A great way to celebrate your achievements and capitalize on your successes is to share them with your clients, members, community leaders, and other influential decisionmakers. But how can you do that without sounding like you are bragging?

Tell the story of your success using one of these five approaches, which will work for newsletter articles, website content, and press releases.

Profile a Person Involved

Personal profiles are a great way to share good news. Instead of talking about your accomplishments directly, profile the people who worked on them or the people who benefit from them. If the profile is of a staff member, have them explain the challenges associated with the project and why the success is so meaningful to them. If you profile someone who benefits from the successful project, ask them to explain how his or her life has changed for the better as a result of the organization’s achievement.

Analyze a Trend

Put your accomplishment in the context of larger trends within your community or national trends in your field. Use events and statistics from sources outside your organization to demonstrate how your success fits into a larger pattern (or bucks a trend).

Explain How You Did It

In an easy-to-follow format, provide your readers with clear directions on how to do something related to your accomplishments. What did you learn during the process that you can share with others? What can your newsletter readers do to help build upon your achievements and further your mission? Show your readers, step-by-step, how they can be a part of your success.

Create a Top Ten List

People love lists! Create a top ten list related to your accomplishment. Consider these angles: Ten Things We Learned on the Way to the Top, Ten Mistakes We Made Before We Hit It Big, and Ten Things We Do Every Day to Keep Growing. You don’t need ten items, of course. You can pick any number that works.

Challenge the Conventional Wisdom

Busting a myth or challenging what most people assume is true is another great way to grab and keep your readers’ attention. Being successful often involves taking risks and doing things differently than others. Talk about how you broke away from norms to accomplish something great.

It is important for you to share your successes publicly, because success breeds more success. No one likes a show off, but if you use a strong, creative angle like those described here, you can tell your positive stories and successfully cultivate more supporters, clients, donors, and volunteers.

© 2005, Kivi Leroux Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Kivi Leroux Miller is president of Writing911.com, which provides free writing advice, tip sheets, e-courses, and in-person workshops for people who need to write well at work. She specializes in helping nonprofit organizations improve their newsletters, annual reports, and other publications.

Visit her webiste here to sign up for “Writing Tips,” a free monthly e-newsletter that will help you improve your writing and your publications.

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Tags: public relations story, public relations strategy, public relations

To get someone’s name in the newspaper or a product mention on a radio talk show?

If that’s all you expect, fine. But that response tells me that, as a business, non-profit or association manager, you may have overlooked an important reality: people act on their own perception of the facts, leading to predictable behaviors about which something can be done on your behalf.

And you may be compounding that error by failing to insist that your department, division or subsidiary PR people make this very special effort: create, change or reinforce the perceptions of those external audiences whose behaviors really DO impact your unit.

If true, it means you don’t have a proactive public relations plan that targets the kind of stakeholder behavior change that leads directly to achieving your operating objectives.

Still, I’ll bet you’d like to do everything you can to help your unit’s PR team persuade your important outside stakeholders to your way of thinking. Especially so when such a program works to move those stakeholders to behaviors that lead to the success of YOUR department and YOUR programs.

Well, there’s still time to fix things.

Sit down with the public relations people assigned to your unit and make certain the whole team buys into why it’s so important to know how your outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Be sure they accept the reality that perceptions usually morph into behaviors that can hurt your unit.

Explore with them how you will monitor and gather perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audience: how much do you know about our organization? Have you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with the interchange? How much do you know about our services or products and people? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?

Of course, you can always engage survey pros to round up these data for you, but that can be expensive. Besides, remember that your very own PR team is already in the perception and behavior game and could be of use for this opinion monitoring project.

Regardless of who interacts with members of your target audience, questioners must stay alert to false assumptions, unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions and untruths.

Here you must be cautious because the perception information you gather helps you set a specific public relations goal. For example, clarify the misconception, spike that rumor, or correct the false assumption.

You pursue that goal by picking the right strategy from the three choices available to you. Change existing perception, create perception where there may be none, or reinforce it. Be certain, however, that the strategy you choose is an obvious fit with your new public relations goal.

The question now becomes, what will you say to members of your key target audience who harbor the offending perception, to help persuade them to your way of thinking?

Select your PR team’s best writer because s/he must prepare a very special, corrective message. One that is not only compelling, persuasive and believable, but clear and factual if it is to shift perception/opinion towards your point of view and lead to the behaviors you have in mind.

Happily, the next step is easy. You select communications tactics to carry your message to the attention of your target audience. Making certain that the tactics you select have a record of reaching folks like the members of your target audience, you can pick from dozens that are available. From speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters, personal meetings and many others.

Remember that the method of communication often affects the credibility of the message. So you may wish to deliver it in small getogethers like meetings and presentations rather than through a higher-profile media announcement.

Others will soon clamor for signs of progress, and you’ll want to demonstrate such results. And that means a second perception monitoring session with members of your target audience. Using many of the same questions as in your first benchmark session, you will now be on alert for signs that the offending perception is being altered in your direction.

Fortunately, you can always speed things up by adding more communications tactics as well as increasing their frequencies.

You’ll know exactly why you wanted to apply proactive public relations when you sharpen your focus on the very groups of outside people who play a major role in just how successful a manager you will be – your key external stakeholders.

Especially when you follow through with a workable plan that helps you persuade those important outside stakeholders to your way of thinking, then moves them to take actions that lead to the success of your department, division or subsidiary.

As comedian Jackie Gleason used to say, “How sweet it is!”

About The Author

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communi- cations, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University, major in public relations. Visit his website here.

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Tags: reasons for having public relations, public relations, public relation strategies, public relations strategy

Some people think that publicity is all about paparazzi snapping photos of celebs and intruding into their private lives — or as Woodward and Bernstein blowing the lid off of a government scandal. But, as a small business owner, publicity is actually one of your greatest allies! People who read about you in the newspaper or hear an interview with you on the radio will sit up and take notice — much more notice than if they simply see a flier of yours posted at the Laundromat. But you have to be in charge of your relationship with the media, and make sure that it is a good one!

FINDING YOUR LOCAL MEDIA OUTLETS

The first step to securing some good free publicity is hooking up with the right people. Sending information to a generic address at every major media outlet in your area is almost always a waste of time. You need to find someone who is ready, willing, and able to get your story covered. You should be able to purchase a “MEDIA GUIDE” from local PR firm — choose a large one with a good reputation. This will provide you with the names and addresses of editors, staff writers, producers, and other key contacts for print, radio, and TV.

WHO SHOULD GET YOUR PRESS RELEASE?

Make sure you send your press release to the APPROPRIATE DEPARTMENT at whichever media outlets you select. So if you are writing an article about organizing a business, send it to the business editor — for cleaning out a closet, direct your release to a staff writer in the home and garden department. But don’t limit yourself to publications that specialize in your field of expertise — you never who will see your story as something unique and worth covering.

AVOIDING THE TRASH BIN

Editors and publishers are bombarded by tons of publicity requests each day — and unfortunately, many press releases get tossed before they are ever read. But you can improve your odds by PERSONALIZING your package. It’s usually best, at small offices, to send your piece to the editor or producer. However, at larger newspapers, magazines, and radio stations, you may have better luck getting a staff writer or columnist to review your proposal. Always VERIFY your contact’s name (check the spelling!) and department. If you send a press release addressed simply to “editor” or “producer,” your package will probably go straight into the trash! No matter how much time or energy it takes, it’s always better to target a specific individual.

MAKING YOUR COMPANY ATTRACTIVE

It’s not going to do you any good to send out a press release if no one looks at it! Your job is to make your company as attractive to your media contacts as possible. A great way to stand out from the crowd is to include SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS to entice your readers. Include tips related to your area of expertise, quote relevant statistics, share hero stories about clients you have helped, and throw in a few fliers about your business. Slip in a few photos of your products or your work — or better yet, a demo tape. You might propose a SPECIAL OFFER (“call in and mention this article to receive $25 off!) to be run in conjunction with the story.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Reporters are most easily impressed with PREPARATION. Call first to let your contact know that you are sending a press release — this alerts them to your presence even before they get your submission. Always double check your facts and figures before submitting your press release. Be sure to call all for the organization’s submission procedures — don’t expect to send in a press release about spring cleaning in April if your target magazine has a deadline three months before publication! And practice your INTERVIEW TECHNIQUES before hand — you have to learn to think on your feet and articulate your thoughts clearly and concisely. Think in terms of sound bites and easily-quoted phrases.

IT’S ALL ABOUT BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Working with media contacts is like working with clients — it’s never a one-shot deal. You have to STAY IN TOUCH with your media contacts and build lasting relationships before they will feel comfortable handling your story. Rather than simply mailing your press release, take the reporter to lunch to discuss how you can help them find a good story. Send your media contacts tidbits about possible stories that you think might interest them. Offer to make introductions. And always follow up with a PERSONAL NOTE. You are no longer a “grabber” — you are now part of a symbiotic and mutually beneficial professional relationship.

PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF

You aren’t going to get bowled over with publicity right away. Accept that fact from the beginning, and you won’t get disappointed. Publicity is a “NUMBERS GAME” — the more people you contact, the more press releases you send out, and the more often you send them, the better your chances of getting some good press. So let people know of every interesting move you make with your business — they will become familiar with your company and eventually find a way to include your story.

Ramona Creel is a Professional Organizer and the founder of OnlineOrganizing . com — a web-based one-stop shop offering everything that you need to get organized at home or at work. Please visit their website.

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Tags: public relations strategy, PR, positive media relations, public relations