Public Relations and Publics

Public Relations and Publics

In marketing, the efforts are directed to winning over the ‘target market’ advertising reaches its ‘target audience’ with messages. Talking about marketing and advertising the messages are direct at a single group of people who considered as a unified whole.

The same is the case with many other fields like films, books, newspapers etc.

Public relations, however, deals with more than one group. It in fact deals with a numbers of groups. These are special groups, whether large or small have different characteristics needs wants etc. Most importantly they play different roles and differ in the type of relationships they share with the organization.

These different groups of people with different expectations and interests are called the “Public” of an organization. The term public relations is really a misnomer. Public relations or relations with the publics would be more to the point. Practitioners must communicate with many different publics, not just the general public each having its own special needs and requiring different types of communication.

Public relations works towards fulfilling these wants and interests and maintaining better relationships with all the public specific communication programmes are devised and implemented for each specific public.

The success of these programmes leads to goodwill employee good will results in increased efficiency, consumer goodwill leads to better returns over the investment, governmental goodwill leads to favourable treatment, community goodwill results in a better climate to work in. This way the goodwill of all the concerned public results in favourable conditions for the growth and success of the organization.

The basic Public

All organizations differ in their way of functioning, organizational structure and the people with whom they deal. So different organizations have different types of public. However there are few basic types of public that are common to most organization these includes.

I)

a) Employees- People who work for the organizations from the too management to the workers.

b) Potential Employees- Those who are studying or working somewhere else, but wish to work for the organization.

c)Consumers, users and clients- Past, Present and potential

d) Share Holders, investors and other financial associates- All those people and organizations who have financial stakes in the organizations who have financial stakes in the organization including banks, brokers, insurance companies etc.

e) The trade chain- the distributors, dealers and retailers etc.

f) Suppliers- Who supply goods, raw material and services etc.

g) Opinion leaders- People, organization and Institutions who can influence the functioning of the organization in any way. Opinion leaders includes the industry the government , business and industrial bodies (FICCI) and other opinion forming groups like consumer forum, environment groups etc.

h) Media- Who reach the people with news and opinions and work as a link (press, radio, TV etc)

·       General Press

·       Business Press

·       Trade Press

·       Wire service

·       Election media

·       Friendly Journalists

·       Local weeklies

·       Inaccurate Journalists

·       Community publications

·       Foreign Press

 

II) The Community- People who lives near the organization premises public can also be classified in to several categories. These are

a) Internal and External Public- Internal Public are the employees (from top to the bottom). External public are those who aren’t directly connected with the organization like the media, government, customers, suppliers, the trade the community, the investors etc

b) Primary, Secondary and Marginal Public- Primary public an influence the organization directly and include the employees, investors, customers, suppliers trade etc. Secondary public are the media and the community. Marginal public don’t have any direct bearing on the organization.

c) Present and Potential Public- Public are never static and permanent. They keep changing today’s public members may leave or dissociate themselves and new public members may leave join the organization.

d) Proponents, Opponents and Uncommitted type of Public- Every institution must deal differently with those who oppose it and those who support it for supporters. Communications that reinforce belief maybe in order but it is difficult to change the opinion of opponents and it calls for strong persuasive communications

Examples- Educational Institution

Employees – Staff and teachers

Customer or clients – Students (Past, Present and potential)

                              Their Parents

                              All those organizations giving employment to the students

Potential Employees- Those who wish to work for the institution

Suppliers- Those who supply books, equipments etc.

The industry – other educational institutions

Opinion Leaders- Educational bodies such as boards, departments and other funding and regulating organization like CBSE, UGC and AICTE etc.

Media- The Press, radio and television which help others known above the institution

The Community- People who live around the institution

Organizations have many public and they are required to communicate with all the public on a direct and frequent basis. The communication must be sensitive to the interests, desires and concerns of each public. Successful PR requires harmonizing of relations to win and maintain support among all the public.