Public Relations Campaigns

There are fundamental steps to any public relations campaign that should not be ignored. These range from gaining a sense of what has been done in the past to devising specific ways to measure the success of the campaign itself. In between there should be devising budgets and time lines, identifying targeted publics, and coming up with strategies based on what has worked in the past. Good campaigns are well thought out, well planned and research-driven. They should not be efforts that are thrown together or carried out on the basis of someone's hunch or intuition. Unfortunately, in the "do-it-now" profit-driven world in which we live, it is not unusual for practitioners who are given an assignment to promote something to simply identify several attention-grabbing strategies, implement them, generate an audience and call it a public relations campaign. This is short-sighted and does little to foster a long term connection between various entities or publics.

Ideally, public relations campaigns, much like public relations itself, should be devised with long-term implications in mind. Public relations, in essence, is a long-term run and not simply a 100-yard dash. Thus, the bottom-line of any campaign, even if it is designed to promote a particular product or event, revolves around the establishment and maintenance of relationships. Yes, the public relations practitioner needs to focus on the here-and-now in terms of what should be done to deal with current challenges; but that same person also needs to concern him or herself with what happens after those challenges are addressed. How can the initial connection with be sustained? How can it be enhanced? Is there opportunity for future campaigns? These are other similar questions are important to consider and should be part of a campaign's evaluation step.

As it is with other professions, public relations professionals often work under tight conditions in which they lack the luxury of lots of time in which to plan, execute and assess. More often than not, they face short turnaround times in which clients expect tangible actions and results. While working fast is an occupational hazard for many professional communicators, it should not be an excuse for short-changing a public relations campaign. After all, establishing ties that bind is too important for cutting corners.