Public Relations Results... Guaranteed?

Scenario: You put in hours of thought and work into a campaign to promote your product or charity event, you begin promotion at the right time and notify the media, aggressively.

The Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted, and everything in between has been taped up or tied down. Your event or product is ready to launch, but there is something missing. Where are all the people? Did the media misplace your press release? What went wrong?

Your campaign or product can be the most thought out, best organized, and best product in the industry, but success is not determined by the hours of work you put into the planning process. Success is measured by meeting your objectives.

So, how can we do better next time?

First things first, you must set reasonable and measurable objectives. In this case, remember to set the bar low. If your previous campaign wasn't as successful as you had hoped, set lower expectations. If you're trying something new, a tactic that you've never tried before, it is more difficult to determine the reaction of the public.

Plan, plan, plan. The execution of your event or campaign is all in the planning of it. Make sure you've thought of everything before you execute. If you have doubts, run it by someone else. Sometimes there are some things we can't see that others can point out immediately.

Your plan should also have a tracking strategy, a process that will help you determine if the strategy you've chosen is the right one for your product or event. It will determine, based on your chosen objectives, if you have achieved your goals. It can also help with future strategies, if this is a success perhaps trying a similar campaign in the future, if it wasn't successful - scrap it.

Don't guarantee results, this goes for your employer and your clients. Public Relations is just that, public. We depend on others to attend or purchase your product, this can be stressful, don't give yourself an ulcer. Make it clear before starting any project that you can have the best product, the most worthy cause, but it's entirely possible to have very little interest from the general public.

It can be frustrating when your efforts don't deliver good results. But it doesn't mean that you should give up, try something else, lower your expectations, and don't be so hard on yourself.