Being prepared

Know what you are trying to achieve and be prepared for the worst. This may seem obvious, but it seldom is. It’s easy to lose sight of objectives when the chips are down, so it’s vital to keep them in view. For this reason try not to field public relations personnel as company spokespeople. It could be tempting to hide behind them and use their media and communications skills rather than risk the possibility that the managing director might look foolish on television, but the best place for the public relations person to be is at a distance from events, keeping an eye on developments, and with a professional and detached view of what is happening. Your company will get better, more objective advice and as a result your public relations personnel should be able to steer a clear path through the problems.

There is also no point in trusting to luck and taking an optimistic point of view based on the time honoured idea that ‘it may never happen’. At least make sure that if it does, you know where you are and are ready to deal with it. Then if the worst case scenario doesn’t pop up, you can carry on with your job. But take care. It is often surprising how a journalist can miss the obvious, then stumble across it once again three months later – just when everything seemed safe.

Getting the good news across

1. Good news stories can contain much of the above list, plus one or two others. First, don’t expect any story simply to sell itself. It may be a brilliant idea, but not everyone will be enthusiastic. If an issue might not attract enough interest from journalists, invite customers along too and alter the event so that it serves the needs of both targets.

2. Once again, don’t be afraid to be imaginative and adopt consumer based techniques – indeed any techniques that will help get the message across. Watch for emerging trends in the press and latch on to them. Also ‘steal shamelessly’. A writer once told the story of a woman on a course she was teaching who refused to use a thesaurus to find alternative words to brighten up her prose style. When asked why she wouldn’t she responded by saying that it would be ‘cheating’. So keep an eye open for good public relations ideas and learn from other people’s experiences – even from the experiences of people who work in other disciplines such as sales promotion, direct mail and advertising.

3. That said, the wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented every day of the week. It’s good to be creative and win awards, but that shouldn’t put anyone off turning to the tried and tested. Many tried and tested ideas keep being used simply because they work. Doing things well is what counts.

4. Take newsletters, for example. These are a well-tried technique, but one which seldom stays the course: the history of business to business public relations is littered with newsletters which lasted only two or three issues and then died a death.

5. When Royal Mail launched a newsletter aimed at various selected bodies with an influence on public perceptions of direct mail, at least one public relations contact scoffed and said it would never work. Newsletters, he said, were pathetic, the last refuge of people devoid of ideas. By adopting more direct marketing than public relations based approaches (especially in the creation of the mailing list, and in the use of market research and a pre-launch teaser campaign), and building in a seminar programme and other one-off ideas into the project, the newsletter has succeeded. Why?

6. The original problem was how to influence a diverse but influential target group comprising local trading standards officers, Citizens’ Advice Bureaux (CABx), local press journalists and industry representatives with an interest in self-regulation (about 3300 in total). In the past it had proved difficult to react quickly to small stories about direct mail in local media. At the same time trading standards and CABx often had a jaundiced view of the medium as a result of the fact that ‘cowboy’ and ‘rogue’ mailings were what they saw of the industry. Nobody, after all, complains about well-targeted, creative and imaginative mailings, do they?

7. Using humour to overcome initial reader negativity and by keeping the Royal Mail branding low key, Direct Mail Matters has been able, in two years, to maintain a loyal readership and to influence them with key messages about the effectiveness of self-regulation in the direct marketing industry. An independent survey has shown that 93 per cent read at least half of every quarterly issue and 40 per cent read it all. In terms of perception, 83 per cent said that it had helped to improve their understanding of direct mail and how it worked (including a massive 88 per cent from trading standards officers to this question and 93 per cent among CABx). A small consumer leaflet explaining how the various key regulatory bodies in direct mail work has also been a hit thanks to the newsletter, with over 8000 copies requested by readers and a further 10,000 distributed through other channels. A second, expanded version is soon to be trailed using lessons learned from the production of the first version.

8. Direct mail is also part of the next case study. In late 1991 Royal Mail ran into a spot of bother regarding accusations about the non-delivery of direct mail items in one particular area. This quickly resulted in a local media campaign – quite vociferous – and a great deal of poor coverage on direct mail itself – mostly around the well-worn track that nobody would miss it anyway. This issue never became national – though we were ready for that – but didn’t send business customers any good messages about what was going on and something had to be done. Having taken the local media on the chin as best we could, we searched around for some solutions.

9. The balance was ultimately redressed with a local direct mail competition targeted at customers in the region with a link up to the local paper’s business page. It was simple enough in itself – just send us your direct mail items so we can judge which is the best in the region. The competition was also used internally to promote the medium – with news of appropriate entrants and their successes being fed back to employees via the relevant local communications vehicles. We even incentivised staff to find competition entrants. The results were good coverage of key points about the importance of the medium of direct mail, some very good local coverage of the winners, some good pick up of the story in the trade press (which had also commented on the original story), a chance to gain local radio coverage and, finally, the re-enforcement of our commitment to provide a quality service for business users.

10. Since then the campaign has been rolled out developed by other Royal Mail public relations units – with new developments added, including external seminars and internal poster campaigns backed up by team briefing materials. A constant feedback of results and a sharing of best practice between various units rolling out the campaign has ensured its development continues, and that it stays alive and grows organically rather than stagnates. It also enables regional public relations units to add their own unique local flavour which gets better results all around. Feedback from customers and co-suppliers locally is also excellent. Indeed, the campaign overall has now taken on a new life of its own. Originally devised to try to rectify a local issue, it has now become a stand-alone campaign that helps promote the medium of direct mail, and strengthens the image of the medium both internally and externally.