Ask What You Can Do For Your Audience

Don’t ask what your audience can do for you. Ask what you can do for your audience.

     Yes. I admit I patterned this blog post lead after John F. Kennedy’s saying about service to one’s country. So what? I like that beginning for three reasons: 1. It sounds noble. 2. It calls upon people to aid other people. 3. It does a world of good for public relations, or should I say, strategic communications.
      The last point was hammered home in the last public relations course I took at NYU’s  School of Professional and Continuing Studies. In the spring, I took Advanced Public Relations Writing with Professor Ravelle Brickman. I and eight other students met once week for 10 sessions at 48 Cooper Square.
      We spent much time writing and rewriting public relations pieces. We did class critiques of homework assignments, and talked about public relations strategies.   We all learned to avoid typing self-serving pitches.
      Prof. Brickman repeatedly mentioned a catchphrase for effective public relations: “Start with a problem.” In other words, addressing an audience about remedying someone’s difficulty, or assisting someone in need, carries more appeal than focusing on your desire to sell. 
     That approach made a day and night difference in my Advanced Public Relations pieces. No longer were my pitches centered on my class project client, a commercial gas company sales manager, trying to increasing sales. They were now about my client’s extra efforts to put the customer first. Come to think of it, that made much more sense.   People rather hear about someone helping someone, instead of someone trying to drum up business.    
     After all, selling oxygen and nitrogen cylinders to doctors, and helium to retail stores does not make curiosity-piquing copy. A better angle is how having a relief driver system enabled my client to make an emergency delivery to a dilemma facing dentist. The doctor had run out of oxygen with a patient in the chair. One hour later, the dentist received a fresh cylinder, and was able to resume doing oral surgery.     
    Likewise, a piece about the sales manager’s envisioned future of his company will not generate that much buzz. It’s simply too egocentric. What about a feature about the sales manager launching a corporation-sponsored drive to benefit local volunteer groups?  That definitely something an audience would rather hear about.
   Doing good things for other people makes good publicity. It casts your client, his company, and your public relations agency in a good light. It corresponds to the notion of recreation capital mentioned in the first chapter of Reputation Management by John Doorley and Helio Fred Garcia.
   As stated on page five, “Reputation adds value to the actual worth of a company.”  One way to burnish a reputation is to earn good mentions from people you have helped. That’s why asking what you can do for your audience trumps asking what your audience can do for you.   
-Tom Boud, PRFandP