In synch

Of all the discussions PRs have with their clients, few are as important as the definition of the value chain and where the various players fit in it. PRs are passionate about the PR value chain and can never stress enough that clients must buy in to it and assume their appropriate position.

Everything in the media cycle - our chief area of focus - is mandated on the premise that articles generated for press should be read. That premise seems to be self-evident, but it isn`t - as the many journalists out there will tell you. After all, they receive many poorly written, badly conceived and thought through, ill-executed press releases that should never see the light of day. Yet someone, somewhere initiated and sanctioned the release.

When such releases are created it is because the parties involved - the client and the PR - have not considered the needs of the ultimate consumer: the reader. Instead, all their focus has been on the needs of the originator: the client. Most likely, all the focus has been ego-based.

And the ego is a desperately poor place to start any attempt at communication, as it distorts all judgement.

My advice to clients is simple:

To have any impact on the market we must first be printed.

Because once we are printed we can be read, believed, absorbed and acted on.

Anything less is simply so much grist to the mill of the weekly marcom meeting, where we have churned endlessly on pointless items of detail and committed to actions which can`t take us down any meaningful road. But that`s the subject of another column.

For PR to work all links in the chain must be in synch, all their needs met - and yet their needs are at odds with each other.

On the one hand we have the client, who wants to promote a message about how cool he is (the male pronoun, as always, is used generically rather than in terms of gender). On the other hand we have a user/reader who wants to obtain some information that helps him do his job a little better each day.

For, ultimately, no one reads other than to be entertained or informed. For validation of this, consider when last you read something that neither informed nor entertained you...

The client wants to get through to the reader; en route, he is blocked by the editor/journalist. This person has his own needs to meet, and most of them centre on the circulation/readership war. Get the right story through to the reader, and you`re most likely to win the circulation war.

If that`s what you want to win, of course. There is plenty of evidence to support the notion that circulation is not the sole benchmark of excellence or ratecard advertising rates. But again that`s another discussion and one that`s probably overdue.

What is the right story for the readership? It`s a story with sufficient empathy to trigger a suitable response at the right time:

Client X had a problem.

• This problem was contextualised against the macro (environment) and the micro circumstances.
• The solution to the problem was developed in a particular way, centred on the client`s needs and focusing on long-term return on investment.
• It led to quantifiable/anticipated benefits.

The focus is, and should always be, on the client`s client. For it is the client`s client with whom the relevant reader - a comparable user/decision-influencer/decision-maker - is likely to have the greatest resonance. He had this problem, I have this problem. Just maybe they can help me.

This is an unselfish approach to PR communications; a near-biblical one, where he who would be last will ultimately be first, and vice versa.

Is it easy to obtain everyone`s buy-in to such an approach? I shouldn`t think so, otherwise more PRs and their clients would be doing it.

Is it mandatory? Yes, it is, if we are to advance the probability of our material being read and its having an influence on the market at large.

• Next column: How to go about this process of defining the value chain and having an impact at each pressure point.