.  Determine your allies and enemies.

- Develop a PR plan that creates a tailored communications loop with all of them.

- Bring residents, local officials, environmental organizations and others to the table early to start building a relationship and to help mute some of the criticism.

- These challenging cases do not have to be David versus Goliath, with the large government organization being perceived as an enemy.  Explaining why these issues are important for the greater good and making the community part of the process through smart public relations communications is critical to long-term success.

- Identify which reporter covers that beat and keep him or her in the loop too.

- Pinpoint the naysayers reporters like to use for their fiery opposition quotes.  Reach out to them early.

- Don’t be fooled into thinking that your open communication and building goodwill will guarantee your organization’s success. 

- Come to the table with compelling reasons for your requirements and fair compensation for people who will be impacted.  In this case, the Navy would be wise in its public relations communications to put the face of young aviators and their families on the front of this issue.  These brave young people are the ones who will pay the price with their lives if they can’t get the appropriate training before they take on the difficult challenge of landing a 160 mph aircraft on a small landing strip moving through the water.

- Actions of the organization in working with impacted communities are far more important than the words they use.  Public relations professionals will be wise to point out to their leaders the value of open communication and fairness.

What product, service, issue or cause are you about to launch that will meet with resistance from concerned groups and harm your business?

« Previous Page — Next Page »