Home
>
Public Relations
>
PR: Behavior Modification Specialist

executive chauffeured services Westchester Cadillac Deville rentals Deerfield Cadillac Deville rentals Oakbrook limousine airport Highland Park Addison shuttle .. Drug testing

PR: Behavior Modification Specialist

While awaiting economic recovery, business needs to attract the attention of its most important external audiences in a more targeted and focused way. Primarily to impact the perceptions of those key outsiders so that resulting behaviors help those managers achieve their objectives.

This should be enough reason for recession-weary managers to take a closer look at public relations, America's resident specialists in behavior modification.

The reason public relations finds itself in the behavior business -- and of real use to those recession-jaded managers -- is because it's firmly rooted in the principle that people act on their own perception of the facts. It strives to create, change or reinforce perception/public opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired- action those people whose behaviors affect the organization.

It's good news for business managers because, when the behavioral changes become apparent, and meet the program's original behavior modification goal, a public relations effort has succeeded.

Truth is, at any time, when managers start looking for a return on their public relations investment, it's clear as crystal that their goal MUST be the kind of change in the behaviors of key stakeholders that leads right to achieving their objectives.

Just think about some of the perceptions out there, in good times or bad, that could actually hurt your organization. Perceptions that, if ignored long enough, could well result in behaviors that run counter to those you want.

At the root of it all, is that simple truism we all know but tend to forget: people really DO act on their perception of the facts and behave accordingly. But, if a manager is to have an effect on those perceptions and behaviors, he/she must deal with them promptly and effectively whether the economy is down or up.

Imagine how many different audiences your organization may have to depend upon at one time or another? Would your list include insurance carriers, journalists, minorities, customers, prospects, employees, legislators, community residents and others whose perceptions of your organization, if left unattended, could hurt?

Start getting your arms around this challenge by listing your important audiences in priority order. For example, customers, prospects, employees, local and trade media, local business and community leaders, and so forth.

As time permits, meet with members of each audience and jot down their impressions of your business, especially problem areas. Be sure to ask questions about their feelings and perceptions of your products and services. Stay alert to inaccuracies, misconceptions or rumors. Here, you'll have a chance to decide to what degree you will try to alter perceptions among each audience. Later, this will become the behavior modification goal against which you will measure progress for each target audience.

Next, prepare persuasive messages that not only provide details about your product and service quality, but address problems that surfaced during your conversations with key audience members. Identify what is really at issue at the moment; impart a sense of credibility to your comments; and regularly assess how opinion is currently running among that group, constantly adjusting your message.

Then, consider the most effective means for communicating each message to each audience. This may include simple face-to-face meetings, briefings, news releases, news announcement luncheons, media interviews, facility tours, targeted speeches, a brochure, special events like open houses and awards, and a variety of other communications tactics.

As you look for signs that your aggressive efforts are changing perceptions for the better, especially important in a recession, you should begin to notice increased awareness of your organization, especially progress in the marketplace; increased receptiveness to your messages; a growing public perception of the role your organization plays in its industry and in the community; and, of course, growing numbers of prospects.

These signs of progress are tracked by speaking once again, and on a regular basis with people among each of your key audiences, by monitoring print and broadcast media for mentions of your messages or viewpoints, by interaction with key customers and prospects and, if resources permit, modest opinion sampling.

Especially during hard times, remember that people in your community or marketing area behave like everyone else ? they take actions based on their perception of the facts they hear about you and your business.

Which means that you must deal promptly and effectively with those perceptions by doing what is necessary to reach them. Especially during recession, you must persuade your stakeholders to your way of thinking, thus moving them to take actions that lead to the success of your organization.

About The Author

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.

Robert A. Kelly ? 2003.

limousine chicago service

In The News:

Cell phone customers are fuming and they’re refusing to extend their long term service contracts, or at least that's the message based on recent subscriber numbers released by U.S. carriers.

The 16th annual Webby Awards took place Monday night in New York City at the Hammerstein Ballroom, where winners and celebrities walked the red carpet in support of innovation.

No more violent shaking. No more tapping the “57” logo. And certainly no more ketchup left to waste at the bottom of the bottle -- all thanks to PhD candidate Dave Smith and his team of MIT researchers.

Israeli archaeologists have discovered a 2,700-year-old seal that bears the inscription "Bethlehem," the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday, in what experts believe to be the oldest artifact with the name of Jesus' traditional birthplace.

They floated like butterflies, now they are being stung -- for a second year running. Eleven months after officials in China were ridiculed for some of the worst Photoshop efforts on record, they are at it again.

The designer behind many of Apple's most popular gadgets will be knighted Wednesday at Buckingham Palace in London.

Your sneakers will come alive with the soon to be released-- Nike+ Basketball and Nike+ Training—apps plus shoes.

The first commercial spacecraft ever launched toward the International Space Station is playing a game of catch-up today (May 23) as it heads toward an unprecedented rendezvous with the orbiting lab.Dragon, built by commercial rocket firm Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

The Boy Scouts of America is trying to recruit a new generation of kids to join its troops with high-energy, high-tech activities that include thrill-inducing zip lines at a new adventure camp, apps and a television show.

The next iPhone or iPad from Apple is surely around the corner, and Google is getting into everything from cloud computing to car making. But what the cards hold for $100 billion behemoth Facebook is far from clear, experts say.

Rumors of the hairy humanoid known variously as the yeti, bigfoot and sasquatch have persisted for decades. Now scientists are hoping to make more of a case for the creature -- with the help of genetic testing, Reuters reported.

Scotty has finally been beamed up. The ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on the 1960s television series "Star Trek," were launched to space this morning (May 22) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Cows are a red herring. The most dangerous potential source for methane release lies underneath thinning permafrost and glaciers in the Arctic. Ecologists have just mapped the seeps where methane is bubbling up, and they found more than 150,000 of them.

At a time when black magic was relatively common, two curses involving snakes were cast, one targeting a senator and the other an animal doctor, says a Spanish researcher who has just deciphered the 1,600-year-old curses.

Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, U2 frontman Bono and more honored the memory of late Apple founder Steve Jobs Monday in New York City at the 16th annual Webby Awards.

Humans' close relationship to dogs has so far obscured their history so much that it's not yet possible to use genetic data to tease out the details of their domestication, new research indicates.

A Jurassic mom's almost certainly painful death is perfectly preserved in a rare fossil skeleton, one of the many unique items that will go on display in the Houston Museum of Natural Science's $85 million dinosaur hall when it opens to the public June 2. We take a first peek at the exhibit.

A Jurassic Mom's almost certainly painful death is perfectly preserved in a rare fossil skeleton, one of the many unique items that will go on display in the Houston Museum of Natural Science's $85 million dinosaur hall when it opens to the public June 2.

The rise of Kickstarter's crowdsourcing platform means consumers can now vote with their dollars, investing in unique new projects that they believe in, from smartphone watches designed from e-paper to coffee joulies that keep your drink at the perfect temperature. Here are the 12 most funded design projects.

Jodie Foster may have seen proof of alien lands in the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film "Contact," but the real life astronomer the filmmakers based their sci-fi odyssey on didn't find so much as a tentacle.

PR: Behavior Modification Specialist

Public Relations Public Relations