The 3 Broad Goals of PR
Without a clear goal, it is hard to create a successful campaign that will land with the intended public. Specific goals help public relations practitioners determine what objectives are necessary for a campaign that will help the organization and ensure that time, resources, and money are not wasted.
Public relations practitioners typically use three types of goals, reputation management, relationship management, and task management, to help make this possible (Smith, 2017).
Reputation Management Goals
Reputation management goals have to do with the publics’ perceptions of the organization (Harrison, 2020). This type of goal is important because your organization’s performance highly depends on what the public thinks of you.
Examples:
Improving the organization’s standing within its industry
Strengthening the organization’s image with certain publics
Building the organization’s standings with movements (Smith, 2017).
Relationship Management Goals
Relationship management goals pertain to the organization’s relationship with its publics and how they communicate and connect with said publics (Smith, 2017). The desired outcome of relationship management is trust and reciprocity from your desired publics (Bailey, 2018).
Potential benefits of relationship management include:
Drawing in new customers to the organization
Cultivating the organization’s relationships with publics
Improving the organization’s relationships with current customers
Enhancing the organization’s credibility
The importance of relationships is emphasized in public relations. The status of your relationships with various different publics can make or break your organization. This is why it is important to prioritize these relationships and constantly create and achieve relationship management goals for your organization.
Task Management Goals
Task management goals are created with the intention of achieving certain actions and getting things done (Smith, 2017).
Potential benefits could include:
Increasing attendance at events
Enhancing social media presence and engagement
Growing public support for a new or existing project
While task management goals are more short-term and may seem less important, they are still crucial to making your organization succeed. These goals, regardless of how small or large, culminate and allow your organization to flourish in steps.
How They Differ
These three goal types can be helpful to any organization. There are obvious differences between the three, with all three broad goals trying to attain different positive outcomes, but they are all goals that help an organization overall (Johnson, 2017). They are all similar as these goals are set in motion through small actions to achieve benefits such as improving the organization’s image, credibility, relationship with customers, increased attendance, public support for a movement, etc.
Having all types of these goals will maximize the organization’s likelihood to succeed in various different ways and give your organization the best shot at success.
Sources
Bailey, R. (2018, February 22). Public relations as relationship management. PR Academy.
Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://pracademy.co.uk/insights/public-relations-as-relationship-management/
Harrison, K. (2020, June 1). PR goals and objectives are more important than ever. Cutting Edge
PR Insights. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://cuttingedgepr.com/pr-objectives-are-more-important-than-ever/
Johnson, K. S. (2017, November 21). Goals & Objectives in PR campaigns. Your Business. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/goals-objectives-pr-campaigns-2274.html
Smith, R. D. (2017). Establishing Goals and Objectives. In Strategic Planning for Public Relations (p. 161). story, Taylor and Francis.
