What are the nuts and bolts of PR – the “tools” of the trade?

Once goals, objectives, strategies, key publics and key messages are determined, the public relations practitioners help an organization to select, create and implement the supporting PR tactics – the tools of the trade.

Publicity

The most well-known PR strategy is sending messages to the general public (who may be customers and/or potential customers) through media coverage. The tactical tools that practitioners use to accomplish this are:

• News releases and kits
• News advisories
• News conferences

This particular PR approach is often called publicity, and it can be targeted to local, national and trade media. But PR is far more than publicity.

Other communications tools

Obviously, perspectives change from public to public. For example, employees require different information than customers. And just as the information changes with each public, the communications vehicles that reach each public also change. Employees may receive an electronic newsletter in their internal e-mail while shareholders receive an annual report and dealers get a weekly printed sheet full of facts they need to know in order to sell the company’s products.

Common tactics or tools include a variety of visual communications.

• Annual reports
• Brochures
• Collateral materials
• Events
• Identity packages
• Logos
• Marketing communications
• Multimedia (DVDs, CDs)
• Newsletters
• PowerPoint presentations
• Sales literature
• Web sites