Letters To The Editor
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Target Audience Input is
an Important Part of Message Development

Dear Katie:

I enjoy your newsletter and feel it serves a real need in PR. You're doing a good thing.

I read with interest Mark Daly’s article on message development. I congratulate him on an excellent article and agree with all of what he says. However, I believe he missed an important part of message development: target audience input before the message is developed.

For messages to be effective, they need to resonate with their target audiences. I agree with Mark’s first two steps: Understand the company and understand its image. But before I go to work with management on messages, I want to know what each important target audience thinks of the organization and what it wants from the organization. And I want these in the language of the target audience—the actual words the target audience uses. Then I can develop messages that express what management wants to say in language that reflects target audience needs and desires. In those cases where target audiences want something other than that which management wants to offer, I believe it is the responsibility of the communications consultant to share this information with management. In fact, I think that's public relations at its best.

What I’ve described is the methodology I’ve used to develop messages for a number of years. But having read a number of Jim Grunig’s papers and having heard him speak at our IPR Commission meetings, I think that this approach begins to dabble in the process he recommends for developing ongoing relationships with publics.

Best wishes,

Forrest W. Anderson
Forrest Anderson & Associates, Inc.

Mark Daly replies:
Thanks for the input, Forrest. I agree that target audience input is critical in shaping messages; that's why measurement is so important in any PR program. (Readers can find a copy of one of the Grunig papers that Forrest refers to on the IPR site. —Ed.)

“The Job Would Have Been Great,
Except They Used AVEs!”

To the Editor,

Thank you! I just turned down a position that would've been great for me, but for the fact that the organization (or rather some of its misguided leadership in the public affairs office) measures the effectiveness of its media relations efforts strictly on AVEs!

One "official" even went so far as to say, "Jane Doe, our media relations coordinator, brought in [more than] one million dollars in free advertising last year alone."

While I would not want to publicly embarass this group, as they do tremendous work for a large number of people, I do want to go up to them (and in fact their national reputation almost obligates me to do so), shake them senseless and force them, if necessary, to read your newsletters.

Sincerely,

Paul D. O'Rourke, APR
Public Relations and Marketing Communications