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August 2004 THE PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS WOMAN’S JOURNAL
F EATURE
Employ Strategies of Public Relations
Campaigns to Achieve Goals
By Ann S. Murphy more of a local or narrower
focus. You may want to tar-
A prominent restaurant in get fourth grade elementary
downtown Boston receives school teachers or Fortune
word from the board of health 500 CEOs; each audience has
that it will be shut down pend- specific places they get trust-
ing and investigation of health ed information.
violations… Then, after you have deter-
A political candidate mined who your audience is,
launches her first quest for you need to develop your
public office… message and figure out how
A technology startup com- to deliver it to them.
pany receives a new round of Although the restaurant’s
venture capital to expand its script will be vastly different
business… from the job seeker’s, the
A college graduate embarks tactics in developing the
on a job search…. script are the same. At this
These four disparate situa- stage, you need to put time
tions seemingly have noth- into developing clear and
ing in common but they concise messages that you
have one common need – a can use throughout your
Ann S. Murphy
public relations campaign. campaign.
While each situation is dif- Sometimes, additional
ferent, all will employ the same strategies to research is needed to develop your message.
achieve success. Once mastered, effective public Conventional methods are: telephone polling,
relations skills can bring any business owner, online surveys, focus groups and the Internet.
political candidate, job seeker or anyone else to Information gathered through research will give
his or her desired goals. you the starting point you will need to develop
The major elements of a public relations cam- and target your messages.
paign are: Now that you have developed your messages
• Audience, and zeroed in on your target audience, it’s time to
• Message, hit the campaign trail. This means, you move to
• Medium. the next phase of the campaign, and it may
The No. 1 task at hand when beginning a public involve media relations. One of the most effective
relations campaign is to determine who will be lis- ways to get your message across is by garnering
tening to your message. Even though it would be earned or “free” media through newspaper stories
great to see your story on the front page of the or broadcast reports about your business. In this
New York Times, you have to decide whether this year of presidential campaigning, both candidates
is where your target audience gets their informa- will spend millions of dollars on advertising
tion. It could be that they read something with about themselves and about their rivals. Where
Murphy see page 2
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August 2004 THE PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS WOMAN’S JOURNAL
F EATURE
Murphy from page 1
the battle will also be waged is on the front page ly. When tax increases or tax cuts are announced,
of the newspaper, where the presidential race is you will hear that it will cost the average taxpayer
covered daily by reporters. $200 more or $200 less next year, not that the gov-
Media relations has more impact on public opin- ernment is cutting millions of dollars. If your
ion than advertising does as it is a third-person audience is the general population, they just can’t
view of the issue at hand. Audiences know when relate and won’t relate unless the stories and num-
they are viewing an advertisement and they may bers are humanized.
be skeptical of the ad’s claims because that com- It is also important to build support and allies
pany or political candidate wrote and bought the for your campaigns. In political campaigns, you
ad. That is why free media is so critical, since find your supporters and they back you financial-
issues are vetted by a third-party, a journalist, ly and with their votes. It is also important to
whose job is to get the story straight and deliver build your base of support in other public rela-
the facts. tions campaigns. Find out if you have a customer
Why do certain stories make the news? When who is willing to talk to the media about you or
you pick up the newspaper in the morning or go your product or to other people whom you want
online to read it, turn on the television or radio, to influence. They will have a big impact on the
you may hear some stories that you can’t imagine success of your campaign.
how they got there. Why did the story about the Finally, how do you determine victory? In a
Boston Public Garden swans Romeo and Juliet political campaign it is quite clear, you either win
have appeal? It’s because animal stories sell news- or lose. Sometimes there are very close elections
papers and they get people to tune into the televi- but most have clear winners and losers.
sion news. Audiences love them because they are For public relations, the campaign victory is not
visual, unusual and appealing. How many people as clear but it is just as sweet. There are several
were waiting to see whether Romeo and Juliet’s ways to measure your success but none is scientif-
eggs hatched into cygnets? Lots of them. ic. Are your messages coming through in media
Why do you always hear the phrase “make it placements? Did your sales go up? Do you have a
sexy” or that is a “sexy” story? It’s not that the lot more activity on your Web site? Are there chat
news story is about sex or intimacy; it is about rooms talking about your product or issue in a
stories that have a gut level, visceral edge to them positive manner?
that is attractive to an audience. The sexy story Everyone “does” public relations every day. You
could make its way from a sleepy suburban week- just might not know it or might not call it PR.
ly newspaper to morning network talk shows in a From trying to convince a babysitter to care for
flash. It’s all about hitting the news cycle at the your child, to dealing with workers on your home,
right time. to positioning yourself for a promotion, you use
Another lesson to be learned in the midst of a public relations strategies and tactics to get these
public relations campaign is that when you are things done. If you plan ahead and keep your
presenting a story to the media, especially for tele- focus on the three main components of a public
vision, you need to show how the average person relations campaign – audience, message and medi-
can relate to it on an emotional level. This is espe- um – you can tackle any situation in life.
cially true if you are working on an issue that has
numbers that need to be communicated to the Ann S. Murphy, former journalist and political oper-
public. Numbers don’t mean anything unless they ative, is vice president of O’Neill and Associates, a
can be broken down to relate to the average fami- public affairs firm in Boston.
Reprinted with permission by Women’s Business Boston 8/04